PIN : 202298–000

he United States Army in Vietnam is a multivolume history of the Army’s involvement 

in the Vietnam War. The series treats a full range of topics, from combat operations and 

advisory efforts to logistics, communications, and engineer endeavors, to relations with the 

press and activities at the theater command level. Four combat volumes, of which Staying the 

Course is chronologically the third, describe the evolution of the Army’s operational strategy 

and its execution during a long and difficult conflict.
Combat Operations

STAYING THE COURSE

October 1967 to September 1968
Tonle Sap

GULF OF

THAILAND

SOUTH

CHINA SEA

SOUTH CHINA SEA QUANG TRI

THUA THIEN

Hue

Da Nang

QUANG NAM

QUANG TIN

QUANG NGAI

KONTUM

BINH DINH

PLEIKU

PHU BON

DARLAC

KHANH

HOA

QUANG DUC

TUYEN DUC

Da Lat Cam Ranh

LAM DONG

PHUOC

LONG BINH

LONG

TAY NINH

BINH

DUONG

LONG

KHANH

BIEN

HOA

SAIGON

Vung Tau

BINH

TUY

PHUOC 

TUY

HAU

NGHIA

LONG AN

KIEN TUONG

KIEN PHONG DINH TUONG GO CONG

KIEN HOA

GIA

DINH

BINH THUAN

NINH

THUAN

PHU YEN

VINH BINH

VINH LONG

CHAU

DOC

AN

GIANG

PHONG

 DINH

BA XUYEN

BAC LIEU

AN XUYEN

CHUONG

THIEN

KIEN GIANG

III CTZ

IV CTZ

I CTZ

II CTZ

LAOS

THAILAND

CAMBODIA

SOUTH

VIETNAM

NORTH

 VIETNAM

DEMARCATION LINE

1967–1968

SOUTH VIETNAM

Corps Tactical Zone Boundary

Administrative Boundary

Hue Autonomous Municipality

0

0 150

150 Kilometers

Miles
United States Army in Vietnam

Combat Operations

STAYING THE COURSE

October 1967 to September 1968

by

Erik B. Villard

Center of Military History

United States Army

Washington, D.C., 2017
U.S. Army in Vietnam Series

Advice and Support: The Early Years, 1941–1960

Advice and Support: The Final Years, 1965–1973

Combat Operations: Stemming the Tide, May 1965 to October 1966

Combat Operations: Taking the Offensive, October 1966 to October 1967

MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of Escalation, 1962–1967

MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1962–1968

Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1968–1973

Images of a Lengthy War

Engineers at War

Military Communications: A Test for Technology 

CMH Pub 91–15

First Printing

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Villard, Erik B., author. | Center of Military History, issuing body.

Title: Combat operations : staying the course, October 1967 to September 1968 

 / by Erik B. Villard.

Other titles: CMH pub ; 91-15. | CMH pub ; 91-15-1. | United States Army in 

 Vietnam.

Description: First printing. | Washington, D.C. : Center of Military History, 

 United States Army, 2017. | Series: CMH Pub. ; 91-15 | Series: CMH Pub. ; 

 91-15-1 | Series: United States Army in Vietnam | Includes bibliographical 

 references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017042878

Subjects: LCSH: Vietnam War, 1961-1975--United States. | Vietnam War, 

 1961-1975--Campaigns. | United States. Army--History--Vietnam War, 

 1961-1975.

Classification: LCC DS557.7 .V58 2017 | DDC 959.704/342--dc23 | SUDOC D 

 114.7/3:C 73/3

LC record available at Caution-https://lccn.loc.gov/2017042878

Cover: Photograph taken by Kenneth Pollard, a combat photographer with the 

U.S. Army 221st Signal Company, showing the 2d Battalion, 47th Infantry, 9th 

Infantry Division, during the May offensive in south Saigon.
v

United States Army in Vietnam

Jon T. Hoffman, General Editor

Department of the Army Historical Advisory Subcommittee

(As of July 2017)

Dr. Robert M. Citino

National World War II Museum

Maj. Gen. John S. Kem

U.S. Army Command

and General Staff College

Dr. Wayne E. Lee

University of North Carolina

Mark F. Averill

Deputy Administrative Assistant

to the Secretary of the Army

Dr. John A. Nagl

The Haverford School

Lt. Gen. Sean B. MacFarland

U.S. Army Training and

Doctrine Command

Dr. Geoffrey P. Megargee

United States Holocaust

Memorial Museum

Col. Kenneth P. Adgie

U.S. Army War College

Dr. Beth Bailey

University of Kansas

Brig. Gen. Cindy R. Jebb

U.S. Military Academy

Dr. Andrew A. Wiest

University of Southern Mississippi

Jon T. Hoffman

U.S. Army Center of Military

History

U.S. Army Center of Military History

Charles R. Bowery Jr., Executive Director

Chief Historian Jon T. Hoffman

Chief, Histories Directorate Dr. James C. McNaughton

Chief, Historical Products Division Diane S. Arms

. . . to Those Who Served

ix

Foreword

To many Americans, the war in Vietnam was, and remains, a divisive

issue. But nearly fifty years after the end of major U.S. combat operations in Vietnam, well over half the U.S. population is too young to have any 

direct memory of the conflict. The massive American commitment—political, economic, diplomatic, and military—to the mission of maintaining an 

independent and non-Communist South Vietnam deserves widespread attention, both to recognize the sacrifice of those who served and to remember 

how those events have impacted our nation. 

U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia began after World War II when elements of the Vietnamese population fought back against the re-imposition 

of French colonial rule. Although the United States generally favored the 

idea of an independent Vietnam, it supported France because the Viet Minh 

rebels were led by Communists and U.S. policy at that point in the Cold War 

sought to contain any expansion of communism. France’s defeat in 1954 led 

to the division of Vietnam into a Communist North (Democratic Republic 

of Vietnam) and a non-Communist South (Republic of Vietnam). The United 

States actively supported the latter as it dealt with a growing Communist-led 

insurgent force (the Viet Cong) aided by the North Vietnamese. The initial 

mission of training South Vietnam’s armed forces led to deepening American 

involvement as the situation grew increasingly dire for the Republic of 

Vietnam. 

By the time President Lyndon B. Johnson committed major combat units 

in 1965, the United States already had invested thousands of men and millions of dollars in the effort to build a secure and stable Republic of Vietnam. 

That commitment expanded rapidly through 1969, when the United States 

had over 365,000 Army soldiers (out of a total of a half million troops of 

all services) in every military region of South Vietnam, with thousands of 

other Army personnel throughout the Pacific area providing direct support 

to operations. The war saw many innovations, including the massive use of 

helicopters to conduct airmobile tactics, new concepts of counterinsurgency, 

the introduction of airborne radio direction finding, wide-scale use of computers, and major advances in battlefield medicine. Yet, as in most wars, 

much of the burden was still borne by soldiers on the ground who slogged 

on foot over the hills and through the rice paddies in search of an often elusive foe. The enormous military effort by the United States was, however, 

matched by the resolve of North Vietnamese leaders to unify their country 
x

under communism at whatever cost. That determination, in the end, proved 

decisive as American commitment wavered in the face of high casualties and 

economic and social challenges at home. Negotiations accompanied by the 

gradual withdrawal of U.S. forces led to the Paris Peace Accords in January 

1973, effectively ending the American military role in the conflict. Actual 

peace was elusive, and two years later the North Vietnamese Army overran 

South Vietnam, bringing the war to an end in April 1975. 

The vast majority of American men and women who went to Vietnam did 

so in the uniform of the U.S. Army. They served their country when called, 

many at great personal cost, against a backdrop of growing uncertainty and 

unrest at home. This book, the twelfth volume of the U.S. Army’s official 

history of the Vietnam War, is dedicated to them. 

Washington, D.C.

29 September 2017

JON T. HOFFMAN

Chief Historian
xi

The Author

Erik B. Villard graduated from Occidental College in Los Angeles with 

degrees in history and English literature and earned a master’s degree 

and Ph.D. in history from the University of Washington in Seattle. He started 

working at the U.S. Army Center of Military History as a historian in 2000. 

He has devoted much of his personal time to helping Vietnam War veterans and their families through history-oriented social media groups that he 

established in 2014. Over the last few years, he has also become involved in 

digital humanities, applying graphic design software, 3D modeling programs, 

geospatial information systems, and audio-video production to the field of 

military history.

xiii

Preface

Staying the Course describes the twelve-month period when the Viet Cong 

and their North Vietnamese allies embarked on a new and more aggressive strategy that shook the foundations of the South Vietnamese state and 

forced the United States to reevaluate its military calculations in Southeast 

Asia. Hanoi’s general offensive–general uprising brought the war to South 

Vietnam’s cities for the first time and disrupted the allied pacification program that was just beginning to take hold in some rural areas formerly 

controlled by the Communists. For the enemy, however, those achievements 

came at a staggering cost in manpower and material; more importantly, 

the Tet offensive failed to cripple the South Vietnamese government or 

convince the United States to abandon its ally. As the dust settled from 

the Viet Cong attacks, President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered his military 

commanders to press ahead with their current strategy unchanged apart 

from some short-term tactical adjustments and a modest increase in the 

U.S. troop deployment. His decision to stay the course seemed to bear fruit 

as the allies repaired their losses and then forged new gains throughout the 

summer and autumn of 1968 despite two more Communist offensives, each 

one proving to be weaker than the last. Even so, the allied situation at the 

end of this period appeared to be only marginally better than it had been in 

late 1967; the peace talks in Paris had stalled, and American public opinion 

had turned decisively against the war. 

In the course of writing this book I have received assistance from a great 

many people. At the Center of Military History, those who provided valuable 

advice and comments on the manuscript include Dr. Andrew J. Birtle, Dr. 

John M. Carland, Dr. William M. Hammond, Dale W. Andrade, and Dr. 

Joel D. Meyerson. Excellent production assistance came from S. L. Dowdy 

who did the maps, Hildegard J. Bachman who did the primary editing,Dale 

A. Perrigo who did the footnotes, Michael R. Gill who did the photos and 

layout, and Diane S. Arms who supervised the production process.

Those in the Center’s chain of command should also be recognized. I 

wish to acknowledge a succession of helpful branch chiefs—Dr. Graham A. 

Cosmas, Dr. William Hammond, Dr. Joel Meyerson, Dr. Andrew Birtle, and 

Virginia K. Shaw. My thanks also go to a series of division chiefs—Dr. Richard 

W. Stewart, Dr. Joel Meyerson, and Dr. James C. McNaughton, who supervised the project. A number of chiefs of Military History—Brig. Gen. John 

S. Brown, Dr. Jeffrey J. Clarke, Robert J. Dalessandro, Dr. Richard Stewart, 
xiv

and Charles M. Bowery Jr.—helped orchestrate and bring to fruition this complex project. 

Useful recommendations came from the review panel convened by Dr. 

Richard Stewart, the Center’s Chief Historian and panel chair. I wish to 

thank the members—Lt. Gen. John E. Cushman, Dr. Andrew Wiest, Dr. 

Gregory A. Daddis, Dr. Joel Meyerson, and Dr. James H. Willbanks.

A number of people outside the Center provided information, support, 

and friendship, which made the writing of this book so enjoyable. Richard 

L. Boylan and Cliff Snyder helped me navigate the collection at the National 

Archives and Records Administration. Robert J. Destatte and Merle L. 

Pribbenow translated dozens of Vietnamese Communist histories and memoirs on my behalf; Joseph Galloway and Don North gave me valuable insight 

on the role of journalists during the war; and a superlative group of Vietnam 

veterans, including Robert Walkowiak and David A. Sciacchitano, worked 

with me on special projects that expanded my understanding of key events 

described in the book. I also wish to thank my outstanding social media 

research team who have worked tirelessly to further the cause of Vietnam 

War history: Ted Acheson, Kent Annas, Howard Berkowitz, Larry Berman, 

Adam Bertil, Frank Blazich, Charles Brown, James Buckland, Chris Circelli, 

Jim Cloninger, Skip Cox, Ralph Crowe, Greg Daddis, Shaun Darragh, David 

Durian, Bryan Entwistle, Joseph Galloway, Larry Gates, Keith Goudy, 

Gerry Gudinas, Ken Hamburger, Tom Hanton, Roger Hawkins, Belinda 

Herkins, Bob Hesselbein, Donald Hirst, Patrick Hughes, Joss Huot, Chuck 

Kannas, Phil Kastner, Wooyoung Alex Kim, Bob Laymon, Larry Margolies, 

Byron McCalman, John McGuire, Ralph McLain, Ron Milam, Edwin 

Moise, Stephane Moutin-Luyat, Mark Moyar, Greg Murry, Lanh Nguyen, 

Nathan Nguyen, John Nolan, Nguyen Ky Phong, Xe Quang, Wayne Smith, 

Bob Sorely, Bao Anh Thai, Rob Thompson, Jonas Thorsell, Nguyen Tuan 

Trung, Jim Van Doren, Pete Van Til, Jay Veith, Scott Villard, Vic Vizcarra, 

Ron Ward, Andrew Wiest, Rob Wilkins, Jim Willbanks, Lis Pov Xyooj, Linh 

Yoshimura, and Ryan Young.

Finally, I must extend my deepest gratitude to my family: my father Mark 

Villard, my mother Brenda Villard, my brother Scott Villard and his wife 

Miki Villard, my aunt Jan Villard, and most especially my wonderful wife 

Eve for giving me support through this long process. I truly could not have 

done it without them.

The author alone is responsible for the interpretations and conclusions in this volume, as well as for any errors that may appear. The views 

expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of 

the Departments of the Army and Defense or the U.S. government.

Washington, D.C.

29 September 2017

ERIK B. VILLARD
xv

Contents

PART ONE

Opening Battles

Chapter Page

1. A Question of Momentum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Westmoreland’s Strategy for 1968. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

The Chain of Command. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

The U.S. Army in Vietnam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

The South Vietnamese Armed Forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

The Enemy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Hanoi’s Decision to Launch a General Offensive–General 

 Uprising. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

2. Opening Moves: Battles North and West of Saigon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Planning the Dry Season Offensive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

The Other Side of the Hill. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

The Battle for Loc Ninh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Second Wave at Song Be and Bo Duc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Thunder Road . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Screaming Eagles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Assessing the Campaign North of Saigon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Tropic Lightning Strikes War Zone C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

The Situation at the Beginning of the New Year . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

3. Protecting the Heartland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Binh Duong and Hau Nghia Provinces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Gia Dinh: A Province in Transition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

East of Saigon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Opening Highway 1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

Long An Province . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Taking Stock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

4. Operations in the Mekong Delta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Taking the Offensive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Firebase Cudgel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

Coronado IX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

Supporting the South Vietnamese Government. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

The Delta at Year’s End . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

5. Across the Central Highlands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

New Threats in the Highlands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

The Battle Begins, 2–6 November. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

The Allied Counteroffensive, 7–15 November . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
xvi

Chapter Page

Into the Dak Klong Valley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

The Pursuit Continues: 15–18 November. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

Hill 875: 18–24 November. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

Results and Interpretations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

Good Neighbors in the Highlands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

6. Defending the Central Coast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Pacification Support in Binh Dinh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

Battling the Yellow Star Division. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Fighting for Phu Yen and Khanh Hoa Provinces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

Defending Southern II Corps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

The Balance Sheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

7. Reinforcing I Corps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

The Struggle for the Que Son Basin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

The 2d Division Attacks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234

The Battle for Quang Tin and Quang Ngai Provinces . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

The Balance Sheet in I Corps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

8. The Gathering Storm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

Enemy Preparations for Tet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

Warning Signs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264

Khe Sanh Besieged . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

Allied Expectations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274

PART TWO

The General Offensive Begins

9. Tet Unleashed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

First Strikes on the Central Coast. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

Clashes in Binh Dinh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290

Hard Fighting in the Highlands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294

Initial Fighting in Southern I Corps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308

The Thrust at Da Nang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

10. Saigon Embattled. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323

The Capital Military Region on Alert. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323

Attacks Downtown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325

The Battle for Tan Son Nhut Air Base . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332

The Joint General Staff Compound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

Cholon and the Phu Tho Racetrack. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343

Battles on the Periphery of Saigon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346

Battles Outside of Saigon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353

Assessing the Cost. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
xvii

Chapter Page

11. Mekong Firestorm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359

The Delta in Flames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360

The Mobile Riverine Force to the Rescue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367

Firebase Jaeger. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372

Coronado XI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377

The Post-Tet Situation in IV Corps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379

12. Fighting in the Northern Provinces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381

The Assault on Quang Tri City. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381

Target: Hue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387

A City Besieged: 31 January–1 February . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

Enter the Cavalry: 2–10 February. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401

Going on the Attack in the Triangle and the Citadel: 

 2–10 February. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412

West of Hue: 11–20 February. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415

Stalemate in the Citadel: 11–20 February. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419

The Final Push: 20–25 February. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423

Aftermath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428

PART THREE

Thrust and Parry

13. Reverberations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435

The Communist Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435

The View from Saigon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438

America Reacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445

Whither from Here? The Reinforcement Debate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447

14. The Allies Strike Back. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459

Restoring Security in Central III Corps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459

Regaining the Initiative in the Northern Mekong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468

Operations on the Central Coast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473

Patrolling the Highlands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479

The Americal Division in Southern I Corps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483

The My Lai Massacre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488

A Sense of Urgency. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 496

15. To Khe Sanh and the A Shau . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 499

Operation Carentan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 502

Operation Pegasus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506

Into the A Shau Valley. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 519

16. The General Offensive Renewed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 529

Fighting on the Demilitarized Zone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531

Safeguarding Hue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537
xviii

Chapter Page

The Fall of Kham Duc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 539

Ambush in Binh Dinh Province . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 547

Renewed Pressure at Ben Het and Dak Pek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 555

17. Mini-Tet in Saigon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 561

Opening Clashes to the East and North of Saigon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 563

The Fight on the Western Outskirts, 5–12 May . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567

The Battle for South Saigon, 7–12 May . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 575

Saigon: Interlude and the Second Phase, 13 May–7 June. . . . . . . . . . . 583

Assessing the May Offensive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 589

18. A Summer of Attrition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597

Continuity and Change in I Corps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 599

Operations in II Corps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 614

II Field Force and the Approaches to Saigon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 626

19. Thwarting the Third Wave. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 641

Allied Preparations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 643

The Battle for Tay Ninh Begins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 646

The Offensive Widens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 655

Fighting Continues in Tay Ninh Province. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 662

The September Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 666

Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 671

20. An Evolving War. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 673

Bibliographical Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 681

Map Symbols and Terms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 695

Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 699

Maps

No.

South Vietnam, 1967–1968. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Frontispiece

1.Combined Campaign Plan, South Vietnam, November 1967. . . . . . 13

2.Enemy Base Area System, South Vietnam, 1967–1968. . . . . . . . . . . . 33

3.Communist Political Boundaries, South Vietnam, November 1967. . 38

4.III Corps Tactical Zone, November 1967. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

5.Battle of Loc Ninh, 29 October 1967. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

6.Operation Shenandoah II, Phase II, 30 October–19 November 1967. . . 57

7.Battle of Caisson VI, 10 December 1967. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

8. Battle of Firebase Burt, 1–2 January 1968 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

9.Operation Fairfax, Area of Operations, November 1967. . . . . . . . . . 97

10.11th Armored Cavalry, III Corps, 2 November 1967–21 January 1968. . 103
xix

No. Page

11. IV Corps Tactical Zone, November 1967. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

12. Attack on Firebase Cudgel, 18 November 1967. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

13. II Corps Tactical Zone, November 1967. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

14. Battle for Dak To, Phase One, 2–6 November 1967 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

15. Battle for Dak To, Phase Two, 7–12 November 1967. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

16. Battle for Dak To, Phase Three, 13–25 November 1967. . . . . . . . . . . . 169

17. Operation Pershing, Area of Operations, November 1967. . . . . . . . . 193

18. Battle of Tam Quan, Theater of Operations, 6–11 December 1967. . . 199

19. Operation Byrd, Area of Operations, November 1967. . . . . . . . . . . . 209

20. I Corps Tactical Zone, November 1967. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220

21. Operation Wheeler/Wallowa, 6–25 November 1967. . . . . . . . . . . . 227

22. 2d PAVN Division Attack, Que Son Area, 3 January 1968. . . . . . . . . . 237

23. Northern I Corps, Situation, January 1968. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262

24. Khe Sanh Area, Situation, January 1968. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270

25. Tet Offensive, II Corps Tactical Zone, 30 January–1 February 1968. . . 283

26. Tet Offensive, Southern I Corps Tactical Zone, 30–31 January 1968. . 309

27. Tet Offensive, Saigon, 31 January 1968. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327

28. Tet Offensive, Tan Son Nhut Air Base, 31 January–18 February 1968. . . 335

29. Battle of Long Binh and Bien Hoa, 31 January 1968. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348

30. Tet Offensive, IV Corps Tactical Zone, 31 January 1968. . . . . . . . . . . 362

31. Battle of Firebase Jaeger, 25 February 1968. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375

32. Attack on Quang Tri, Situation, 31 January 1968. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385

33. Battle of Hue, Enemy Attack, 30–31 January 1968. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395

34. Battle of Hue, Friendly Situation, 31 January–2 February 1968. . . . . 397

35. Battle of Hue, Friendly Situation, 2–10 February 1968. . . . . . . . . . . . 403

36. Battle of Hue, Friendly Situation, 11–20 February 1968. . . . . . . . . . . 417

37. Battle of Hue, Enemy Attack, 11–20 February 1968. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421

38. Son My Operations, Planned Scheme of Maneuver, 16 March 1968. . . 491

39. Operation Carentan, Area of Operations, 3 May 1968. . . . . . . . . . . 503

40. Relief of Khe Sanh, Operation Pegasus, 2–4 April 1968. . . . . . . . . . 508

41. Battle of A Shau Valley, Friendly Situation, 19 April–12 May 1968. . . 522

42. Battle of Dong Ha, 30 April–3 May 1968. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534

43. Kham Duc, May Offensive, 10–12 May 1968. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 541

44. Battle of An Bao, Area of Operations, 5–7 May 1968. . . . . . . . . . . . . 549

45. May Offensive, Saigon, May 1968. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566

46. August Offensive, Tay Ninh Province, 17–18 August 1968. . . . . . . . . . 647

47. Attack on Duc Lap, Special Forces Camp, 24–25 August 1968. . . . . . 660

48. Ambush at the Thanh Duc Rubber Plantation, 25 August 1968 . . . . . 664

Illustrations

General William C. Westmoreland. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

General Creighton W. Abrams. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Robert W. Komer with President Lyndon B. Johnson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
xx

 Page

President Johnson with Prime Minister Nguyen Cao Ky and President

Nguyen Van Thieu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Adm. Ulysses S. Grant Sharp Jr.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Lt. Gen. Robert E. Cushman Jr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

A Soldier with an M16A1 Rifle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

A Soldier Loads a Smoke Round Into an M79 Grenade Launcher. . . . . . 25

A 175-mm. Self-Propelled Gun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

General Cao Van Vien. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

A U.S. Army Adviser with South Vietnamese Troops. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

North Vietnamese Leaders Attend the Third National Congress . . . . . . . 32

Viet Cong Guerrillas Emerge from a Swamp to Conduct an Attack. . . . . 35

Lt. Gen. Frederick C. Weyand. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

An Overview of a CIDG Compound and Airstrip at Loc Ninh. . . . . . . . . 49

General Westmoreland and Maj. Gen. John H. Hay Jr.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

An AC–47 Spooky Gunship at Nha Trang Air Base. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

A Soldier Carrying an M72 Antitank Weapon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Soldiers Prepare to Load a 106-mm. Recoilless Rifle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Sgt. Robert F. Stryker. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

An F–100D Super Sabre Releases a Napalm Bomb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Maj. Gen. Olinto M. Barsanti. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Maj. Gen. Fillmore K. Mearns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

A Firebase at Katum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Soldiers of the 2d Battalion, 22d Infantry, 25th Infantry Division, 

During Operation Yellowstone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

An M42 40-mm. Self-Propelled Antiaircraft Gun, or “Duster”. . . . . . . . . 79

1st Infantry Division Soldiers During an Operation Near Phu Loi . . . . . . 85

A Medical Assistant Treats a Child Under the Medical Civic Action 

Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Rome Plows During a Land-Clearing Operation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

A Tunnel Entrance Discovered in the Iron Triangle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

A Scout Dog and Handler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

General Weyand and Brig. Gen. Robert C. Forbes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

An Aerial View of the Logistical Facility at Long Binh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Maj. Gen. George C. O’Connor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

Soldiers of the 199th Infantry Brigade During a Mission . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

An Advance Element of the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment. . . 108

An M48 Tank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

The 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry, 9th Infantry Division, Position Its

M113s. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

A Soldier Looks Through an AN/PVS-2 Starlight Scope Mounted on Top 

of an M16 Rifle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

An Armed and Armored Monitor Patrols the Waterways. . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

Tango Boats and Monitors Tied Alongside the USS Benewah. . . . . . . . . . . 126

Soldiers Rest After Slogging Through Deep Mud. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

A Tango Boat Discharges Soldiers During an Operation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Airmobile Artillery Platforms Provide Stability in Swampy Areas in 

the Mekong Delta. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
xxi

Page

Soldiers from the 9th Infantry Division During a Foot Patrol . . . . . . . . . . 140

Lt. Gen. William B. Rosson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

Maj. Gen. William R. Peers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

An OV–1B Mohawk Surveillence Aircraft. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

A Map of the Dak To II Base in Early November 1967. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Men of the 3d Battalion, 12th Infantry, 4th Infantry Division, 

Establish an Outpost on Rocket Ridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

Brig. Gen. Leo H. Schweiter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

The 1st Battalion, 503d Infantry, 173d Airborne Brigade, During a 

Search for Enemy Positions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

The 3d Battalion, 8th Infantry, 4th Infantry Division, During a Sweep 

of the Hills Southwest of Dak To. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

A CH–47A Chinook Helicopter Delivers Supplies to the 1st Battalion, 

8th Infantry, 4th Infantry Division. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

Paratroopers of the 173d Airborne Brigade Advance in the Dak 

Klong Valley. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

An Aerial View of the Dak To Airfield . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

Men of the 173d Airborne Brigade Watch for Enemy Soldiers on Hill 875. . 171

Troops of the 173d Airborne Brigade on the Northern Face of Hill 875. . . 175

The Wounded Are Loaded Aboard a UH–1D Helicopter . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

Soldiers of the 173d Airborne Brigade Occupy North Vietnamese 

Trenches. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

General Peers Confers with Lt. Col. Jamie R. Hendrix. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

General Westmoreland, General Rosson, and Maj. Gen. John J. Tolson. . . 188

South Korean Soldiers from the “Tiger” Division in Qui Nhon. . . . . . . . . 189

Troop B, 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division, During 

Operation Pershing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

A 1st Cavalry Division Soldier Checks a Civilian Identification Card. . . . 195

Armored Personnel Carriers Form Into a Defensive Ring. . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

A Blue Team from the 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division. . . . 200

UH–1D Helicopters Arrive at a Landing Zone in Phu Yen Province. . . . 205

A Gun Crew Fires a 105-mm. Howitzer During an Operation .. . . . . . . . . 207

A U.S. Soldier Prepares to Show Pro-Government Films to Civilians in 

Phan Thiet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

A Door Gunner Mans His M60 Machine Gun Near Phan Thiet. . . . . . . . 213

Soldiers of the 1st Cavalry Division Search a Well for Enemy Supplies . . . 215

The Logistics Support Area at Con Thien . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

Maj. Gen. Samuel W. Koster. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

UH–1B Gunships from the 3d Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Skim Low 

Across the Terrain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228

Men of Company A, 2d Battalion, 12th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division, 

During Operation Wallowa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

A Hedgerow-Enclosed Hamlet Provided Concealment for the Enemy. . . . 231

A Line of Armored Personnel Carriers of the 1st Squadron, 

1st Cavalry, Americal Division, Near Tam Ky. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234

Men of Company A, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division, in 

the Que Son Valley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
xxii

Page

Soldiers Move Across a Swampy Area During Operation Muscatine . . 241

U.S. Soldiers Interact with Civilians in Quang Ngai Province. . . . . . . . . . 243

A U.S. Medic Checks the Eyes of a Young Girl During a MEDCAP 

Mission. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

A Soviet-Designed RPG7 Rocket-Propelled Grenade Launcher . . . . . . . . 260

An Aerial View of the Base at Khe Sanh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266

Supplies Are Dropped from a C–130 at Khe Sanh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

A UH–1D Huey Helicopter Prepares to Land at Camp Evans . . . . . . . . . 272

Brig. Gen. Phillip Davidson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276

South Vietnamese Sector Headquarters and the MACV Compound in 

Nha Trang. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284 

The Roberts Compound in Nha Trang. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286 

An Aerial View from the Subsector Headquarters Looking South 

Toward Binh Tin Hamlet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289 

Binh Tin Hamlet After the Defeat of Viet Cong Forces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289 

The Radio Station Complex at Qui Nhon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292 

The Railroad Station at Qui Nhon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293 

A MACV Compound and Camp Coryell at Ban Me Thuot . . . . . . . . . . . 296 

A South Vietnamese Army M24 Chaffee Light Tank. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297 

Men of Company E, 4th Engineer Battalion, 4th Infantry Division, 

in Pleiku . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300

U.S. Tanks and Armored Personnel Carriers Prepare to Move Out. . . . . . 301 

The Province Chief’s Headquarters in Kontum City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304 

U.S. Soldiers Battle the Enemy in Kontum City. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306 

An Aerial View of the Da Nang Air Base. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314 

Company L, 3d Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division, Near 

Da Nang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318

Men of the 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry, 198th Infantry Brigade, Search 

for Units of the 2d PAVN Division. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319

U.S. Embassy in Saigon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326 

U.S. Ambassador Bunker and a Security Team Assess the Damage to 

the Embassy Compound. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330 

An Aerial View of Tan Son Nhut. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333 

A Crewman from the 4th Platoon, 120th Aviation Company, Checks 

Twin-Mounted M60 Machine Guns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334 

Maj. Gen. Keith L. Ware. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337 

Tanks and Armored Personnel Carriers Advance in Attack Formation. . . . 338 

A Ready Reaction Force from Company C, 716th Military Police 

Battalion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340 

Soldiers Battle Viet Cong Sappers Near Bachelor Officers’ 

Quarters No. 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342

Soldiers from the 716th Military Police Battalion Prepare to Conduct 

a Jeep Patrol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344 

A South Vietnamese Ranger During Fighting in Cholon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345 

Col. Frederic E. Davison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349

An AH–1C Cobra Gunship. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350

Soldiers from the 199th Infantry Brigade Defend the Plantation. . . . . . . . 351
xxiii

Page

Soldiers and M113 Armored Personnel Carriers Advance on the 

Enemy-Held Widows’ Village. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352

A Display of Captured Communist Weapons. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356

South Vietnamese Soldiers Battle Viet Cong Insurgents in the 

Mekong Delta. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360

South Vietnamese IV Corps Headquarters in Can Tho. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363

An Aerial View of the Vinh Long Airfield. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365

S. Sgt. Drew D. Dix. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366

MACV Advisory Compound West of My Tho. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369

Soldiers from the 2d Brigade, 9th Infantry Division, Move Ashore to 

Engage the Enemy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370

An M113 Travels Highway 4 in the Mekong Delta. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376

Tango Boats Landing on a Riverbank in the Mekong Delta. . . . . . . . . . . 378

An Aerial view of Quang Tri City. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383

An Aerial View of Hue on the Perfume River. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388

Headquarters of the South Vietnamese 1st Division at Hue. . . . . . . . . . . . 390

Maj. Gen. Ngo Quang Truong Confers with General Tolson. . . . . . . . . . . 391

An Aerial View of Southern Hue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394

A Marine Scans the Hue Streets for Enemy Snipers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398

A Machine Gun Team During Street Fighting in Hue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400

Soldiers of the 1st Cavalry Division Head for Hue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404

Troops of the 1st Cavalry Division Fighting in Thon La Chu. . . . . . . . . . 406

A Huey Helicopter Delivers Supplies to Troops. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411

Troops of Company C, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, in a Firefight in Hue. . . . 413

Men of Company L, 3d Battalion, 5th Marines, in Hue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422

Troops of the 1st Cavalry Division Approach the Hue Citadel. . . . . . . . . 426

The City of Hue in Ruins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429

An M48A3 Tank and Its Crew Stand Guard in Pleiku City. . . . . . . . . . . . 437

Damaged Houses in Saigon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440

An Aerial View of Destroyed Bunkers and a Tank at Long Vei . . . . . . . . 449

Secretary of Defense Clark M. Clifford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451

M113 Armored Personnel Carriers Are in Position at the Start of 

Operation Quyet Thang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461

Two Soldiers of Company B, 3d Battalion, 22d Infantry, 25th Infantry 

Division, During a Firefight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464

M113s of the 25th Infantry Division Engage the Enemy During 

Operation Toan Thang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465

A Barracks Ship. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470

Troops from the 9th Infantry Division in the Mekong Delta. . . . . . . . . . . 471

A Checkpoint Near Bong Son During Operation Cochise . . . . . . . . . . . 476

Artillerymen from the 173d Airborne Brigade Prepare for a Fire Mission. . . 478

A North Vietnamese Flamethrower and Captured Cannon Shells. . . . . . . 481

A Scout from the 196th Infantry Brigade with a Sniper Scope Mounted 

on an M14. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485

Soldiers Move Out of a Landing Zone in Quang Ngai Province. . . . . . . . 487

A Grenadier Looks Through an Underground Storage Area . . . . . . . . . . 488

A Viet Cong Guerrilla with an SKS Rifle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490
xxiv

Page

An M110 8-Inch Self-Propelled Howitzer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 501

Soldiers from the 3d Brigade, 82d Airborne Division, Patrol the Hills 

Near Hue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505

The 101st Airborne Division at Firebase Bastogne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506

A CH–54 Tarhe, or Flying Crane, Picks Up a Sling Load. . . . . . . . . . . . . 509

An OH–13 Sioux Helicopter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 510

Artillerymen of Battery A, 6th Battalion, 33d Artillery, Build 

Sandbag Walls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511

UH–1D Huey Helicopters Deliver 1st Cavalry Division Soldiers to 

Forward Landing Zones. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513

South Vietnamese Paratroopers Arrive at Khe Sanh During Operation 

Pegasus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 516

Troops from the 1st Cavalry Division Arrive at Khe Sanh During 

Operation Pegasus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 518

Soldiers of the 2d Battalion, 7th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division, in the 

A Shau Valley. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 521

A 105-mm. Howitzer Provides Fire Support to the 1st Cavalry Division. . . . 525

A Soviet-Designed 37-mm. Antiaircraft Cannon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 527

Troops from the 196th Infantry Brigade Watch as a UH–1D Helicopter 

Lifts Off. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 535

Soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division, on 

Patrol in Dong Ha . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537

Kham Duc Under Mortar Attack from the North Vietnamese . . . . . . . . 545

Armored Personnel Carriers Move Into Position in the Bong Son Plain. . . 548

An M48 Tank from the 1st Battalion, 69th Armor, in Binh Dinh . . . . . . 553

South Vietnamese Popular Forces Defend a Bridge Against the 

Viet Cong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 564 

South Vietnamese Rangers During the May Offensive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565

A Psychological Operations Officer Encourages the Viet Cong to 

Surrender. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 568

An Old French Cemetery Outside the Perimeter of the Tan Son Nhut 

Air Base. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 569

An M109 155-mm. Self-Propelled Howitzer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573

Civilians Flee as Fighting Begins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 578

Soldiers of Company B, 2d Battalion, 47th Infantry, 9th Infantry 

Division, During the May Offensive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 582

A South Vietnamese Ranger Tosses a Hand Grenade Into an EnemyOccupied Building in Cholon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 586

Captured Weapons on Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 588

Maj. Gen. Richard G. Stilwell with Lt. Gen. Hoang Xuan Lam . . . . . . . . 600

Soldiers Near the Demilitarized Zone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 601

A UH–ID Helicopter from the 1st Cavalry Division Comes in for 

a Landing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 603

Maj. Gen. Melvin Zais. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 605

Troops from the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, During 

Operation Somerset Plain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 607

Soldiers on Patrol Near Chu Lai. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 609
xxv

Page

A Military Policeman at the Prisoner-of-War Collection Center. . . . . . . . 613

Maj. Gen. Charles P. Stone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 615

A Viet Cong Wire-Rigged Grenade Booby Trap. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 619

South Vietnamese Soldiers During Training. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 622

1st Infantry Division Soldiers During a Patrol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 627

Soldiers Collaborate on a Pamphlet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 631

Maj. Gen. Julian J. Ewell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 632

Members of the 9th Infantry Division During a Mission in the 

Mekong Delta. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 635

Maj. Gen. Walter T. Kerwin Jr.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 644

Maj. Gen. Ellis W. Williamson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 644

An OH–6 Cayuse Scout Helicopter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 646

Troops of the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry, 25th Infantry Division, at the 

Ben Cui Plantation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 650

A Soldier Aims His M79 Grenade Launcher. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 651

A CH–47 Chinook Delivers Supplies to an American Position in Binh 

Long Province. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 656

Armored Personnel Carriers Sweep Through a Rubber Plantation . . . . . . 671

General Abrams. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 679

Illustrations courtesy of the following sources: pp. 18, 19, Lyndon Baines 

Johnson Library and Museum, Austin, Texas; 73, The 25th Infantry Division: 

“Tropic Lightning” in Vietnam, 1966–1967; 54, 65, U.S. Air Force; 545, William 

Schrope. All other illustrations are from the files of Department of Defense, 

U.S. Army Center of Military History, and National Archives and Records 

Administration, Washington, D.C.

Part One

Opening Battles

1

A Question of Momentum

I

n the autumn of 1967 nearly half a million U.S. troops began a third

year of combat operations in the Republic of (South) Vietnam. They 

fought alongside South Vietnamese forces and contingents from South Korea, 

Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, and the Philippines against the Democratic 

Republic of (North) Vietnam and its clandestine arm in the South, the largely 

southern-born insurgents dubbed the “Viet Cong,” who were trying to topple 

the government in Saigon and reunify the Vietnamese people under communism. The conflict had been difficult and costly for all sides, and there was no 

end in sight. The Communists had suffered the worst of the casualties, and 

some of them were beginning to worry that victory was slipping from their 

grasp, but for the time being they remained committed to their cause. The 

senior leadership of South Vietnam was equally determined to persevere, but 

theirs was a weak and internally divided state whose population increasingly 

tired of the struggle. Most crucial for South Vietnam’s survival, but the least 

committed, were South Vietnam’s allies. America was the most dedicated and 

important of these, but it too was having doubts as to whether the price of 

South Vietnam’s freedom was worth the cost. For all sides, therefore, the conflict appeared to be entering a decisive phase, the outcome of which might well 

determine the war’s ultimate conclusion.

For President Lyndon B. Johnson, the war had already reached a crisis 

point. Johnson had always been deeply ambivalent about the conflict in 

Vietnam. He had led the United States to war in 1965 in part because he had 

feared a North Vietnamese victory might lead to further Communist gains in 

the rest of Southeast Asia. Perhaps more importantly, he had feared what a 

loss would do to America’s prestige as the leader of the free world in the wider 

Cold War, not to mention the political damage such a loss would inflict on 

himself and his party. But he had entered the conflict with little enthusiasm, 

fearing the vagaries of war and the threat the conflict posed to his ambitious 

domestic agenda. His tepid approach to the war had led to a policy of cautious 

incrementalism that so far had yielded neither victory nor profitable negotiations. Rather, three years of escalating casualties, expenditures, and troop 

deployments had simply magnified the doubts Johnson and his Secretary of 

Defense, Robert S. McNamara, harbored about the conflict—doubts that 

made it even more difficult for them to champion the war at home. For here 

too weariness was spreading.1

 

1

 Richard Betts, “Misadventure Revisited,” in Vietnam as History, ed. Peter Braestrup 

(Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1984), pp. 5–8; Herbert Schandler, 

“America and Vietnam: The Failure of Strategy, 1964–1967,” in Braestrup, ed., Vietnam as 
Staying the Course

4

According to a Gallup poll, only half of Americans in 1967 believed 

that progress was being made in Vietnam. Antiwar demonstrations were 

getting larger, resistance to the draft was growing, and racial and social 

upheaval was becoming more evident in the country, creating an atmosphere of crisis. More than 15,000 U.S. military personnel had already lost 

their lives in Vietnam. At the current rate of fighting another 700 to 900 

Americans would die from hostile action, accidents, and other causes each 

month. The president knew that time was running out. Speaking to his 

National Security Council in October, he admitted that “our people will 

not hold out for four more years.” Even his staunchest Democratic allies 

were getting worried. Behind closed doors, senior party leaders warned the 

president “we will lose the [1968] election if we do not do something about 

Vietnam quick.”2

Though Johnson desperately needed some kind of breakthrough, he 

was determined to keep the war a local conflict fought with limited means. 

The goal of U.S. policy, most clearly laid out in National Security Action 

Memorandum 288 from March 1964, was to preserve “an independent 

non-Communist South Vietnam.” It was not to destroy North Vietnam’s 

government or to reunify Vietnam under a democratic regime. With Cold 

War tensions running high around the world, Johnson did not want Vietnam 

to metastasize into a hot war between the United States and its superpower 

rivals, China and the Soviet Union.3

The most important restriction that the president imposed on the commander of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), General 

William C. Westmoreland, was geographic. Johnson allowed Westmoreland 

to conduct secret ground reconnaissance missions into Laos and Cambodia to 

gain intelligence about the North Vietnamese logistical network that wound 

its way through those countries, but he refused to let U.S. troops attack those 

targets. He likewise refused to blockade North Vietnamese harbors or to 

stop ships bearing weapons for Communist troops in South Vietnam from 

docking at Cambodian ports. The Laotian and Cambodian governments 

History, pp. 23–26. For perspectives on Johnson and the war, see George C. Herring, “The 

Reluctant Warrior: Lyndon Johnson as Commander in Chief,” in Shadow on the White House, 

Presidents and the Vietnam War, 1945–1975, ed. David L. Anderson (Manhattan: University 

Press of Kansas, 1993), pp. 87–112; H. R. McMaster, Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, 

Robert McNamara, and Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam (New York: 

HarperCollins, 1997); George M. Kahin, Intervention: How America Became Involved in 

Vietnam (New York: Anchor Books, 1987); Graham A. Cosmas, MACV: The Joint Command 

in the Years of Escalation, 1962–1967, United States Army in Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: 

U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2006), pp. 18–20. 2

 First quote from U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 

1964–1968, vol. 5, Vietnam 1967 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2002), p. 

840 (hereafter cited as FRUS, 1964–1968). Second quote from Robert Dallek, Lyndon B. 

Johnson: Portrait of a President (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 313. 3

 National Security Action Memo, McGeorge Bundy, National Security Adviser, for Sec 

of State et al., no. 288, 17 Mar 64, sub: Implementation of South Vietnam Programs, National 

Security Council History, Presidential Decisions, Gulf of Tonkin Attacks, box 38, Lyndon B. 

Johnson Library (LBJL), University of Texas, Austin, Tex.
5

A Question of Momentum

were both weak and technically neutral and faced North Vietnamese–backed 

insurgencies of their own. They feared these might spin out of control if the 

United States expanded the war into their countries. Moreover, in the case 

of Laos, Americans and Laotians alike worried that a U.S. incursion might 

trigger a Chinese countermove.4

Johnson also refused to let Westmoreland or his South Vietnamese allies 

send ground troops into North Vietnam. The MACV commander had proposed 

making an amphibious landing just north of the Demilitarized Zone that separated North and South Vietnam, but Johnson worried that any thrust north 

of the 17th Parallel would encourage 

China and the Soviet Union to take a 

more direct role in the war. Already, 

170,000 Chinese soldiers maintained 

logistical routes in North Vietnam and 

manned antiaircraft defenses around 

the capital Hanoi and the port of 

Haiphong. Hundreds of Soviet pilots 

and thousands of technical advisers 

stiffened the North Vietnamese Air 

Force. During the first nine months 

of 1967 alone, the two Communist 

powers had given North Vietnam 

approximately a billion dollars in aid 

(equivalent to over seven billion dollars at 2017 rates), including most of the 

weapons, ammunition, fuel, and technical expertise that it needed to fight 

the war. That foreign assistance could 

easily skyrocket if Moscow or Beijing 

thought their ally was in danger.5

Another way that the president 

kept the war in check was by controlling the strategic bombing campaign 

against North Vietnam, Operation Rolling Thunder. The White House 

directed the program through the U.S. 13th Air Force in Thailand and 

from carrier groups of the U.S. Seventh Fleet in the South China Sea, not 

through Westmoreland’s command. Johnson vetted the target list himself 

and imposed buffer zones around sensitive areas—downtown Hanoi, the 

port of Haiphong, and the Vietnamese-Chinese border. He rejected any 

proposal to target North Vietnam’s dam and dike system, since the flooding 

4

 Cosmas, Years of Escalation, 1962–1967, p. 379. 5

 HQ, United States Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), Cmd History, 

vol. 1, 1967 (Saigon, Vietnam: Military History Branch, Office of the Secretary, MACV, 

1967), p. 19, Historians files, U.S. Army Center of Military History (CMH), Washington, 

D.C. (hereafter cited as MACV History, date); John C. Donnell and Melvin Gurtov, North 

Vietnam: Left of Moscow, Right of Peking (Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand Corp., 1968), p. 37. 

General Westmoreland
Staying the Course

6

and subsequent wave of disease and starvation would probably kill several 

hundred thousand civilians.6

Although the principal goal of Rolling Thunder was to make it harder 

for North Vietnam to move troops and supplies into the South, Johnson 

also used the bombing program as an extension of his diplomatic efforts. 

He varied its scope and intensity to reflect the perceived status of discussions between the governments in Washington and Hanoi. The president 

had paused the bombing several times in the past, hoping to draw the 

Communists into negotiations, but nothing had materialized. As things 

stood now, he doubted another bombing pause would convince the North 

Vietnamese to come to the negotiating table in good faith. “I think they are 

playing us for suckers. They have no more intention of talking than we have 

of surrendering.” That suited Westmoreland, who never had liked the idea 

of a bombing pause. As long as Rolling Thunder continued to wear down 

North Vietnam’s industrial base and to hinder the flow of enemy supplies 

into the South, the MACV commander was satisfied to let others manage 

the program.7

Finally, the president limited the war by imposing a ceiling on the 

number of troops deployed to South Vietnam. At Johnson’s direction, in 

October 1967 Secretary McNamara established a 525,000-man troop ceiling for MACV. Both men were determined to hold the line against further 

increases if at all possible. Westmoreland and the Joint Chiefs of Staff had 

asked that an additional 100,000 troops be sent to Vietnam by the end of 

1969, but the strategic reserve of the U.S. military was nearly tapped out. 

The only way to rebuild it quickly was to mobilize several hundred thousand 

reservists and guardsmen for a period of several years. Putting that number 

of civilians back into uniform would result in a political firestorm and 

impose a drag on the economy, neither of which the president could afford 

twelve months away from a national election. Whatever Westmoreland 

could accomplish in the next year, he had to do it with the forces already 

committed.8

 

Westmoreland disagreed with many of Johnson’s restrictions, but he 

was not a confrontational man. He preferred to seek consensus and to work 

within the confines of what was politically possible. Equally important, by 

the fall of 1967 he believed that the war was moving in a favorable direction. 

When Johnson first committed ground combat troops in the spring of 

1965, South Vietnam had seemed on the brink of collapse. Westmoreland 

had used the hurriedly arriving troops as a fire brigade to stop the 

Communist advance. Between early 1965 and the summer of 1966, MACV 

had grown from 27,000 troops to more than 200,000. The expansion had 

6

 MACV History, 1967, vol. 1, p. 121; Notes, White House Mtg, 5 Aug 67, sub: Notes of the 

President’s Meeting with Clark Clifford and General Maxwell Taylor, in FRUS, 1964–1968, 

5:670–75. 7

 Notes, White House Mtg, 26 Sep 67, sub: Notes of the President’s Meeting with Secretary 

McNamara et al., in FRUS, 1964–1968, 5:825. 8

 Cosmas, Years of Escalation, 1962–1967, p. 462.
7

A Question of Momentum

thrown the enemy off balance and provided Westmoreland the resources 

he needed to build a logistical system capable of supporting future operations. In MACV’s second campaign season between mid-1966 and the 

fall of 1967, the arrival of another 250,000 U.S. personnel had allowed 

Westmoreland to go on the offensive. Striking deep into the jungles and 

mountains of South Vietnam, U.S. units had inflicted heavy casualties on 

the enemy.9

With MACV set to receive another 60,000 troops by the end of 1968, 

General Westmoreland expected to have even more success. “We are 

making steady progress,” he told his former deputy, Lt. Gen. John A. 

Heintges, in a private cable on 11 October 1967, “There is wide-spread 

optimism here.” He elaborated his thoughts later in the month in a message to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). Noting that “the enemy has not won 

a single tactical victory of significance during the past year,” he ticked off 

some facts. On the military side of the ledger, sickness, hunger, and heavy 

casualties had weakened many enemy units. On the political side, South 

Vietnam had recently formed a new democratically elected government, 

and economic conditions were improving now that more than 90 percent 

of essential roads remained open to commerce by day. The general was 

under no illusions—he expected the war to continue at a high tempo for 

at least several more years—but he believed that South Vietnam would 

ultimately prevail as long as it continued to receive U.S. assistance.10

That assistance was key. Few believed South Vietnam could win the 

war on its own against its larger, more industrialized, and more unified 

neighbor. Still, South Vietnam was responsible for its own security, and 

for it to bear this burden effectively, U.S. advice and material assistance 

were vital. Achieving the goal of an effective South Vietnamese armed force 

would also eventually allow the United States to reduce, although perhaps 

never eliminate, its military presence in Vietnam, an imperative for America 

given the cost of the conflict and its growing unpopularity at home. The U.S. 

training and equipment program, begun over two decades before, was well 

under way by late 1967, but the South Vietnamese armed forces continued 

to be plagued by serious shortcomings in terms of numbers, proficiency, 

9

 See John M. Carland, Combat Operations: Stemming the Tide, May 1965 to October 1966, 

United States Army in Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 

2000). See George L. MacGarrigle, Combat Operations: Taking the Offensive, October 1966 

to October 1967, United States Army in Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of 

Military History, 1998). 10 Quote from Msg, Westmoreland MAC 9514 to Lt Gen John A. Heintges, Deputy Cdr, 

7th Army, 11 Oct 67, Historians files, CMH; Msg, Westmoreland MAC 10295 to General 

Earle G. Wheeler, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), 30 Oct 67, sub: Information for 

General Wheeler 1 November Briefing, pp. 1–4, William C. Westmoreland Msg files, CMH. 

Rpt, Ofc of the Asst Secretary of Defense (Sec Def), Systems Analysis, Southeast Asia 

Programs, Southeast Asia Statistical Tables through Oct 1968, Table 1c; Fact Book, MACV, 

vol. 2, n.d., sub: Chieu Hoi Fact Sheet; Cable, Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker to Walt W. 

Rostow, National Security Adviser, 7 Nov 1967, sub: Measurements of Progress, p. 14. All 

in Historians files, CMH. HQ, MACV, Cmd History, vol. 1, 1968 (Saigon, Vietnam: Military 

History Branch, Office of the Secretary, MACV, 1968), p. 350.
Staying the Course

8

equipment, morale, and, most importantly, leadership. Westmoreland 

planned to accelerate efforts to improve the South Vietnamese forces, 

particularly those most responsible for pacification security. Toward that 

end, in 1967 he assigned his deputy, General Creighton W. Abrams, the job 

of overseeing efforts to improve the South Vietnamese military.11

The question was, would U.S. assistance continue to the degree necessary and over the time needed to win? Realizing that the American 

public was losing patience with the 

war, Westmoreland acceded to the 

president’s request that he assist 

in the administration’s public relations campaign to maintain support. At a Washington, D.C., press 

conference in November the general 

stated “I am absolutely certain that 

whereas in 1965 the enemy was winning, today he is certainly losing.” 

In other forums, Westmoreland 

predicted that the U.S. public 

would soon see “some light at the 

end of the tunnel.” In a contest in 

which the enemy had a say, and 

particularly in a quasi-clandestine 

war without fronts in which intelligence on the enemy’s capabilities 

and intentions were limited and 

progress was hard to measure, such 

pronouncements were risky and 

would soon come back to haunt 

him. True, Westmoreland was not 

alone in expressing reasons for hope in the fall of 1967. And he and others 

often tempered their positive statements with caveats about the many 

obstacles to success. But these reservations sometimes got lost in the heat 

of public discourse, leaving some people to have higher expectations than 

were justified by the facts on the ground. As for the increasingly pessimistic president and his defense secretary, a dramatic, unexpected victory 

would be needed to buoy their spirits. If war is a struggle of wills, by the 

fall of 1967 America’s war effort rested on a shaky foundation.12 

11 Cosmas, Years of Escalation, 1962–1967, p. 278; Gregory A. Daddis, Westmoreland’s 

War, Reassessing American Strategy in Vietnam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 

p. 75; Jeffrey J. Clarke, Advice and Support: The Final Years, 1965–1973, United States 

Army in Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1988), p. 281; 

Transcript, William C. Westmoreland Speech at National Press Club, 21 Nov 67, William C. 

Westmoreland History files, CMH. 12 Quote from Transcript, General William C. Westmoreland Speech at National Press 

Club, 21 Nov 67, pp. 3–4; Quote from Msg, Westmoreland HWA 3445 to General Creighton 

W. Abrams, Deputy MACV Cdr, 26 Nov 67, sub: Concept of Situation Portrayed during 

General Abrams
9

A Question of Momentum

Westmoreland’s Strategy for 1968

While people at home wrestled over the political and moral merits of the 

war in Vietnam, General Westmoreland, a man for whom duty and loyalty 

were paramount, soldiered on. Born in Spartanburg, South Carolina, in 1914, 

William Childs Westmoreland had enjoyed an exemplary career marked by 

rapid advancement. After graduating from the U.S. Military Academy in 

1936, he had gone on to see combat in Tunisia, Sicily, France, and Germany 

as an artillery and airborne officer in World War II. He had fought again in 

Korea, this time as commander of the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat 

Team. His upward path thereafter continued. After Westmoreland completed 

a three-month management program at Harvard Business School, the Army 

promoted him to major general in 1956 at the young age of forty-two and 

placed him in charge of the elite 101st Airborne Division in 1958. Following 

Westmoreland’s assignments as the commandant of the U.S. Military 

Academy, as head of the U.S. Army Strategic Reserve, and as commander of 

XVIII Airborne Corps, Johnson picked him to take charge of MACV in June 

1964, just as the U.S. commitment to Vietnam neared a critical juncture.13

As Westmoreland contemplated allied strategy in the autumn of 1967, he 

did so from a vantage point of long-standing policies. The most important 

was the president’s determination to use U.S. military force, not to defeat 

North Vietnam per se, but to inflict pain sufficient to drive it to the negotiating table on terms favorable to the allies. This limited and defensive policy, 

while not unlike that adopted by the United States during the later stages 

of the Korean War, essentially left the initiative to the enemy. As long as he 

was willing to endure, the war would continue. Of course, killing the enemy 

eroded his capabilities and might even create conditions sufficient to win the 

war inside South Vietnam, if the allies were able to isolate South Vietnam 

from outside infiltration. To date, the United States had been unable to affect 

this, and it was unlikely to do so unless the president lifted his ban on crossborder operations. Consequently, combat-induced attrition remained the 

central tool for degrading the enemy’s capabilities, if not to win the war on 

the ground, then to break the enemy’s will to continue.14

Recent Visit to Washington, Westmoreland Msg files, CMH. Affidavit, Barry Zorthian, 15 

Dec 83, in U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, William C. Westmoreland, 

Plaintiff, v. CBS, Inc., et al., Defendants. 82 Civ 7913 (PNL). Plaintiff General William C. 

Westmoreland’s Memorandum of Law in Opposition to Defendant CBS’s Motion to Dismiss 

and for Summary Judgment. app. A - Affidavits Cited in Support of Plaintiff’s Opposition to 

Defendant’s Motion, p. 406 (hereafter cited as Westmoreland Memorandum of Law, app. A); 

Gregory A. Daddis, No Sure Victory, Measuring U.S. Army Effectiveness and Progress in the 

Vietnam War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 126–30; Daddis, Westmoreland’s 

War, Reassessing American Strategy in Vietnam, pp. 88–89. 13 For more information on his career, see William C. Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports

(New York: Doubleday, 1976); Samuel Zaffiri, Westmoreland: A Biography of General William 

C. Westmoreland (New York: William Morrow, 1994). 14 For an example of administration thinking about how to wage the war, see Memo, Robert 

S. McNamara, Sec Def, for President Lyndon B. Johnson, 20 Jul 65, sub: Recommendations of 
Staying the Course

10

If Westmoreland hoped to one day be given permission to curtail the flow 

of men and materiel into South Vietnam, he did not challenge the military 

utility of attrition, an ancient and effective method of warfare that the North 

Vietnamese themselves embraced. But he never believed that force alone 

could win the conflict. Rather, he fully supported national policy and Army 

doctrine in viewing the war inside South Vietnam as an insurgency fueled 

by popular discontent. Success thus hinged not just on winning big battles, 

but on creating a government that was both effective and responsible to the 

will of the people, that protected people from Communist agitators and bullies, and that redressed the socioeconomic maladies that the Communists 

exploited—a process generally referred to as “pacification.”15

The method the allies had chosen to spread government control through 

the countryside since the early 1960s was one of progressive area clearance. 

Under this concept, the allies selected an area to reclaim from the enemy and 

conducted military operations in and around it to drive off the enemy’s major 

combat units. Once the allies had cleared the region of major combatants, 

they would continue to conduct operations on the periphery to prevent the 

enemy from reentering it in force. Meanwhile, they would use a combination 

of military, paramilitary, intelligence, and police forces to secure the targeted 

area by establishing local security, by rooting out the enemy’s clandestine 

political infrastructure through which he ruled or influenced many communities, and by eliminating the last vestiges of the Communist’s military 

and guerrilla forces. As the area became more secure, the allies introduced 

a governmental apparatus to mobilize public support, replacing Communist 

control with their own. The allies made particular efforts to organize Ap 

Doi Moi, or fully pacified hamlets (sometimes referred to as Real New Life 

Hamlets, the equivalent of Strategic Hamlets of previous years) that met certain political, social, and security criteria. Finally, the allies would introduce 

programs—educational, medical, agricultural, political, developmental, and 

humanitarian—that stole the insurgents’ thunder by redressing social ills, 

that won public support, and that helped build a new nation. After a region 

was sufficiently secure, the allies would repeat the process in a neighboring 

area, so that government control would gradually spread across the entire 

county as a drop of oil spreads across water (an analogy drawn from the 

Additional Deployments to Vietnam, in FRUS, 1964–1968, vol. 3, Vietnam, June–December 

1965 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1996), pp. 171–79.

15 Carter Malkasian, “Toward a Better Understanding of Attrition: The Korean and 

Vietnam Wars,” Journal of Military History 68 (July 2004): 911–42; Andrew J. Birtle, “PROVN, 

Westmoreland, and the Historians: A Reappraisal,” Journal of Military History 72 (October 

2008): 1219–23; Daddis, Westmoreland’s War, Reassessing American Strategy in Vietnam, pp. 

74–91; Memo, MACV Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) 

for Deputy of CORDS, I Corps Tactical Zone (CTZ), et al., 12 Sep 67, sub: 1968 Pacification 

Planning: Definition of Terms, Historians files, CMH. MACV Dir 525-4, 17 Sep 65, sub: 

Tactics and Techniques for Employment of U.S. Forces in the Republic of Vietnam, pp. 1–2, 

Westmoreland History files, no. 1, CMH; John M. Carland, “Winning the Vietnam War: 

Westmoreland’s Approach in Two Documents,” Journal of Military History 68 (April 2004): 

553–54, 558. For a discussion of pacification and the U.S. military’s role therein, see MACV, 

Handbook for Military Support of Pacification, Feb 1968, Historians files, CMH.
11

A Question of Momentum

French counterinsurgency term tache d’huile, or “oil stain”). The process was 

logical, but was difficult to implement in practice.16

If pacification was the bedrock of Westmoreland’s strategy for the 

war inside South Vietnam, it could not be achieved without offensive 

operations. Focusing on pacification and local defense alone would not 

be effective, Army Chief of Staff General Harold K. Johnson explained, 

because it would allow the enemy to mass his military forces and to overrun secured areas at will, thereby undoing pacification progress. Rather, 

just as the allies attempted to counter the political and guerrilla aspects 

of the insurgency, they also had to address the threat posed by his regular military formations and the bases that supported them. This was best 

achieved by taking the war to the enemy through offensive operations that 

either destroyed Communist resources or kept the foe off balance, thereby 

providing a shield behind which pacification could proceed unmolested. 

The size and scope of such offensives varied widely, but since the enemy 

operated powerful combat forces organized up to the division level, using 

terrain, fortifications, and evasion to his maximum advantage, large operations were sometimes needed to find, fix, and destroy him. Politics and war 

were thus the horses that pulled the counterinsurgency wagon, with the war 

horse typically in the lead. They were often difficult to keep in sync, but 

each was necessary if the vehicle was to move forward.17

Generally speaking, the allies conducted four major types of military 

operations. “Search-and-destroy” operations attacked the enemy’s military 

units and bases. “Border control” operations endeavored to cut off the enemy 

from external reinforcement and sanctuary. “Clear-and-hold” operations 

secured the countryside, separated the people from the guerrillas, and paved 

the way for the restoration of government control. “Security” operations 

employed small patrols, guards, and fortifications to protect key installations, lines of communications, and economic and population centers. The 

allies used a variety of tactics and techniques to execute these operations, 

with civil, police, and intelligence actions accompanying many of them to 

one degree or another. 

Executing this complex program required a division of labor. By mutual 

consent, the allies assigned to the U.S. military primary responsibility for 

attacking the enemy’s conventional military forces and bases, as the United 

States had the means and skills best suited for this task. Since large enemy 

formations often resided in remote, underpopulated areas, this approach also 

helped reduce conflicts between U.S. soldiers and inhabitants as well as civilian casualties caused by the application of American firepower. Conversely, 

16 Pamphlet, MACV, Guide for Province and District Advisers, 1968, p. 13-2; Pamphlet, 

MACV, Guide for Subsector Advisers, 1966, pp. 2–3. Both in Historians files, CMH. For 

background on U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine and its application in Vietnam, see Andrew 

J. Birtle, U.S. Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations Doctrine, 1942–1976

(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2007), pp. 223–90, 304–27, and 

361–444. 17 Harold K. Johnson, “The Army Chief of Staff on Military Strategy in Vietnam,” Army 

Digest 23 (April 1968): 7–9.
Staying the Course

12

the South Vietnamese held primary responsibility for the clear, hold, pacification, and longer-term nation-building aspects of allied strategy. This 

maximized Vietnamese capabilities and reinforced the South Vietnamese 

government’s position as a sovereign nation responsible for managing its own 

internal affairs. Naturally, U.S. forces assisted the Vietnamese to varying 

degrees in the full array of community security, pacification, and nationbuilding missions, just as South Vietnamese troops participated in major 

military operations, but by and large each country focused its attention on 

its allotted roles. Thus in August 1967, U.S. military forces were responsible 

for roughly 70 percent of search-and-destroy operations against the enemy’s 

major units and bases in the hinterland. They conducted 20 percent of all 

offensive actions against regular enemy units operating near governmentcontrolled areas, 38 percent of operations against guerrillas in areas undergoing pacification, and 16 percent of security operations. Conversely, South 

Vietnamese forces conducted just 18 percent of the attacks on major enemy 

units but performed 56 percent of offensive operations in and around controlled areas, 57 percent of the offensive actions in areas undergoing pacification, and 81 percent of the security mission.18

U.S. and South Vietnamese planners embraced all of these principles when 

they met in October 1967 to finalize plans for the upcoming year. Although 

pacification activities occurred in every province in South Vietnam, the 

Combined Campaign Plan for 1968 (AB 143) continued the previous year’s 

program of concentrating resources on twenty-six of South Vietnam’s fortyfour provinces (Map 1). Omitted were areas where the enemy’s military forces 

were strongest—such as the northernmost and southernmost reaches of the 

country—or that were remote and sparsely populated, such as the mountainous Central Highlands and provinces bordering Laos and Cambodia.19

The 1968 plan called for the greatest effort to be made in areas close 

to the capital city of Saigon, with the rest of the country receiving progressively fewer resources the farther north or south one traveled from 

that location. The MACV and Vietnamese staffs further decided that for 

1968 they would focus the pacification effort on two types of areas. First, 

they wished to solidify control over areas in which the South Vietnamese 

government already held some sway. Second, they wanted to target areas 

where a significant number of people could be added to the rolls of those 

living under government authority without expanding allied resources 

over a large physical area. This approach reflected criticisms that earlier pacification campaigns had tried to secure too many areas at once, 

often beyond the allies’ ability to protect and to organize them properly. 

Consequently, new pacification initiatives for 1968 were very limited 

18 Other nations, such as Australia and South Korea, accounted for the remaining effort 

in each category. Rpt, Ofc of the Asst Sec Def, Systems Analysis, Southeast Asia Programs, 

27 Sep 68, pp. 10–12, Historians files, CMH. 19 MACV and South Vietnamese Joint General Staff (JGS) Combined Campaign Plan 

(CCP), 1967, AB 142, 7 Nov 66, pp. 2–5; CCP, 1968, AB 143, 11 Nov 67, pp. 1–8. Both in 

Historians files, CMH. 
III CTZ

IV CTZ

I CTZ

II CTZ

DEMARCATION LINE

Hue

Da Nang

Cam Ranh

Da Lat

Vung Tau

QUANG TRI

THUA THIEN

QUANG NAM

QUANG TIN

QUANG NGAI

KONTUM

BINH DINH

PLEIKU

PHU BON

DARLAC

KHANH

HOA

QUANG

DUC TUYEN DUC

LAM DONG

PHUOC BINH LONG LONG TAY

NINH

BINH

DUONG

LONG

KHANH

BIEN HOA

BINH

TUY

PHUOC 

TUY

HAU

NGHIA

LONG AN

GIA DINH

GO CONG

KIEN HOA

BINH

THUAN

NINH

THUAN

PHU YEN

VINH

 BINH

VINH

 LONG

CHAU

DOC

KIEN TUONG

DINH TUONG

KIEN PHONG

A N

GIANG

PHONG

 DINH

BA XUYEN

BAC LIEU

KIEN GIANG

CHUONG

THIEN

AN XUYEN

SAIGON

National Priority Area

Operational Priority Area

November 1967

COMBINED CAMPAIGN PLAN

SOUTH VIETNAM

Map 1
Staying the Course

14

geographically, even within the twenty-six priority provinces. Planners 

anticipated that during 1968 South Vietnamese pacification forces would 

target 2,000 hamlets for accession to government control, of which 800 

would achieve status as Ap Doi Moi.

20

Military plans reflected the pacification design. The 1968 Campaign 

Plan designated most of the pacification priority provinces as priority areas 

for offensive military operations. Other areas targeted for offensive action 

were the four northernmost provinces, where the enemy posed a significant 

threat due to the proximity of North Vietnam, the western sectors of Kontum 

and Pleiku Provinces, a favorite enemy haunt from which he could threaten 

the heavily populated coast, and the border areas northwest of Saigon—Tay 

Ninh, Binh Long, Phuoc Long, and Quang Duc Provinces—which also acted 

as important bases and conduits for enemy forces. Disrupting the enemy in 

these areas would both shield pacification efforts in the more populated 

areas and pave the way for geographical expansion in the future. The allies 

planned only minimal operations in sparsely populated areas like the center 

of the country and in the Communist-dominated Mekong Delta in the 

nation’s south.21

Since the areas the allies planned to target in 1968 were similar to those 

of 1967, little movement of forces was needed to execute the AB 143 plan. 

Two U.S. brigades would continue to screen the national frontier in the highland provinces of Kontum and Pleiku, while a similarly sized force helped 

protect the heavily populated, rice-producing coastal lowlands that formed 

South Vietnam’s long, littoral arc along the South China Sea. The bulk of 

U.S. forces remained in two key areas. In the first, the nation’s far north, two 

U.S. Marine divisions and one U.S. Army division would continue to battle 

heavy enemy forces that drew support from neighboring North Vietnam. In 

the second, the Saigon region, four U.S. Army divisions formed a defensive 

ring around that politically vital area. MACV had few U.S. ground forces 

in the Mekong Delta south of Saigon. The South Vietnamese government 

limited America’s footprint in the delta both because the North Vietnamese 

had no major combat units there for the Americans to fight, and because 

it preferred to minimize the potential adverse consequences of having U.S. 

ground units operating in the densely inhabited region. The only exception, 

a relatively recent one at that, was in the upper delta, where a U.S. Army 

brigade operated along with a U.S. Navy river flotilla to patrol the southern 

approaches to Saigon.

For the winter dry season, which would bring better weather to the 

southern half of the country over the next six months, Westmoreland 

planned only two major geographical thrusts. First, he intended to weaken 

20 Memos, Republic of Vietnam Ministry of Revolutionary Development, 21 Sep 1967, 

sub: Remarks of the Minister of Revolutionary Development at the Meeting held on 20–21 

September concerning RD Policy for 1968; MACV Policy Statement on U.S. Supported 

Civil Programs, n.d., sub: Development of the FY 68/69 AID Country Assistance Program, 

p. 4; MACV CORDS for Deputy of CORDS, I CTZ, et al., Sep 67, sub: 1968 Pacification 

Planning—Advance Guidance. All in Historians files, CMH. 21 CCP, 1967, pp. 2–3; CCP, 1968, pp. 2–3. 
15

A Question of Momentum

the enemy’s offensive capability in the capital region by pushing two of 

the U.S. divisions guarding Saigon out to the Cambodian frontier north 

of Saigon where they would disrupt the enemy’s ability to bring in reinforcements and supplies. Second, he planned to consolidate the 1st Cavalry 

Division (Airmobile) so it could be employed as a strike force throughout 

the northern part of the country, spending the next six months attacking 

enemy bases in the rugged mountains that lined the Laotian border. Finally, 

although not involving a significant relocation of forces, he intended to 

complete the obstacle system that McNamara had dictated be constructed 

along the Demilitarized Zone. Once completed, it would discourage North 

Vietnamese infiltration and stop any large-scale conventional invasion. By 

mid-1968, Westmoreland expected these and other operations would have 

further restricted the ability of large enemy units to reach the populated 

areas of South Vietnam, buying the government more time and space to 

work on pacification.22

As for the South Vietnamese, they organized their forces into four 

corps areas—the far north (I Corps), the center (II Corps), the heartland 

(III Corps), and the Mekong Delta in the south (IV Corps). Nearly half of 

the South’s regular army units and the majority of their territorial soldiers 

served were deployed around the nation’s cities, towns, lines of communications, economic facilities, and heavily populated rural areas. In all, about 

500,000 South Vietnamese military and civilian personnel provided direct 

support to pacification and related civil operations. Most of the remaining 

regulars conducted offensive operations outside of but close to areas that 

were either government controlled or undergoing pacification.23

Allied plans for 1968 called for an increase in spending on pacification 

and for a dramatic rise (from 572 to 856) in the number of specially trained, 

Revolutionary Development (RD) teams that spearheaded the creation of Ap 

Doi Moi. Territorial, police, and paramilitary security forces were also slated 

for growth. Following long-established plans, Westmoreland hoped that the 

continued development of these forces would gradually free more regular 

South Vietnamese Army units for mobile operations. In the meantime, the 

only truly indigenous mobile reserves came from two sources. First, each of 

South Vietnam’s four corps commanders had several ranger battalions—totaling about twenty nationwide—that constituted their corps reserves. Second, 

the Joint General Staff directly controlled another fourteen battalions—eight 

airborne and six marine—as a strategic reserve deployable anywhere in the 

country. The fairly static nature of most South Vietnamese formations, the 

importance that they remain in place in order to preserve government influence over the population, and the paucity of Vietnamese reserves meant that 

22 Msg, Commander, United States Military Assistance Command, Vietnam 

(COMUSMACV), to Commander in Chief, Pacific (CINCPAC), 28 Sep 67, sub: Reorientation 

of In-Country Forces, pp. 1–2, Historians files, CMH; CCP, 1968, pp. 13–14, A-2; MACV 

History, 1968, vol. 1, p. 1; MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, p. 1. 23 Text of Ambassador Robert Komer’s News Conf, 24 Jan 68, box 70, Neil Sheehan 

Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Staying the Course

16

U.S. forces had to act as the allies’ primary mobile reserve—a fact that further 

undermined their utility as agents of long-term area security and pacification. 

Indeed, the continued growth of allied forces notwithstanding, they could not 

be everywhere at once, often leading to difficult choices that reinforced the 

allies’ decision not to try and acquire large new chunks of territory in 1968. 

As for his opponent’s strategy, Westmoreland expected the enemy to concentrate on attacks in I Corps in the north, and in the border provinces of II and III 

Corps, where proximity to sanctuaries in Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam 

provided an advantage. Westmoreland anticipated that the North Vietnamese 

might try to gain “a spectacular victory” somewhere in the remote hinterlands 

in order to affect U.S. public opinion and to improve their position for either 

negotiations or further combat. At the same time, he expected the enemy “to 

take measures over the next several months to reduce the heavy casualties we 

have inflicted on him thus far in 1967.” Those measures might include more reliance on sapper units and attacks by fire, breaking up units into smaller groups 

to avoid contact, and moving some main force regiments closer to the border so 

they could escape into Cambodia and Laos when pressured. Whatever Hanoi 

had in mind, General Westmoreland felt confident that in 1968 the allies would 

continue to build on the momentum they had already generated in 1967.24

If the 1968 campaign went according to plan, MACV expected the South 

Vietnamese government would be well on its way toward a more stable and 

secure future. He hoped to start the process of turning over the war to the 

South Vietnamese by as early as 1969. Any U.S. troop withdrawals “will 

probably be token at first,” he acknowledged, but he thought that within five 

years or so the South Vietnamese would be doing most of the actual fighting, 

allowing MACV to shrink back down to a modestly sized training and support command.25

The Chain of Command

Important as Westmoreland was in shaping the course of the Vietnam War, 

he was not the lone actor on the war’s crowded stage. As the head of MACV, 

General Westmoreland was responsible for directing all U.S. Army, Air Force, 

Navy, Coast Guard, and Marine Corps operations inside South Vietnam. He 

also served as the principal adviser to South Vietnam’s armed forces—which he 

did not control—and he oversaw the activities of the South Korean, Australian, 

New Zealand, Thai, and Filipino military contingents, collectively known as 

the Free World Military Assistance Forces. Westmoreland and his staff had 

initially worked from an office building in downtown Saigon before moving 

in September 1967 to a new spacious complex on the edge of Tan Son Nhut, 

24 First quote from Notes, General William C. Westmoreland Speech, 6 Mar 67, sub: 

Address by General Westmoreland, p. 2, Historians files, CMH. Second quote from Msg, 

Westmoreland MAC 9514 to Heintges, 11 Oct 67, p. 1. 25 Msg, Westmoreland HWA 3445 to Abrams, 26 Nov 67, sub: Concept of Situation 

Portrayed during Recent Visit to Washington.
17

A Question of Momentum

the country’s main commercial and military airfield, which covered six square 

kilometers on the northwestern edge of Saigon.26

MACV was the largest component of the U.S. Mission to South Vietnam, 

the joint body that supervised all U.S. government activities in that country. Another four agencies rounded out the U.S. Mission. The U.S. Embassy 

supervised political and diplomatic affairs under the direction of Ambassador 

Ellsworth Bunker. As the head of the U.S. Mission, Bunker was the highestranking U.S. official in South Vietnam. In daily practice, he and Westmoreland 

treated one another as equals; Bunker usually deferred to the general on military matters, while Westmoreland extended the same courtesy to the ambassador in political affairs. 27

A second agency, the Joint United States Public Affairs Office (JUSPAO), 

managed public affairs under the direction of Barry Zorthian, a former journalist and diplomat who had become the embassy’s chief press officer back 

in 1964. He held daily briefings in Saigon to inform the media about MACV 

operations and to speak on behalf of Westmoreland and Bunker regarding U.S. 

policies. Zorthian also supervised MACV’s psychological warfare program, 

helping to design leaflets and radio 

broadcasts aimed at inducing enemy 

soldiers to defect. Defectors would 

then be funneled into the Chieu Hoi

(“Open Arms”) program, the South 

Vietnamese government’s effort to 

rehabilitate its former adversaries.28

The third component of the U.S. 

Mission, the United States Agency for 

International Development (USAID), 

supervised a variety of social, economic development, and humanitarian assistance programs. It also bore 

primary responsibility for assisting 

South Vietnam’s police, sometimes 

in cooperation with the fourth element of the U.S. Mission, the Saigon 

station of the Central Intelligence 

Agency (CIA). The CIA’s field agents 

assisted South Vietnam’s intelligence 

apparatus and gathered a wide range 

of information that went into briefings for the president and his national 

26 MACV History, 1967, vol. 1, p. 121.

27 Howard B. Schaffer, Ellsworth Bunker, Global Troubleshooter, Vietnam Hawk (Raleigh: 

University of North Carolina, 2003), p. 175; Cosmas, Years of Escalation, 1962–1967, p. 354. 28 William M. Hammond, Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1962–1968, United 

States Army in Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2006), p. 147.

Ambassador Bunker
Staying the Course

18

security staff, giving them another perspective on the war to complement the 

information they received from MACV.

Although the civilian components of the U.S. Mission were independent of Westmoreland, he exercised significant influence over those programs most directly related to pacification through a subordinate element 

within MACV, the directorate for Civil Operations and Revolutionary 

Development Support, or CORDS. President Johnson had created 

CORDS in April 1967 to bring all U.S. civil and military pacification 

programs under a single manager after separate efforts by MACV and the 

U.S. Mission had proven inefficient. Johnson had chosen a member of his 

National Security Council, Robert W. Komer, to head the new directorate. Nicknamed “Blowtorch” for his forceful personality, Komer asked 

for and received the title of ambassador so his rank and privileges would 

be equivalent to Westmoreland’s deputy, General Abrams, thus giving the 

CORDS chief the leverage he felt he needed for the job. The insertion of a 

civilian into a military organization with rating power over those military 

personnel engaged in pacification work was novel. Komer had no authority, however, over U.S. military units. 

Working for Komer were several thousand (mostly military) U.S. personnel who assisted, but did not control, South Vietnamese officials at the 

province and district levels. In addition to funneling resources to local governments and to providing advice on a host of socioeconomic matters, they 

helped train territorial defense forces and developed a network of regional 

 Robert Komer (left) meeting with President Johnson at the White House
19

A Question of Momentum

intelligence centers to identify the clandestine Viet Cong infrastructure. 

This last task was particularly important, as the infrastructure served as 

kind of secret government that competed with the Saigon regime in the 

organization and control of the population. It was the infrastructure that 

provided the Viet Cong with much of their recruits, food, taxes, and information. To date, allied attacks against the infrastructure had yielded marginal results, but in July 1967 the allies had begun to reenergize the effort 

through a program termed Intelligence Coordination and Exploitation 

(ICEX). Although it was not yet fully accepted by the South Vietnamese 

government, Komer expected that South Vietnamese President Nguyen 

Van Thieu would soon provide comprehensive implementing instructions. 

Komer and his deputy, Maj. Gen. George L. Forsythe, thus had their hands 

in a wide range of political, socioeconomic, administrative, security, and 

intelligence activities. By the fall of 1967, CORDS had already become a 

central player in the war effort.29

Ambassador Komer channeled many of his resources through the South 

Vietnamese agency that was principally responsible for the pacification program, the Ministry of Revolutionary Development. Led by Lt. Gen. Nguyen 

Duc Thang, the ministry supervised the territorial security forces, administered the Chieu Hoi program that repatriated defectors, and oversaw a 

variety of social programs that provided rural healthcare, refugee aid, and 

educational resources. Most importantly, the ministry trained and controlled 

29 Richard A. Hunt, Pacification: The American Struggle for Vietnam’s Hearts and Minds

(Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1995), pp. 86–98.

President Johnson (center) meets with Prime Minister Nguyen Cao Ky (left) 

and President Nguyen Van Thieu
Staying the Course

20

the Revolutionary Development teams that worked in the countryside to convert endangered hamlets into Ap Doi Moi communities.30

In addition to representing the U.S. military within the U.S. Mission 

and to overseeing those civil programs directly related to pacification via 

CORDS, Westmoreland belonged to a military chain of command that 

coursed its way back to Washington. As one of five subunified commands 

operating within the region of United States Pacific Command, MACV 

came under the control of the Commander in Chief, Pacific (CINCPAC). 

The present CINCPAC, Adm. Ulysses S. Grant Sharp Jr., had assumed his 

duties in June 1964, the same month that General Westmoreland had taken 

charge of MACV. Sharp gave Westmoreland wide latitude in running the 

war inside South Vietnam. The admiral’s chief concern was managing the 

joint U.S. Air Force and Navy strategic bombing campaign that had been 

hammering North Vietnam’s logistical infrastructure since March 1965. 

As a matter of convenience, Sharp allowed Westmoreland to communicate 

directly with officials in Washington as long as the admiral received a copy 

of each message.

Admiral Sharp reported to Secretary 

of Defense McNamara, a former automobile executive known for his analytical 

brilliance and data-driven, cost-cutting 

approach to business whom President 

John F. Kennedy had appointed in 1961. 

Initially supportive of intervention in 

Vietnam, McNamara changed his outlook after the massive infusion of U.S. aid 

had failed to produce quick results. The 

secretary was especially disenchanted 

with the Rolling Thunder bombing 

campaign, seeing it as a costly and futile 

effort that stiffened North Vietnamese 

resolve while damaging American prestige abroad. In fact, his long tenure as 

secretary of defense was about to end. 

Feeling that he was no longer in step 

with administration policy on the war, in 

November 1967 McNamara announced 

that he would be leaving office in a 

few months.31

30 Rpt, United States Administration for International Development (USAID) Program 

in Vietnam, presented by John P. Robinson, Acting Director, USAID Mission to Vietnam, 

to Senior Ofcrs’ Conf, 6 Jun 68, Historians files, CMH; Robert W. Komer, Bureaucracy at 

War: U.S. Performance in the Vietnam Conflict (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1986), p. 119. 31 Bruce M. Palmer Jr., The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam (Lexington: 

University Press of Kentucky, 1984), pp. 31–33; Robert S. McNamara, In Retrospect: The 

Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam (New York: Random House, 1995), p. 313.

Admiral Sharp
21

A Question of Momentum

Although not technically in the chain of command, another leader was 

the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Earle “Bus” G. Wheeler, 

who had received his appointment from President Johnson in July 1964 after 

serving for two years as the Army Chief of Staff. Wheeler advocated using 

all measures short of nuclear weapons to force North Vietnam to abandon its 

support for the Viet Cong insurgency. He consistently asked the president for 

the maximum number of troops whenever the Joint Chiefs of Staff prepared 

their recommendations for each deployment package. Before submitting the 

most recent of those, Program 5, which had set MACV’s troop level at 525,000 

spaces, Wheeler had also urged Johnson to mobilize several hundred thousand national guardsmen and reservists so the United States could replenish 

its strategic reserves, troops that could be used to deal with other contingencies 

(Berlin and Korea remained hot-button areas) or be sent to Vietnam. The president had refused to mobilize the reserves, but otherwise had given Wheeler 

most of what he had asked for. 

The chain of command that extended downward from General 

Westmoreland encompassed nearly 480,000 U.S. troops in October 1967. 

Divided by service branch, the Army fielded the largest share with some 314,000 

soldiers. Another 78,000 personnel came from the Marine Corps, 56,000 

from the Air Force, 31,000 from the Navy, and around 500 from the Coast 

Guard. Westmoreland also exercised operational control over the Free World 

Military Assistance Forces, which included around 45,000 South Koreans, 

approximately 6,300 Australian and 500 New Zealand troops who operated as 

a combined task force, about 2,200 soldiers from Thailand, and around 2,000 

noncombat troops from the Philippines.32

Organized as a joint headquarters, MACV contained, in addition to 

CORDS, three service branch components. The largest of the three, the 

U.S. Army, Vietnam (USARV), provided administrative, logistical, and support services to all U.S. Army units stationed in South Vietnam. General 

Westmoreland retained the title of commanding general, USARV, but placed 

daily control of the organization in the hands of its deputy commander, Lt. 

Gen. Bruce M. Palmer Jr. Headquartered at the Long Binh military complex 

approximately twenty kilometers northeast of Saigon, the USARV base camp 

sprawled across several square kilometers of land that engineers had reclaimed 

from an adjacent rubber plantation. A few kilometers to the west lay the Bien 

Hoa Air Base, which was capable of handling the largest transport aircraft in 

the U.S. Air Force.33

General Palmer supervised a variety of combat support subcommands. 

The largest of these was the 1st Logistical Command, which employed some 

50,000 personnel to keep supplies moving from entry ports and airfields to 

forward depots around the country. The U.S. Army Engineer Command 

(Provisional), composed of the 18th and 20th Engineer Brigades, worked with 

several U.S. civilian construction firms to build the infrastructure required for 

a modern war. Another USARV component, the 18th Military Police Brigade, 

32 MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 156–57.

33 For details about MACV, see Cosmas, Years of Escalation, 1962–1967.
Staying the Course

22

supported the logisticians and engineers by escorting convoys, guarding facilities, managing traffic, and deterring theft.34

General Palmer’s responsibilities did not end there. He also supervised the 

1st Aviation Brigade that supported allied operations with over 2,000 rotaryand fixed-wing aircraft, and the 44th Medical Brigade that provided health care 

services from nearly 200 locations across South Vietnam. The 1st Signal Brigade 

maintained the communications network in South Vietnam and Thailand; a 

subsidiary component, the Regional Communications Group, Vietnam, provided a secure message link to Honolulu, Hawaii, and Washington.35

After its Army component, MACV’s next-largest service command was 

the Seventh U.S. Air Force. General William W. Momyer directed its operations from Tan Son Nhut, controlling a total of six tactical fighter wings that 

flew close air support missions for the ground forces, two air commando wings 

with specialized ground attack aircraft, one tactical reconnaissance wing, and 

one transport air wing. The command also included a variety of search and 

rescue helicopters, electronic and psychological warfare aircraft, and a fleet 

of small fixed-wing reconnaissance aircraft. The one aircraft type not under 

General Momyer’s control was the B–52 Stratofortress. Primarily designed to 

deliver nuclear weapons, the eight-engine strategic bomber could also carry 

up to thirty tons of conventional ordnance. Westmoreland obtained their use 

through the Strategic Air Command, which flew up to 1,000 bombing sorties 

in South Vietnam each month from bases in Guam and Thailand.36

The third and final component command within MACV was the Naval 

Forces, Vietnam. Led by R. Adm. Kenneth L. Veth, it controlled three naval 

combat groups. A flotilla of Navy and Coast Guard cutters known as Task 

Force 115 patrolled the coastal waters to prevent seaborne infiltration. The 

nimble, shallow-hulled PBRs (Patrol Boats, River) of Task Force 116 prowled 

the waterways of the Mekong Delta in search of enemy sampans. Lastly, a fleet 

of landing craft, armored monitors, and barrack ships known as Task Force 

117 supported allied units in the northeastern Mekong Delta as part of an 

amphibious assault group known as the Mobile Riverine Force.

Westmoreland organized his ground maneuver units into three corps-level 

commands that mirrored the South Vietnamese system of corps tactical zones 

(CTZs). By arrangement with the South Vietnamese government, he assigned 

particular areas within each corps to the Australia–New Zealand, Thai, and 

South Korean combat forces. 

The I Corps region that bordered North Vietnam contained the highest density of U.S. troops. Westmoreland directed the U.S. effort in the five northernmost 

provinces through III Marine Amphibious Force and its commander, Lt. Gen. 

Robert E. Cushman Jr. Both Cushman and the South Vietnamese corps com34 MACV History, 1967, vol. 1, pp. 124–26.

35 Pamphlet, MACV, Tour 365: For Soldiers Going Home, Summer, 1970, pp. 7–12, copy 

in Historians files, CMH. 36 John Schlight, The War in South Vietnam: The Years of the Offensive, 1965–1968, United 

States Air Force in Southeast Asia (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1988), 

app. 1.
23

A Question of Momentum

mander, Lt. Gen. Hoang Xuan Lam, 

maintained their headquarters in the 

port city of Da Nang in Quang Nam 

Province. Farther south in the twelve 

provinces of the South Vietnamese II 

Corps zone, Army Lt. Gen. William 

B. Rosson directed a corps-size command known as I Field Force, Vietnam 

(I FFV), from the coastal city of Nha 

Trang in Khanh Hoa Province. His 

counterpart was Lt. Gen. Vinh Loc, 

who commanded Vietnamese forces 

assigned to II Corps from Pleiku City 

in the Central Highlands province of 

Pleiku. MACV’s third major combat 

command, II Field Force, Vietnam 

(II FFV), operated in the eleven 

provinces of the South Vietnamese 

III Corps zone under the direction of 

Army Lt. Gen. Frederick C. Weyand. 

His headquarters was at Long Binh. 

The III Corps commander, Lt. Gen. 

Le Nguyen Khang, directed his forces 

from Bien Hoa, just up the road from Long Binh. Together, they oversaw the 

approaches to Saigon. Vietnam’s last corps organization, IV Corps, controlled 

the sixteen densely populated and food-rich provinces that formed the Mekong 

Delta. Lt. Gen. Nguyen Van Manh commanded the corps from Can Tho, Phong 

Dinh Province, in the central delta. Because Westmoreland stationed relatively 

few U.S. troops in the delta, he did not post a field force headquarters there as in 

the other three corps tactical zones. 

Two Special Forces commands rounded out the forces at Westmoreland’s 

disposal. The U.S. Army 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), headquartered 

in Nha Trang, organized long-range reconnaissance missions and manned 

surveillance camps on the South Vietnamese border. These men also advised 

South Vietnamese Special Forces, which in turn commanded a small army of 

irregulars recruited largely from non-Vietnamese ethnic groups, particularly 

the Montagnards of the Central Highlands. Another weapon in Westmoreland’s 

arsenal was MACV’s clandestine Studies and Observations Group, which sent 

small teams of U.S. Special Forces soldiers and indigenous mercenaries into 

Laos and Cambodia to spy on the enemy. 

The U.S. Army in Vietnam

Of the approximately 314,000 U.S. Army personnel attached to MACV, 

just over one in every four soldiers belonged to the combat maneuver forces, 

represented by the infantry, airborne, mechanized, armor, and armored 

General Cushman
Staying the Course

24

cavalry. In October 1967, Westmoreland commanded a total of seventyseven U.S. Army combat maneuver battalions. Of those, sixty-three were 

infantry-type units, eleven were armored cavalry units, and two were armor 

units. Their primary job was to close on the enemy by ground movement or 

airmobile assaults, to cut off his escape routes whenever possible, and then 

to defeat him in close-range combat.37

The standard U.S. infantry battalion had an authorized strength of 920 

officers and enlisted men. Detachments, illness, casualties, and soldiers 

departing at the end of their one-year tour of duty meant that battalions 

almost never took to the field at full strength. Traditionally the Army organized infantry battalions into three rifle companies, but in 1967 it added a 

fourth to units in Vietnam to better handle the demands of area warfare. 

Rounding out the battalions were a heavy weapons platoon and a command 

group. The standard infantry weapon was the M16A1 assault rifle, a recently 

developed lightweight but powerful weapon that fired a 5.56-mm. cartridge 

from a twenty-round magazine. It was accurate to a range of more than 600 

meters. The A1 model incorporated several improvements, such as a chromed 

receiving chamber, to fix the jamming problems that had plagued the initial 

version of the weapon. Approximately one in every eight U.S. infantrymen 

carried an M79 grenade launcher, a shotgun-like weapon that fired several 

varieties of 40-mm. ammunition—buckshot, high-explosive, illumination, 

and white phosphorous incendiary shells—out to 180 meters. Most soldiers 

also carried several hand-thrown fragmentation grenades or smoke canisters 

for marking targets.

In the category of support weapons, a U.S. battalion was authorized 

thirty-two M60 7.62-mm. general-purpose machine guns (belt-fed weapons 

weighing 23 pounds, and with an effective range of 1,100 meters) and ten M2 

.50-caliber heavy machine guns (a tripod-mounted weapon weighing approximately 100 pounds, and with an effective range of 1,800 meters). Each battalion also possessed twelve M29 81-mm. medium mortars, a muzzle-loaded, 

smooth-bore weapon crewed by five men, which could lob a high-explosive 

round with a lethal burst radius of 11 meters, out to a distance of nearly 

5,000 meters. The nearly 100-pound weapon could be broken down into three 

components—base plate, firing tube, and bipod—when it was carried into 

the field.38

The Army used two main types of armored vehicles. Mechanized infantry 

units were equipped with M113 armored personnel carriers, a boxy, twelveton tracked vehicle with aluminum armor thick enough to stop small arms 

and machine gun fire. Crewed by a driver and a commander, the M113 could 

carry up to eleven soldiers. Most vehicles were armed with a single .50-cali37 Transcript, Westmoreland Speech at National Press Club, 21 Nov 67, an. A, p. 3. 

Westmoreland estimated that in 1968 around 61 percent of his troops were in combat-related 

roles, which compared quite favorably to the 57 percent figure recorded during World War 

II and the Korean War. 38 Thomas C. Thayer, ed., A Systems Analysis View of the Vietnam War: 1965–1972, 12 

vols. (Arlington, Va.: Defense Documentation Center, Defense Logistics Agency, 1975), 2:23.
A soldier loads a smoke round into an M79 grenade launcher.

A soldier waits for the enemy with an M16A1 rifle.
Staying the Course

26

ber machine gun, but the cavalry version also had two side-mounted M60 

machine guns. For armored units, the main vehicle was the M48A3 Patton, a 

53-ton diesel-powered tank armed with a 90-mm. cannon and two machine 

guns. The armor on its turret could shrug off a rocket-propelled grenade, but 

the vehicle’s tracks and rear engine compartment were vulnerable to enemy 

fire. 

Combat troops who provided direct support to the maneuver units represented the second category of soldier, comprising roughly a quarter of 

Westmoreland’s force. They included artillery, air defense artillery, assault 

helicopter, military intelligence, chemical corps, signal corps, and combat 

engineer forces. These soldiers helped locate the enemy and facilitated his 

destruction by transporting combat troops into battle and by providing heavy 

supporting fire. Some of them, particularly the artillerymen and aviators, 

routinely found themselves in combat situations, while a greater percentage 

operated from the relative safety of brigade camps and division headquarters. 

Each infantry battalion received direct support fire from a battery of 

six 105-mm. howitzers, either the M101A1 or the newer and lighter M102 

version, both of which could fire a variety of ammunition types with an 

effective range of 11,500 meters. The high-explosive round had a lethal burst 

radius of about fifteen meters, but limited penetration capability. To knock 

out fortified positions, it was usually necessary to employ heavier weapons 

controlled at the brigade or division level such as the M114 towed 155-mm. 

howitzer or the M109 self-propelled 155-mm. howitzer, which fired a highexplosive round with a lethal burst radius of 25 meters out to nearly 15,000 

meters. More powerful still was the 175-mm. M107 self-propelled gun, a 

flat trajectory, high-velocity cannon that could strike targets up to 34,000 

meters away, and the even heavier 8-inch (203-mm.) M110 self-propelled 

howitzer, capable of hurling a 20-pound projectile with a lethal burst radius 

of 80 meters to a maximum range of 25,000 meters. 

The third and final category of U.S. Army personnel were the administrative and logistical troops. Representing nearly half of Westmoreland’s 

total force, their job was to supply, maintain, and move the combat forces as 

well as handle most of the administrative chores. Frontline soldiers derided 

the comparatively soft life that these rear-echelon troops enjoyed, but no 

modern army could function without them to keep the machines running, 

the supplies flowing, and the paperwork in order. 

In addition to MACV’s primary mission of destroying the enemy’s 

combat forces and logistical network, the command supervised about 

14,000 personnel who performed two additional core missions. The first 

was advising and equipping the South Vietnamese armed forces, a job performed by about 7,000 U.S. troops. MACV placed advisers at every level 

of Vietnamese military command, from the Joint General Staff down to 

battalions. Advisers attached to regular combat units helped with their 

training, provided tactical advice, and ensured that the government troops 

received timely air and artillery support. Still other advisers served at 

Vietnamese military schools, training centers, and logistical installations. 

Another 7,000 or so worked under CORDS to execute MACV’s other key 
27

A Question of Momentum

mission—pacification. CORDS maintained representatives at the corps 

level and posted senior advisers to work with every province and district 

chief in Vietnam. Below them, U.S. soldiers advised Vietnamese territorial 

forces in the areas of intelligence, weaponry, tactics, and logistics.39

The South Vietnamese Armed Forces

The South Vietnamese military had around 615,000 personnel in October 

1967. Nearly half, some 292,000 men, served in the regular army. Another 

16,000 belonged to the navy, 15,000 to the air force, and 8,300 to the marines. 

Another 282,000 personnel served in territorial security units known as the 

Regional Forces and the Popular Forces. All of these personnel fell under 

the authority of the Joint General Staff headquarters, which directed the war 

from a multiblock complex just south of Tan Son Nhut Air Base. The head of 

the Joint General Staff and Westmoreland’s direct counterpart was General 

Cao Van Vien, a diligent and hardworking officer. General Vien reported 

directly to President Thieu, himself a former general.40

39 Fact Book, MACV, vol. 2, n.d., sub: Description of the Organization, Mission, and 

Scope of the Advisory Effort, Historians files, CMH. 40 Rpt, MACV, 19 Nov 67, sub: Selected RVNAF Personnel Data, Encl 1, Historians files, 

CMH.

 Members of Battery A, 2d Battalion, 94th Artillery, fire a 175-mm. 

self-propelled gun.
Staying the Course

28

South Vietnam organized its army around ten light infantry divisions. 

Most consisted of three infantry regiments plus a cavalry squadron and two 

field artillery battalions. Due to variations in their composition, division 

strength varied between 9,000 and 11,000 troops. Each corps commander 

also controlled a mobile reserve force consisting of between three and six 

ranger battalions and one or two armored cavalry squadrons, the latter 

equipped with M41 Walker Bulldog light tanks, 23-ton vehicles armed with 

a 76-mm. cannon and two machine guns. The elite of the South Vietnamese 

Armed Forces, eight airborne battalions and six marine battalions, formed a 

strategic reserve that reported directly to the head of the South Vietnamese 

Army in Saigon.

South Vietnamese units tended to be smaller and not nearly as well 

armed as their U.S. counterparts. The standard South Vietnamese infantry 

battalion had an authorized strength of just over 600 soldiers, or around 

two-thirds that of a full strength U.S. unit. In late 1967, only the elite South 

Vietnamese battalions and the South Vietnamese 1st Infantry Division were 

armed with M16s, which remained 

in short supply. The majority of 

government troops carried the 

World War II–era M2 .30-caliber 

carbine, a semiautomatic weapon 

with a fifteen-round clip and an 

effective range of just 200 meters. 

Support weapons were also lacking. 

South Vietnamese battalions were 

equipped with only six .30-caliber 

machine guns (roughly equivalent 

to the more modern M60 machine 

gun, but heavier), four 81-mm. mortars, and six light 60-mm. mortars. 

The Regional and Popular 

Forces accounted for nearly half of 

the South Vietnamese ground force, 

and were responsible for security 

at the provincial level and below. 

The more capable of the two organizations was the Regional Forces, 

organized into approximately 1,000 

light infantry companies plus several dozen armored car companies, 

a handful of river patrols units, and 

several reconnaissance battalions 

used for airfield defense. Armed with a mixture of M2 carbines, .30-caliber 

light machine guns, and a few 60-mm. mortars, the average Regional Forces 

soldier had received basic training at the individual and company level. The 

best units could participate in offensive missions with the regular army, while 

the worst were only capable of defending fixed locations.

General Vien
29

A Question of Momentum

Most of the static security missions such as guarding hamlets, manning watchtowers, and protecting bridges fell to the Popular Forces, organized into some 4,500 platoons that operated under the direction of a 

district chief. Most Popular Forces soldiers were middle-aged men who 

had received some basic individual training. Armed with a mixture of carbines and World War II–era submachine guns, the Popular Forces were 

not up to the task of fighting main force regulars, but posed a threat to 

the local Viet Cong when properly employed. More often than not, they 

suffered from poor leadership and inadequate support. In extreme cases, 

they could become a bullying gang in the community that they were supposed to defend. 

The South Vietnamese Army also fielded two groups of specialized soldiers, the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) and the Mobile Strike 

Force (MSF). Their main task was to harass and interdict enemy infiltration from over forty Special Forces camps scattered throughout the country, 

mostly in remote areas near the border with Laos and Cambodia. Numbering 

almost 40,000 soldiers at the end of 1967, the CIDG fighters were recruited 

mostly from the Montagnard and Khmer people. The minimally trained and 

lightly armed CIDG troops mainly patrolled the countryside near Special 

Forces camps. By contrast, the nearly 6,000 MSF soldiers were recruited 

mostly from the ethnic Nungs (a tribal people originally from the hills of 

North Vietnam) who lived in the Cholon District of Saigon. The MSF soldiers, better-armed and disciplined than their CIDG counterparts, provided 

A U.S. Army adviser wades through a rice paddy with South Vietnamese troops.
Staying the Course

30

a ready reaction force in each of the four tactical zones. Operating under the 

command of the U.S. 5th Special Forces Group and not tied down to static 

security duties, the MSF companies could be employed anywhere on short 

notice within their respective zone.41

The Enemy

In late 1967 most Americans saw the Vietnam War as a three-year-old 

conflict. From the point of view of the Vietnamese, however, the “American 

War” was merely the latest phase in the much longer struggle. The titular 

head of the North Vietnamese state, Ho Chi Minh, had spent several decades 

trying to defeat French colonialism and the new South Vietnamese state in 

order to reunify all of Vietnam under the control of the Communist Lao 

Dong Party. As things stood in late 1967, Ho Chi Minh was not sure if he 

would live long enough to see his dream realized. He was now in his seventyseventh year, weakened by malaria and other chronic diseases that he had 

contracted long ago while living in jungle camps. Ho spent much of his time 

in seclusion while a small group of his most trusted comrades handled the 

daily affairs of state.42

This inner circle of men included Le Duan, general secretary of the 

Lao Dong Party; General Vo Nguyen Giap, minister of defense; Pham Van 

Dong, prime minister of North Vietnam; and Truong Chinh, chairman of the 

National Assembly, the legislative body of the Lao Dong Party. Those men, 

plus Ho and five others, constituted the voting members of the Politburo, 

the senior executive committee of the Lao Dong Party that held the ultimate 

reins of power in Hanoi. That high council effectively determined North 

Vietnam’s war strategy. 

The members reached their decisions through a process of debate, held 

in private and attended only by their small inner circle. No single person, 

not even Ho, had the power to impose his will if the majority stood against 

him. While all sought the reunification of Vietnam under the direction of the 

Lao Dong Party, they sometimes disagreed about which methods to use to 

achieve that end. When deadlock threatened, the Central Committee usually 

turned to Ho to mediate the dispute. In the end, a dominant faction would 

emerge and the group would reach a consensus. The Politburo then transmitted its decision to the National Assembly of the Lao Dong Party, whose 

essential function was to rubber-stamp the directives of the high council. 

The members of the Politburo never aired their disagreements in public, for 

all pronouncements were supposed to reflect the scientific and ineluctable 

nature of Marxism-Leninism.43

41 Col Francis J. Kelly, U.S. Army Special Forces, 1961–1971, Vietnam Studies (Washington, 

D.C.: Department of the Army, 1989), p. 82. 42 For background, see Ronald H. Spector, Advice and Support, The Early Years, 1941–1960,

United States Army in Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1983). 43 MACV History, 1967, vol. 1, pp. 13–14.
31

A Question of Momentum

The most active and influential voice in the Politburo was Le Duan, 

the second-highest-ranking member of the party. He had led the Viet Minh 

armies in the south in the early years of the First Indochina War and then 

became the chief organizer of the southern Communists after the partition of 1954. In 1959, when the Politburo decided to throw the weight of 

North Vietnam behind the southern insurgency, Le Duan became head 

of the Reunification Department, the agency that controlled the infiltration of men and supplies into the South. His position also gave him control 

over the southern branch of the Lao Dong Party. By November 1967, the 

Reunification Department had sent tens of thousands of trained cadre 

to help lead the insurgency as well as an even larger number of North 

Vietnamese troops to fight in the South. From his office in Hanoi, Le Duan 

controlled a vast party apparatus that extended down to the smallest and 

most remote Viet Cong hamlet in the South. 

Although the Reunification Department determined how many men and 

supplies would go south each month, most of the work to fulfill those goals 

came from the Ministry of Defense. The number-three man in the Politburo, 

General Giap, ran the department alongside his protégée, Senior General 

Van Tien Dung, the chief of staff of the North Vietnamese Army. Giap and 

Dung controlled approximately 450,000 North Vietnamese troops. Of those, 

slightly more than 10 percent were fighting within the borders of South 

Vietnam, and Hanoi was capable of committing another 10 percent without 

significantly weakening the defenses of North Vietnam. 

Enemy units in South Vietnam received their military supplies through 

two main channels. The first and most important was the Ho Chi Minh Trail, 

an elaborate supply network that began in the lower part of North Vietnam, 

crossed over into Laos, and then wound its way south along multiple routes to 

a final endpoint in Cambodia, opposite the border with Pleiku Province (see

Map 2). A special North Vietnamese logistical command known as the 559th 

Group maintained the trail network and ferried supplies between the major 

depot stations known as binh trams. The logistical command also supervised 

the infiltration of between 6,000 and 7,000 North Vietnamese troops each 

month to replace losses in the South.44

The second Communist logistical channel was by sea. Allied maritime 

operations prevented enemy vessels from unloading supplies on South 

Vietnamese shores, but the port of Sihanoukville in Cambodia remained 

wide open. By late 1967, most of the military supplies used by the enemy in III 

and IV Corps came through Sihanoukville. Cambodian officials were paid 

to look the other way while Viet Cong logisticians loaded the material onto 

trucks, which then drove to the enemy camps using the country’s highway 

44 Special National Intelligence Estimate (SNIE) 14.3–67, p. 2, in U.S. District Court, 

Southern District of New York, William C. Westmoreland, Plaintiff, v. CBS, Inc., et al., 

Defendants. 82 Civ 7913 (PNL). Plaintiff General William C. Westmoreland’s Memorandum 

of Law in Opposition to Defendant CBS’s Motion to Dismiss and for Summary Judgment, app. 

B, p. 257 (hereafter cited as Westmoreland Memorandum of Law, app. B); MACV History, 

1967, vol. 1, p. 29.
Staying the Course

32

system. The enemy also used the international airport at Phnom Penh, the 

capital city, to fly high-ranking North Vietnamese officials back and forth 

whenever they needed to meet with commanders in III and IV Corps. 

In October 1967, MACV believed that about 118,000 full-time enemy 

soldiers were fighting in the South, some 64,000 Viet Cong regulars along 

with the approximately 54,000 North Vietnamese troops from the People’s 

Army of Vietnam (PAVN). The Viet Cong soldiers, more formally members 

of the People’s Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF), fell into two main categories, main and local force units. The main force units closely resembled their 

North Vietnamese counterparts in terms of organization and equipment, and 

generally were just as well trained and well armed. The distinction between 

the two also blurred because many Viet Cong main force units contained a 

large percentage of North Vietnamese soldiers. Over the last several years, 

the number of northerners had grown steadily because local recruitment had 

failed to keep pace with losses, and southerners were now a minority in some 

Viet Cong units. 

MACV defined a main force unit as one that was directly subordinate to 

a Communist front command, military region, or military subregion. Such 

units frequently operated across provincial borders and sometimes relocated 

to entirely new areas of South Vietnam depending on the tactical requirements. Local force units were subordinate to a provincial or district party 

committee and remained within that specified territory. Operating in battalion, independent company, and independent platoon strength, they often 

reinforced main force units fighting in their areas.45

45 Douglas Pike, PAVN: People’s Army of Vietnam (Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1986), p. 89.

North Vietnamese leaders attend the Third National Congress of the Lao Dong 

Party in Hanoi, 1960. From left to right, first row: Le Duan, Ho Chi Minh, and 

Truong Chinh; second row, Vo Nguyen Giap and Pham Van Dong.
226 228

230

202

229 702

701

236

237

238

740

241

251

613

203

351

350 708

352

353

354

359

303

302

356 357

367

372

707

706

482

483

480

488

487 478

490

470 400

704

610

611

612

607

114

112

117

121

609

614

101

511

III CTZ

IV CTZ

I CTZ

II CTZ

Tonle

 Sap

GULF OF

THAILAND

SOUTH CHINA SEA

SOUTH CHINA SEA

DEMARCATION LINE

Stung Trang

Saravane

Tchepone

Kratie

Sihanoukville

SAIGON

PHNOM PENH

LAOS

THAILAND

CAMBODIA

NORTH

 VIETNAM

Enemy Line of Communication

Enemy Base Area

Corps Tactical Zone Boundary

Administrative Boundary

SOUTH VIETNAM

1967–1968

ENEMY BASE AREA SYSTEM

0

0 150

150 Kilometers

Miles

Map 2
Staying the Course

34

The majority of local and main force infantrymen were equipped with 

either a Chinese copy of the Simonov Semi-Automatic (SKS) carbine or, 

more commonly, the Chinese Type 56 assault rifle. The latter was modeled 

on the famous Soviet-designed AK47 assault rifle; because the two weapons 

were virtually identical, allied troops commonly referred to both variants as 

the AK47. Both the carbine and the assault rifle fired a 7.62-mm. cartridge, 

the SKS from a ten-round clip and the AK47 from a thirty-round magazine, 

out to an effective range of about 400 meters. Sacrificing some of its range 

and accuracy for mechanical simplicity, the AK47 was easier to maintain and 

far less prone to jamming than the M16. The reliability of the weapon plus 

its large magazine gave the enemy a distinct advantage when fighting South 

Vietnamese troops armed with M1 and M2 carbines.46

Specially trained soldiers known as sappers performed a variety of 

reconnaissance and combat engineer missions. Sappers were trained to 

use explosives and taught how to infiltrate allied perimeters; they typically 

spearheaded infantry assaults and sometimes operated independently when 

stealth was required. Some sapper teams were trained to operate in the water, 

and a few were even trained to operate U.S. armored vehicles that the enemy 

might capture.

The support weapons used at the battalion level were Soviet designs made 

in China. Some soldiers were armed with a B40 or B41 rocket-propelled grenade launcher, a smoothbore, breech-loaded, tube-shaped weapon that fired 

a small rocket capable of damaging a tank and destroying less-well-protected 

vehicles. Each battalion also possessed several dozen Soviet-designed RPD 

7.62-mm. light machine guns, one-man weapons equipped with 100-round 

magazine drums and effective to a range of 1,000 meters. Most enemy battalions contained a heavy weapons company, usually armed with a mix of 

60-mm. and 82-mm. mortars, and a number of 57-mm. or 75-mm. recoilless 

rifles, smoothbore, breech-loaded, and tripod-mounted weapons that were 

capable of knocking out most armored vehicles at a range of up to several 

thousand meters. 

The heavier weapons used at the regimental and division level most often 

came from the Soviet Union or one of its Eastern Bloc allies. Enemy regiments typically contained at least one antiaircraft unit armed with 12.7-mm. 

belt-fed heavy machine guns, crewed by two men and usually mounted on 

tripods that could also be used in a ground support role. Enemy artillery 

units operating in South Vietnam were typically equipped with a mixture of 

120-mm. mortars and 122-mm. rockets. The rockets were designed to be fired 

from a smoothbore, muzzle-loaded, tripod-mounted tube, but also capable 

of being fired from a sloped mound of dirt or a simple wooden cross-brace. 

The 122-mm. rocket had an effective range of 11,500 meters, but its accuracy 

was poor.47

46 Pamphlet, Department of the Army, Lessons Learned Vietnam Primer, no. 525-2, 21 

Apr 67, p. 51, copy in Historians files, CMH. 47 Ibid.
35

A Question of Momentum

Backing the 118,000 main and local force regulars were, by MACV estimates, some 90,000 guerrilla soldiers. They sniped at allied troops, planted 

booby traps, collected taxes, and served as guides for enemy main force units. 

Most guerrillas were armed with World War II– and Korean War–vintage 

weapons, while a few continued to use bolt-action rifles dating back to World 

War I.48

Operating behind the shield provided by the military forces was the Viet 

Cong Infrastructure, roughly 80,000 political functionaries who formed a 

shadow government in many parts of the countryside. They distributed propaganda, obtained supplies, levied taxes, and recruited new members. Many 

of them had legal status (i.e., they lived in the open as regular civilians with 

government-issued identification cards) so they did not usually carry weapons unless there was a special need.49

MACV and the CIA agreed that the enemy fielded around 320,000 main 

force, local force, guerrilla, and political infrastructure personnel within 

South Vietnam. They disagreed, however, as to whether or not to include 

in the official enemy order of battle another estimated 120,000 Viet Cong 

supporters who belonged to the so-called Self-Defense (part-time guerrillas 

living in enemy-controlled areas) and Secret Self-Defense units (part-time 

clandestine organizations operating in government-controlled areas). These 

irregular forces posed as typical civilians, keeping their weapons hidden until 

the time came to carry out a mission. The CIA had pushed hard in mid-1967 

to include these Viet Cong supporters in the calculation of enemy combat 

48 MACV History, 1967, vol. 1, p. 53; Peter Copeland, “Enemy Small Arms in Vietnam,” 

Army Digest vol. 24 no. 6 (June 1969): 52–55. 49 MACV History, 1967, vol. 1, p. 56.

Viet Cong guerrillas emerge from a swamp to conduct an attack.
Staying the Course

36

strength, but MACV had resisted the demand. Westmoreland’s analysts 

argued that the Self-Defense and Secret Self-Defense personnel had little 

impact on combat operations, and adding them to the official order of battle 

tally would create an erroneous view of enemy strength. In October 1967, 

MACV and the CIA reached a compromise that gave Westmoreland most of 

what he wanted. MACV did not add the Self-Defense and Secret Self-Defense 

forces to its order of battle estimates, though the CIA gained the opportunity 

to draw attention to the role of these part-time personnel, who the agency 

believed were more influential in the war than MACV analysts were prepared 

to concede.50

The Communists depended on a complex logistical system of bases built 

by hand over many years to sustain the roughly 220,000 full-time fighters that 

belonged to the main, local, and guerrilla forces. Well shielded by mountains, 

swamps, or heavily canopied jungle, these installations contained everything 

the troops needed to wage war: headquarters, training facilities, ammunition and supply depots, repair shops, hospitals, barracks, and even rest areas. 

Employing them as strategic hubs, Communist commanders drew upon them 

well ahead of attacks to stockpile food, ammunition, and whatever other 

supplies they would need in small caches near their targets. They called the 

process “preparing the battlefield.” In late 1967, MACV estimated that the 

enemy possessed at least fifty-three major base areas in South Vietnam and 

another nineteen in Laos and Cambodia.51

The Communists maintained three interrelated organizations in South 

Vietnam to coordinate and control their political and military activities: the 

National Liberation Front (NLF), the People’s Revolutionary Party, and the 

Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN). All three organizations were 

subsidiaries of North Vietnam’s Lao Dong Party, which exercised total control over the war in the South. The National Liberation Front was supposedly an independent umbrella organization that coordinated the efforts of all 

Communist and non-Communist groups fighting against the Saigon government. Although it had included many non-Communist nationalists during the 

1950s and early 1960s, it had fallen so blatantly under Hanoi’s control by the 

mid-1960s that COSVN Resolution 4 in March 1966 referred to it openly as 

the southern branch of the Hanoi regime. The People’s Revolutionary Party 

pretended to be an entirely separate organization from North Vietnam’s Lao 

Dong Party, but in truth it reported directly to the Party’s Reunification 

Department, the directorate that was responsible for infiltrating troops, supplies, and Communist cadre into the South. COSVN was the ruling executive council of the People’s Revolutionary Party. The leadership of the two 

organizations was virtually the same, and its highest-ranking officers were 

members of the North Vietnamese Politburo.

The North Vietnamese government controlled the war in the South 

through an overlapping combination of military headquarters and administrative regions that changed over time to reflect the war’s growing complex50 Hammond, Military and the Media, 1962–1968, pp. 325–27. 51 Ibid., p. 68.
37

A Question of Momentum

ity (Map 3). The enemy controlled his main force regiments and divisions 

through five corps-level headquarters known as front commands, which 

were subordinate to military regions that supervised all military and political activities in a particular geographic region. The DMZ Front controlled 

the main force units along the Demilitarized Zone; it reported to the TriThien-Hue Military Region, which encompassed northern I Corps and the 

southeastern panhandle of Laos. Southern I Corps and the coastal provinces 

in northwestern II Corps belonged to Military Region 5, which controlled its 

main force units through the B1 Front. North Vietnamese units in western 

II Corps reported to the B3 Front, which was subordinate to the Western 

Highlands Military Region stretching into an adjoining slice of Laos and 

Cambodia. Finally, COSVN managed the provinces in the southern half of 

South Vietnam as well as logistical areas in Cambodia, and controlled its 

main force units through the B2 Front.

52

Hanoi’s Decision to Launch a General Offensive–General Uprising

When North Vietnamese leaders met in April 1967 to discuss the goals 

they hoped to achieve during the coming winter-spring campaign, the primus 

inter pare of the Politburo, Le Duan, argued that the time had come “to create 

a new turning point that [would] enable us to make a great leap forward.” The 

political and military situation in South Vietnam was at last right, he insisted, 

for the long-awaited tong cong kich/tong khoi nghia (general offensive–general 

uprising). Le Duan recommended an all-out attack against South Vietnam’s 

administrative infrastructure, which meant attacking the big cities for the 

first time in the conflict. The goal was to paralyze the government long 

enough for Viet Cong–controlled revolutionary councils to seize power in 

many provincial and district capitals. Claiming to represent those so-called 

liberated zones, the revolutionary councils would jointly demand the formation of a coalition government in Saigon that would include representatives 

from the National Liberation Front. Following the formation of that coalition government, the National Liberation Front members would press for 

an immediate cease-fire and the speedy departure of U.S. and Free World 

forces. After they had gone, the Communists could step out of the shadows 

and reunify the country under the banner of the Lao Dong Party.53

American public opinion played only a minor role in Le Duan’s conception of the general offensive–general uprising. Although he welcomed the 

growing antiwar sentiment in the United States, Le Duan saw the general 

52 Tran Van Tra, Ket Thuc Cuoc Chien Tranh 30 Nam [Vietnam: History of the Bulwark 

B2 Theatre] (Ho Chi Minh City: Van Nghe Publishing House, 1982), p. 2 (hereafter cited as 

History of the Bulwark B2 Theatre). 53 Quote from Le Lien, “Creating A Turning Point in the Resistance War Against the 

Americans,” Quan Doi Nhan Dan, 3 Dec 04; U.S. Mission Saigon, “The New Situation and 

Mission,” Vietman Documents and Research Notes (VDRN), no. 20, Mar 68, Historians 

files, CMH.
DEMARCATION LINE

QUANG TRI

THUA THIEN

QUANG DA

QUANG NAM

QUANG NGAI

KONTUM

BINH

DINH

GIA LAI

DAK LAK

KHANH

HOA QUANG

DUC

TUYEN DUC

LAM DONG

PHUOC LONG

BINH

LONG

TAY NINH

BINH

THUAN

BA BIEN

GO CONG

MY THO

BAC BINH

NINH

THUAN

PHU YEN

BEN

 TRE

VINH

 LONG

KIEN

 TUONG KIEN

 PHONG A N

GIANG

TRA CAN THO VINH

SOC TRANG

CA MAU

RACH GIA

PHU

 QUOC

TRI THIEN HUE

MR

B3 FRONT

MR T10

MR 5

QUANG DA

SPECIAL

ZONE

SOUTHERN 

SUBREGION

MR 6

E NAM BO

REGION

MR 2

MR 3

SR 10

SR 1

SR 2

SR 3

SR 4

SR 5

SR 6 SR 8

SR 9

November 1967

COMMUNIST POLITICAL BOUNDARIES

SOUTH VIETNAM

Enemy Military Boundary

Enemy Military Subregion

Enemy Administrative Boundary

Map 3
39

A Question of Momentum

offensive–general uprising as a way to achieve concrete gains on the battlefield, rather than as a ploy to undermine U.S. public support for the war. 

North Vietnamese leaders had started preparations for a general offensive–

general uprising after South Vietnamese generals overthrew President Ngo 

Dinh Diem in November 1963, but shelved their plans in early 1965 after the 

United States intervened in the war. North Vietnamese leaders quietly returned 

to a strategy of protracted warfare, ratified with the passage of Resolution 12 

of the Lao Dong Party in December 1965. As a senior COSVN commander 

recalled in a postwar history, the supplies that had been stockpiled for the general offensive were instead used to satisfy the “urgent battlefield requirements” 

of fighting the Americans.54 

North Vietnamese leaders had revised their strategy in late 1966 after 

concluding that the United States was not likely to expand the ground war 

into Laos, Cambodia, or North Vietnam, thus ensuring that the Communists 

would continue to enjoy a relatively safe rear area. In the words of the 

COSVN commander, Senior General Nguyen Chi Thanh, the United States’ 

political and military effort had become “deadlocked.” The U.S. public was 

already tiring of the conflict; further troop deployments to South Vietnam 

would probably be minimal. The Politburo adopted a more aggressive strategy in January 1967 with the passage of Resolution 13, which directed its 

forces to “Intensify the political struggle in coordination with the military 

struggle in order to carry out a general offensive and insurrection in the cities 

and the enemy-controlled portions of the rural countryside and establish a 

broad-based national democratic coalition that has as its core the National 

Liberation Front.”55

Several Politburo members supported Le Duan’s call for a general offensive–

general uprising, most notably chief of the General Staff, General Dung, and 

the commander of COSVN, General Thanh. They argued that only a small 

slice of the southern population—the 10 percent who were Catholics, the 

small-land-owning upper class, and a few middle-class urbanites who worked 

for the Americans—truly supported the government. In their view, a far larger 

number of people, including the urban poor, many low-ranking military and 

security personnel, and disaffected intellectuals, would turn against the regime if 

given the opportunity. As proof, Le Duan pointed to the violent protests that had 

exploded in the northern cities of South Vietnam that summer, principally led by 

disaffected Buddhists but also involving military officers, which the government 

had quashed with brutal force.56

54 Tran Van Tra, “Tet Mau Than: Chien Cong Hien Hach” [Tet: Glorious Military Exploit], 

Journal of Vietnamese Military History 28, no. 4 (April 1988): 15–16. 55 Patrick J. McGarvey, ed., Visions of Victory: Selected Vietnamese Communist Military 

Writings, 1964–1968 (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Publications, 1969), p. 117; Van 

Kien Dang, Toan Tap, 28, 1967 [Collected Party Documents, vol. 28, 1967] (Hanoi: National 

Political Publishing House, n.d.), p. 147. 56 Senior Col Nguyen Van Minh et al., Lich Su Khang Chien Chong My Cuu Nuoc, 1954–

1975, Tap V: Tong Tien Cong Va Noi Day Nam 1968 [History of the Resistance War Against 

the Americans to Save the Nation, vol. 5: The 1968 General Offensive and Uprising] (Hanoi: 

National Political Publishing House, 2001), pp. 31–32 (hereafter cited as History of the 
Staying the Course

40

Worrying military trends also played a role in Le Duan’s thinking. The 

intervention of nearly 400,000 U.S. troops had halted or reversed much of 

the progress won by Communist forces in the years before 1965. Large-scale 

search-and-destroy operations were beginning to erode key base areas in 

South Vietnam. This development forced the enemy to rely more heavily on 

his rear areas in Cambodia and Laos, reducing his ability to support his main 

force units in the populated areas of South Vietnam. The Viet Cong were 

also finding it harder to recruit new soldiers, especially since some areas previously dominated by the Communists were now returning to government 

control. COSVN Resolution 5 published in May 1967 admitted that “we are 

still encountering problems in obtaining replacements and reinforcements” 

for main and local force units and that the allies have “been able to seize a 

number of areas and gain control of a larger portion of the population.”57

Another sobering fact for the North’s leaders was the intensity of the U.S. 

strategic bombing campaign. The aerial war was taking a steady toll that 

could not be borne indefinitely. Communist China and the Soviet Union 

had increased their aid shipments to compensate for those losses, but North 

Vietnamese leaders were uncomfortable with their growing dependency. If 

Hanoi waited too long, changing geopolitical conditions might convince one 

or both Communist superpowers that it was no longer in their interest to 

support a proxy war in Vietnam.58

Not everyone in the Politburo believed the time had come to launch a 

general offensive–general uprising. The most vocal opponent was General 

Giap, who argued that the country should continue to pursue a strategy of 

protracted warfare. He believed that the allied forces were still strong, not 

weakened and demoralized like the French had been in 1954 when Giap had 

struck at Dien Bien Phu. He stressed the enormous risk that North Vietnam 

would take in a single go-for-broke campaign. If the attack failed, he feared it 

would take five to ten years to rebuild the lost army.

Despite Giap’s position as head of the North Vietnamese armed forces, 

his power to determine policy was not as strong as his title might suggest. 

For the last several years, he had clashed repeatedly with General Thanh 

over the formulation of strategy, with Thanh and his ally Le Duan usually getting the upper hand. Giap’s status within the Politburo had suffered 

accordingly. By contrast, Le Duan, who ranked second in the Politburo 

behind Ho Chi Minh, was clearly on his way to the top. When the Politburo 

met in May and June of 1967 to consider the proposed offensive, the Le 

Duan faction carried the day. The unexpected death of General Thanh the 

following month—he apparently suffered a heart attack—altered nothing. 

Resistance War Against the Americans); Van Thai, “May Van De Ve Chien Luoc Trong Cuoc 

Tien Cong Va Noi Day Xuan 1968” [Some Strategic Questions on the Offensive and Uprising of 

the Spring of 1968], Tap Chi Lich Su Quan Su [Military History Magazine] 26, no. 2 (February 

1988), p. 21, copy in Historians files, CMH (hereafter cited as Questions on the Offensive and 

Uprising of the Spring of 1968); Dang, Collected Party Documents, vol. 28, 1967, p. 143. 57 Dang, Collected Party Documents, vol. 28, 1967, p. 490. 58 Ibid., p. 383; James J. Wirtz, The Tet Offensive: Intelligence Failure in War (Ithaca, N.Y.: 

Cornell University Press, 1991), pp. 52–55.
41

A Question of Momentum

A Le Duan loyalist, Pham Hung, went south in August to replace General 

Thanh as the leader of COSVN.

59

The Politburo began to flesh out its plan in October after meeting with 

regional commanders from the South. On the twenty-fifth, the Central 

Committee prepared a new directive, Resolution 14, which committed North 

Vietnam to a strategy of general offensive–general uprising. The document 

was deliberately vague about timing and objectives, describing the coming 

campaign as “a phase and a process of very fierce and complex strategic 

attacks via both military and political offensives” that will last “for a fixed or 

shortened period of time, depending on our subjective efforts and the reaction 

of the enemy.” It acknowledged that the campaign would be difficult because 

the attacks would not come at a time “when the enemy is totally exhausted 

but rather during a time when the enemy still has more than one million 

troops and a large war capacity.” It identified three possible outcomes: the 

first being total victory, the second being a limited victory where an intact 

South Vietnamese government still controlled most of the cities, and a third 

where the offensive failed and the allies retaliated by expanding the war into 

Laos, Cambodia, and even North Vietnam.60 

Whatever the outcome, Le Duan and his supporters believed it was necessary to make an all-out effort now if they expected to see victory in their 

lifetimes.61 The conclusion of Resolution 14 summarized their rationale:

We are standing now before great strategic prospects and opportunities. . . . 

We have defeated the enemy both strategically and tactically. . . . Our military 

and political forces in the South are stronger than ever before. . . . We hold the 

initiative on the battlefield. . . . Millions of people are seething with revolution 

and are ready to rise up. . . . This situation allows us to move our revolutionary 

war into a new era in which we can secure a decisive victory.62

During the coming year, this Communist vision of total victory would 

collide with American expectations of progress as the two sides exerted their 

maximum efforts of the war to date.

59 Robert K. Brigham, Guerrilla Diplomacy: The NLF’s Foreign Relations and the Viet Nam 

War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1999), p. 68; Marc Jason Gilbert and William 

Head, eds., The Tet Offensive (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1996), pp. 73–81; Wirtz, The Tet 

Offensive, pp. 29, 36, 48–49; Rpt, Communist Strategy and Doctrine in South Vietnam: 1970, 

Mar 1970, p. 9, box 16, Douglas Pike Collection, Unit 01 - Assessment and Strategy, Vietnam 

Center and Archive, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Tex. 60 U.S. Mission Saigon, “The New Situation and Mission.”

61 Van Kien Dang, Toan Tap, 29, 1968 [Collected Party Documents, vol. 29, 1968] (Hanoi: 

National Political Publishing House, n.d), pp. 41–67. 62 Thai, “Questions on the Offensive and Uprising of the Spring of 1968,” pp. 2–3.

2

Opening Moves: Battles North and West of Saigon

Home to South Vietnam’s capital, the III Corps Tactical Zone was 

in many ways the heart of the Republic of Vietnam. Consisting of 

eleven provinces spread across 200 square kilometers of forested hills, trackless jungle, marshland, small farms, and vast rubber plantations, the zone 

linked the nation’s rice bowl—the Mekong Delta—with the rest of the country. Although the outlying provinces were sparsely populated, Saigon and 

the provinces adjacent to it—Gia Dinh, Long An, Hau Nghia, Binh Duong, 

and Bien Hoa—contained about a third of the nation’s population as well as 

the core of its political administration and logistical infrastructure. Neither 

side believed that the Republic of Vietnam could survive without Saigon, and 

hence both had striven to control it since the insurrection’s earliest days. 

By the time U.S. ground troops arrived in 1965, the zone was clearly in 

trouble. The government maintained a firm grip inside the capital, but otherwise Saigon was a city besieged. Communist agents wielded significant influence over much of the region’s population and territory. Supporting them were 

several major enemy units that staged out of a series of heavily fortified bases 

that virtually ringed the city. With Communist forces farther south interfering 

with the flow of food from the Mekong Delta into the city, the inhabitants 

lived in a state of perpetual crisis. 

General Westmoreland responded by deploying many of the troops that 

arrived from the United States in 1965 to guard the approaches to the city. 

Initial priority had gone to securing the four key installations without which 

U.S. intervention in South Vietnam would not be possible—the air bases at Tan 

Son Nhut and Bien Hoa (six and thirty kilometers from Saigon, respectively), 

the port of Vung Tau about sixty kilometers to the southeast, and the port 

of Saigon itself, the nation’s largest. As his numbers grew, he had launched 

a series of raids into the enemy bases that threatened the city from the north 

and northwest, particularly War Zone C in Tay Ninh Province and War Zone 

D centered in Phuoc Thanh Province. He likewise had sought to interfere with 

the flow of supplies from Cambodia into III Corps (Map 4).1

By 1966 a web of U.S. installations ringed Saigon, with Westmoreland 

pushing farther into the interior. By 1967, the general had sufficient numbers 

to launch a series of major offensives into War Zone C, the most notable of 

which was Operation Junction City. These actions had bloodied the enemy 

and kept him off balance as Westmoreland pushed the ring of U.S. camps and 

forward logistical areas farther out from Saigon, thereby laying the groundwork 

for additional thrusts toward the Cambodian border on a more sustained basis. 

1

 Carland, Stemming the Tide, May 1965 to October 1966, pp. 73–94, 165–83, 305–53. 
Staying the Course

44

Guiding all these operations was Westmoreland’s notion that the best way to 

defend Saigon was to push into the outer provinces of III Corps north and west 

of Saigon to destroy the Viet Cong logistical system as close to the Cambodian 

border as possible. This approach would compel enemy main force units to 

give battle in remote areas, thereby relieving pressure on the South Vietnamese 

pacification effort and sparing the population from the worst of the fighting.

XXX

II FF

199

X

3 25

X

2 25

X

1 25

X

25

X X

3 1

X

ARVN

5

X X

ARVN

18

X X

ARVN

25

X X

2 1

X

1

X X

1 1

X

1 9

X

9

X X

RTAVR

III

11 ACR

III

3 9

X

1 ATF

X

2 9

X

5

III

R

ARVN

XXX

III

ARVN

BIEN

HOA

DUC HOA

CU CHI

PHU LOI

LONG BINH

BEARCAT

XUAN LOC

DAU TIENG

LAI KHE

DONG TAM

TAN AN

BLACKHORSE

PHUOC VINH

NUI DAT

DI AN

203

351

350

708

352

353

354

359

303

302

356

357

367

372

707

706

IV CTZ

II CTZ

SOUTH CHINA SEA

14

20

15

13

1

1

4

4

4

4

22

SAIGON

PHUOC TUY

BINH TUY

BINH

THUAN LONG KHANH

PHUOC LONG

BINH

DUONG

HAU

NGHIA

LONG AN

GO CONG

KIEN HOA

KIEN TUONG

DINH TUONG

GIA DINH

TAY NINH

BIEN

HOA

QUANG DUC

LAM DONG

BINH LONG

BA XUYEN

VINH BINH

VINH LONG

CAMBODIA

Corps Tactical Zone Boundary

Military Installation

Enemy Base Area

November 1967

III CORPS TACTICAL ZONE

0

0 50 Kilometers

Miles 50

Map 4
45

Opening Moves: Battles North and West of Saigon

As U.S. soldiers had expanded the shield out from Saigon, South Vietnamese 

forces had filled in behind to execute the second element of allied strategy—

that of territorial control. The allies had declared the provinces immediately 

adjacent to Saigon to be National Priority provinces for the receipt of pacification resources. Although the Vietnamese carried the brunt of this effort, 

U.S. combat forces had contributed by executing a myriad of military and 

security operations in and around areas targeted for pacification, and by performing humanitarian and civil improvement activities collectively known as 

civic action. By late 1967, the Americans had made their presence felt, but the 

allies were still locked in an as-yet indecisive politico-military conflict with 

the enemy, fighting the same Communist formations over the same pieces of 

ground. Control over, and the support of, the rural inhabitants continued to 

hang in the balance.

Planning the Dry Season Offensive

As the MACV commander solidified his plans in the fall of 1967, weather 

continued to dominate the ebb and flow of events. The dry season, which 

brought firm ground and clear skies from October to May, was just beginning. 

This was the traditional time for the allies to launch their major offensives 

into the interior. These attacks would have to be largely completed by the time 

seasonal rains complicated the movement of men and materiel between May 

and October. 

The man responsible for U.S. forces in the III Corps Tactical Zone was 

the commander of II Field Force, Lt. Gen. Frederick C. Weyand. A lanky 

Californian widely respected in U.S. military circles, Weyand controlled 

thirty-three U.S. Army and six Free World forces combat maneuver battalions 

organized into three infantry divisions and several independent brigade-size 

elements. He arrayed these forces in ten major bases that formed a rough circle 

around Saigon. Situated thirty and sixty kilometers out from the city, the bases 

were close enough to defend the approaches to Saigon while still remaining in 

striking distance of the enemy bases and units clustered in III Corps’ outer 

provinces. Two brigades of the 9th Infantry Division screened the flat and fertile provinces to the south of Saigon and Highway 4, which was the main line 

of communications to the Mekong Delta. The 3d Brigade of the 9th Infantry 

Division, the Royal Thai Army Volunteer Regiment, the 11th Armored 

Cavalry, and the 1st Australian Task Force screened the provinces to the east 

and southeast of Saigon. Immediately outside the capital itself, the 199th 

Infantry Brigade (Light) was preparing to relocate from Gia Dinh Province to 

Bien Hoa Province, where it would help the 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne 

Division guard the important Bien Hoa–Long Binh military complex from 

Communist units based in the wilderness known as War Zone D north of the 

Dong Nai River. Farther north and west, the 1st Infantry Division operated 

along Highway 13, an all-weather, two-lane road that traveled through almost 

130 kilometers of farmlands, rubber plantations, and dense forest near the 

Cambodian border. Finally, to the west of Saigon, the 25th Infantry Division 
Staying the Course

46

performed a mix of pacification and offensive operations. Backing those 

maneuver units were twenty-one additional U.S. Army combat battalions 

representing two artillery groups, an air cavalry squadron, a helicopter-rich 

aviation group, and an engineer group. Already numbering about 90,000 men, 

II Field Force expected the arrival of the rest of the 101st Airborne Division 

around the turn of the year.2

 

In addition to his duties as combat 

commander of II Field Force, General 

Weyand also served as the senior military 

adviser to Lt. Gen. Le Nguyen Khang, 

head of the South Vietnam’s III Corps. 

Considered one of the best generals in 

the South Vietnamese Army, Khang controlled some 45,000 regulars organized 

around three light infantry divisions (the 

5th, 18th, and 25th), a ranger group, an 

armored cavalry squadron, and a handful 

of independent artillery groups. He allocated roughly a third of his infantry battalions to province chiefs who used them 

to defend Revolutionary Development 

areas. The rest of the regulars performed 

reserve, garrison, and limited offensive 

operations. Also present in III Corps, 

but under the command of the province 

chiefs and not the corps commander, 

were 45,000 Regional and Popular Forces soldiers who performed security and 

pacification support duties.3

For the 1967–1968 dry season, Westmoreland and Weyand intended to 

mount a large-scale offensive to cut the three main infiltration routes that 

entered III Corps from Cambodia. The 1st and 3d Brigades of the 1st Infantry 

Division and the bulk of the 11th Armored Cavalry would push into Binh 

Long Province to cut the Adams Trail. This route began at Base Area 351 on 

the Cambodian side of the Phuoc Long provincial border, tunneled its way 

south through a triple-canopy rainforest, skirted the eastern edge of Song Be, 

and then passed through the western half of War Zone D. Operated by the 

70th Rear Service Group, the trail terminated in northern Bien Hoa Province 

at a base area known to the Americans as the Catcher’s Mitt. 

Once the 2d and 3d Brigades of the 101st Airborne Division had arrived 

from the United States around the end of the year, Weyand planned to attack 

2

 Rpt, Army Progress Build-Up, 25 Oct 1967, p. 66, Archives, CMH; Cmd Fact Bk, 1st 

Log, 30 Nov 1967, Encl 1 to Operational Report-Lessons Learned (ORLL), 1 Aug–31 Oct 

1967, II Field Force Vietnam (II FFV), n.d., Historians files, CMH. 3

 Msg, Walt W. Rostow to Lyndon B. Johnson, 4 Mar 68, sub: Present Status of RVNAF, 

p. 2, document 23, Vietnam 2G 7/67-12/68, Manpower Mobilization in SVN (1 of 2), box 72, 

National Security File (NSF)-Vietnam Country files, Lyndon B. Johnson Library (LBJL), 

Austin, Tex.

General Weyand
47

Opening Moves: Battles North and West of Saigon

the enemy’s second major trail network, the Serges Jungle Highway. Operated 

by the 86th Rear Service Group, this route began some forty kilometers west 

of the Adams Trail on the boundary line between Binh Long and Phuoc Long 

Provinces. It ran south along the full length of the provincial border and then 

veered east into War Zone D.

Meanwhile, two brigades from the 25th Infantry Division would strike 

northwest to interdict the third corridor, the Saigon River Trail. This route 

wound its way from Cambodia through Tay Ninh and Binh Dinh Provinces to 

the outskirts of Saigon. Success against the Saigon River corridor was critical, 

as it was the largest and most important of the three routes. If all went according to schedule, by January 1968 General Westmoreland would have seven 

U.S. combat brigades arrayed across the northern rim of III Corps to interdict 

the three routes that threatened Saigon from the north and west. Given the 

enemy’s developing plans—as yet undetected by the allies—to attack Saigon 

in the coming year, the outcome of these operations would have particular 

significance.4

The Other Side of the Hill

Just as Westmoreland had plans for the upcoming dry season, so too 

did the enemy, and as it turned out, these ran directly counter to MACV’s 

design. When Lt. Gen. Hoang Van Thai had assumed command of COSVN 

in September 1967, he found that the B2 Front’s staff had already developed 

a scheme for the coming months. The plan called for an offensive in an area 

the Communists termed Military Region 10, essentially Binh Long and Phuoc 

Long Provinces—two of the three provinces that Westmoreland intended to 

attack. Just as the allies wanted to cut the Adams and Serges Trails, B2 Front

wanted to further secure and expand those networks by eliminating one or 

more of the border surveillance camps that kept tabs on those infiltration 

routes. Since the Politburo had yet to decide on the timing and objectives of 

the general offensive–general uprising, Thai decided to go ahead with the 

regional offensive. Besides, any success in securing the trails would strengthen 

his position if and when the government in Hanoi ordered a general offensive. 

Thai had at his disposal some 50,000 combat soldiers and 10,000 rear 

service troops that operated within the territorial limits of III Corps and the 

northeastern corner of IV Corps. His primary strike force consisted of three 

light infantry divisions each with a strength of between 6,000 to 8,000 soldiers. 

The 7th PAVN Division and the 9th PLAF Division ranged across the provinces 

to the north of Saigon, while the 5th PLAF Division operated to the east of 

the capital. COSVN also controlled the 101st PAVN Regiment, a unit recently 

detached from the 7th Division to defend the Iron Triangle area of southwestern Binh Duong Province. The heavily forested base area, located between Phu 

Cuong to the south and Lai Khe to the north, with the Saigon River to its 

west and Highway 13 to its east, contained a maze of underground tunnels 

4

 MACV History, 1967, vol. 1, p. 338; MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 388–91.
Staying the Course

48

and bunkers that the enemy intended to use as a forward staging area for an 

eventual assault on Saigon. The Dong Nai Regiment, another unit directly controlled by COSVN, guarded the western approaches to War Zone D. A dozen 

local force battalions and many small guerrilla units operated under provincial 

or subregion control, most within twenty kilometers of Saigon. Adding to 

Thai’s strength were the 69th Artillery Group, which controlled the 84A PLAF 

Artillery Regiment, armed with 122-mm. rockets and 120-mm. mortars, and 

the 52d and 58th PLAF Artillery Battalions, armed with 120-mm. mortars.5

General Thai chose the 9th PLAF Division, his most experienced fighting force, to spearhead the offensive in Binh Long Province. Commanded by 

Senior Col. Hoang Cam, an experienced officer who had fought U.S. forces 

many times over the past two years, the three-regiment 9th Division would 

receive support from the 84A PLAF Artillery Regiment and the 208th AntiAircraft Battalion, the later armed with dozens of 12.7-mm. heavy machine 

guns. Two regiments from the 5th PLAF Division, the 88th PAVN and the 275th 

PLAF, would take the lead role in neighboring Phuoc Long Province. Finally, 

General Thai would use part of his 7th Division, the 165th PAVN Regiment, to 

interdict Highway 13 in the region around An Loc. COSVN’s remaining main 

force regiments—the 101st PAVN, the 141st PAVN, the 274th PLAF, and the 

Dong Nai—were to spend the final months of 1967 defending base areas and 

lines of communications in central III Corps.6

Thai’s initial target was Loc Ninh, a district capital in Binh Long Province 

that the 9th Division had attempted to overrun in late 1966. The town of 6,000 

inhabitants was located in the middle of a large rubber plantation roughly 

twelve kilometers south of the border. A border surveillance camp and a small 

airfield lay on the southeastern edge of town. The camp contained eleven 

U.S. Special Forces soldiers and around 400 Montagnard CIDG troops, their 

heaviest weapons being several 81-mm. and 4.2-inch mortars. Located at the 

northwest end of the airfield was a South Vietnamese district headquarters, a 

figure-eight compound of sandbags and wooden bunkers that was manned by 

around 200 Regional Forces soldiers, the South Vietnamese district chief, and 

one U.S. adviser. A few mortars and machine guns were their main firepower.7

General Thai had several reasons for choosing Loc Ninh as the initial 

target of COSVN’s winter-spring offensive. First, he wanted to embarrass the 

newly elected President Thieu by capturing a district capital just days before 

5

 MACV History, 1967, vol. 1, p. 59; Operational Reports–Lessons Learned (ORLL), 1 Nov 

67–31 Jan 68, 9th Inf Div, 15 Feb 68, p. 8, boxes 40–41, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd Historian, 

HQ, U.S. Army, Vietnam (USARV), Records of U.S. Forces in Southeast Asia, 1950–1975, 

Record Group (RG) 472, National Archives, College Park, Md. (NACP). 6

 After Action Report (AAR), Opn Shenandoah II, 1st Inf Div, 12 Apr 68, an. B, Historians 

files, CMH; Monthly Order of Battle (OB) Sum, Combined Intelligence Center, Vietnam 

(CICV), Oct 67, Historians files, CMH; Special Rpt, Combined Military Interrogation Center 

(CMIC), no. 1211-68, 17 May 68, sub: OB of the 7th VC Div aka WS 7, p. 2, box 72, CMIC 

Interrogation Dossiers, Asst Ch of Staff, J–2, MACV, RG 472, NACP. The rank of senior 

colonel that Cam held was equivalent to the rank of brigadier general in the U.S. Army. 7 Su Dong 9 [9th Division] (Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1990), p. 96 (hereafter 

cited as 9th Division). 
49

Opening Moves: Battles North and West of Saigon

he was scheduled to take office. Second, Thai wanted to neutralize the Special 

Forces camp at Loc Ninh because it served as a staging point for intelligencegathering missions along the border. Finally, the operation would give Colonel 

Cam and his staff their first chance to command the entire 9th Division in 

battle. As enervating as guerrilla warfare was for the allies, Communist leaders 

believed that only large conventional forces would be able to destroy allied 

military forces and conquer South Vietnam. The operation would thus be a 

major step for COSVN on its quest to develop a conventional army that could 

execute complex, corps-size campaigns.8

The terrain around the district capital was well suited for the fight that Cam 

envisioned. Neat rows of mature rubber trees obscured the low rolling hills 

and gently flowing streams yet allowed easy movement for his foot soldiers. 

Some of the plantations were still in operation, while others had been abandoned during the war. The high weeds and tangled underbrush that choked 

these neglected sections offered extra opportunities for concealment. Beyond 

the plantations, a sea of jungle stretched outward in every direction. The tall 

trees and thick vegetation hid an elaborate network of trails that Colonel Cam 

could use to move troops rapidly from one part of the battlefield to another 

8

 Ibid.; Military History Institute of Vietnam, Victory in Vietnam: The Official History 

of the People’s Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975, vol. 2, trans. by Merle Pribbenow (Lawrence: 

University of Kansas Press, 2002), pp. 329–30; Thomas Cheatham and Richard V. Oliver, 

“Loc Ninh a Bloody Disaster for Reds,” Pacific Stars & Stripes, 5 Nov 1967. 

An overview of a CIDG compound and airstrip at Loc Ninh
Staying the Course

50

and with small risk of being detected. Moreover, there were few clearings in 

the jungle large enough to accommodate helicopters, so his troops would have 

an easier time predicting where the Americans were likely to land their forces. 

With both the Americans and the Communists planning operations in Binh 

Long Province, the stage was set for a major confrontation.9

 

The Battle for Loc Ninh

General Weyand officially launched his dry season campaign on 29 

September 1967 with Operation Shenandoah II—a two-brigade effort to 

secure and repair the entire length of Highway 13. The II Field Force commander needed to have the highway reliably open at least during the day before 

he could start placing his brigades along the Cambodian border. Simply put, 

the airfields in Binh Long and Phuoc Long Provinces were too small and too 

few in number to handle the quantity of supplies he would need for sustained 

combat operations. 

During the first weeks of October, the 1st and 3d Brigades from Maj. Gen. 

John H. Hay Jr.’s 1st Division secured the length of highway between Lai 

Khe and Chon Thanh along the 

border of Binh Duong and Binh 

Long Provinces. His forces also 

swept through the Long Nguyen 

Secret Zone, an enemy base area 

some fifty kilometers north of 

Saigon just west of the road. 

This action inadvertently interfered with the enemy’s plans. As 

it happened, Colonel Cam’s most 

reliable unit, the 271st Regiment, 

was in the Long Nguyen Secret 

Zone, waiting for a rice shipment 

as it returned from a mission in 

central Binh Duong Province. 

The commander of the 271st 

Regiment, feeling that there was 

no way to evade the Americans, 

struck first. On 17 October, the 

271st Regiment lured the 2d 

Battalion, 28th Infantry, into a 

devastating ambush near Ong 

Thanh, a small stream near the 

9

 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 1st Inf Div, n.d., p. 5, box 9, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd 

Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP. See also Information Brief, MACV Civil Operations 

and Revolutionary Development Support (MACCORDS), Binh Long Province, n.d., 

Revolutionary Development (RD) files, CMH.

Generals Westmoreland and Hay
51

Opening Moves: Battles North and West of Saigon

Binh Duong–Binh Long boundary. The enemy killed fifty-six U.S. soldiers, 

but the 271st Regiment lost many of its men to air and artillery strikes as it fled 

north to Cambodia after the battle. As a result, the battered and exhausted 

unit was in no condition to fight in the upcoming campaign.10

The next stage of Shenandoah II called for General Hay’s 1st and 3d 

Brigades to secure Highway 13 through An Loc, Binh Long’s capital, and 

up to Loc Ninh twenty-five kilometers farther north. Hay could then build a 

stockpile of supplies at Quan Loi, a forward base just east of An Loc, giving 

him the resources to support several brigades in the formerly inaccessible territory of northern Binh Long Province. Weyand put these plans on hold, however, as evidence grew that COSVN was preparing to launch a major offensive 

in northern III Corps.11

In late September and early October, small teams of Montagnard irregulars 

led by U.S. Special Forces soldiers based at the Loc Ninh border surveillance 

camp had discovered an engineer company from the 9th Division building what 

appeared to be a large hospital on the Song Be River several kilometers west 

of town. The patrols had also found elements of the 84A Artillery Regiment

camped within a few kilometers of Loc Ninh. This unit never operated without significant backup and usually only appeared during major battles. Most 

ominous of all, the allies obtained a document that claimed the 9th Division

would begin a major operation in Binh Long Province on or about 25 October. 

These findings, supplemented by radio intercepts, aerial infrared scans, and 

the recent clash with the 271st Regiment, led General Weyand to warn II Field 

Force units on 22 October that there was a “definite threat” to Loc Ninh and 

possibly to Song Be, a district capital in Phuoc Long Province some forty kilometers to the east. Weyand instructed General Hay to prepare a contingency 

plan should he need to defend either district capital.12

Colonel Cam opened the Communist dry season campaign in Military 

Region 10 shortly after midnight on 27 October when the 88th Regiment 

attacked Song Be. Mortar crews shelled the town, while two North Vietnamese 

battalions attacked the base camp of the South Vietnamese 5th Division that 

was located several kilometers southeast of the capital. Although the camp 

contained no more than 200 soldiers, their new battalion commander proved 

to be an aggressive leader. The government troops stood their ground with 

help from U.S. fighter-bombers and eventually threw the enemy back into the 

forest. When the defenders searched the battlefield at first light, they found 

134 North Vietnamese dead as well as 2 wounded soldiers. Government troops 

10 MacGarrigle, Taking the Offensive, October 1966 to October 1967, p. 361. 11 MFR, MACV, Ch of Staff, J–2, 4 Nov 67, sub: Current Intelligence and Indications 

Briefing (CIIB) Meeting, 4 Nov 67, Westmoreland History files, 24-10, CMH; CCP, 1968, an. 

B, pp. 1–2, Historians files, CMH; MACV Strategic Study, Sep 67–Sep 68, pp. 29, B17–B18, 

Historians files, CMH. 12 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 42, II FFV, 15–21 Oct 67, 22 Oct 67, an. F, p. 2 (quoted words), 

Historians files, CMH. See also MacGarrigle, Taking the Offensive, October 1966 to October 

1967, pp. 309–19; AAR, Assault on Loc Ninh, 29 Oct–4 Nov 67, Det B-33, 5th Special Forces 

(SF) Gp (Abn), 1st SF, 12 Nov 67, p. 2; AAR, Opn CIDG Kills, Co A, 5th SF Gp (Abn), 1st SF, 

14 Nov 67, p. 1. Both AARs are in Historians files, CMH.
Staying the Course

52

also collected seventy-three abandoned weapons, including three flamethrowers and ten machine guns. South Vietnamese losses amounted to twelve killed, 

of whom seven were civilian laborers.13

Later that day, a South Vietnamese ranger battalion flew into Song Be, 

as did the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry, a unit from the 1st Infantry Division 

that was based at Lai Khe in southern Binh Duong Province. When its commander, Lt. Col. Richard E. Cavazos, led his men through the surrounding 

countryside, they found recently used trails but no enemy soldiers. With the 

scent gone cold, the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry, returned to Lai Khe on the 

afternoon of 28 October.14

After darkness had fallen, Colonel Cam unleashed the 9th Division against 

Loc Ninh. At approximately one hour past midnight, a salvo of 122-mm. 

rockets and 82-mm. and 120-mm. mortar rounds slammed into the Special 

Forces camp and the South Vietnamese district headquarters. Some hit the 

town and set it ablaze. The defenders responded with their own mortar fire as 

news of the attack flashed from Loc Ninh to MACV headquarters (Map 5).

An hour later, a group of sappers emerged from the rubber trees west of 

the district headquarters. They sprinted across the open ground and detonated 

their satchel charges in the wire on the northern side of the compound before 

the defenders could drive them off. Two battalions from the 273d Regiment 

then charged out of the trees and scrambled through the openings. Buckling 

under the weight of the onslaught, the defenders pulled back into the southern 

square of the compound through a narrow connecting passage where they 

continued the fight. 

First on the scene to help the defenders was a pair of U.S. Army UH–1B 

Huey helicopter gunships, each equipped with side-mounted, forwardoriented 7.62-mm. machine guns. The gunships strafed the Viet Cong troops 

attacking the compound, using the patchwork of burning fires on the ground 

to orient their runs. The helicopters were soon joined by an AC–47 Spooky, 

a two-engine transport aircraft of World War II vintage that had been 

modified to carry a trio of six-barreled 7.62-mm. miniguns. The motorized 

Gatling-style guns that pointed out the left side of the aircraft were each 

capable of firing 6,000 rounds a minute. As the lumbering aircraft banked 

into a shallow counterclockwise turn, the weapons roared to life, sending 

ribbons of fire into the trees that concealed the enemy reserve force.

The aerial punishment was savage to behold but had no effect on the 

enemy soldiers who were already inside the compound. In desperation, the 

South Vietnamese district chief called an artillery barrage down on his own 

position. The shells he requested were not ordinary ones, however. The highexplosive rounds were armed with proximity fuses. Detonated by a radio signal 

a fraction of a second before hitting the ground, the shells filled the air with 

13 Minh et al., History of the Resistance War Against the Americans, p. 17; Periodic Intel 

Rpt no. 44, II FFV, 29 Oct–4 Nov 67, 5 Nov 67, an. B, Historians files, CMH. 14 AAR, Opn Shenandoah II, 3d Bde, 1st Inf Div, 7 Dec 67, p. 6, attached to AAR, 

Opn Shenandoah II, 1st Inf Div, 12 Apr 68, box 30, AARs, 1965–1971, Cmd Historian, HQ, 

USARV, RG 472, NACP.
273(-)

PLAF

III

273(-)

PLAF

III

A 6-15

I

2 28(-)

I I

LOC NINH Special Forces Camp

Howitzer

South Vietnamese Subsector Headquarters

13

13

to FSB DICK

A B A N D O N E D 

Xa Loc Thien

Loc Ninh

BAT TLE OF LOC NINH

29 October 1967

0

0 1 Kilometer

Mile 1

Fireght 

Enemy Axis of Attack, 0200 Hours

Air Assault Counterattack, 0900 Hours

Military Installation

0 100 150 200 and Above

ELEVATION IN METERS

Map 5
Staying the Course

54

white-hot fragments that did no harm to the defenders in their bunkers but 

sowed havoc on the Viet Cong fighting in the open. When the barrage ended, 

U.S. F–100 Super Sabre fighter-bombers dropped cluster bombs into the trees 

west of the compound to prevent enemy reinforcements from coming up. The 

combination of artillery and air strikes finally broke the enemy’s endurance. 

The main body of the 273d Regiment withdrew around 0400.15

When the sun rose, the South Vietnamese defenders discovered that some 

of the bunkers in their compound still contained Viet Cong troops. The wornout Regional Forces soldiers waited until a Montagnard company from the 

Special Forces camp and two companies of regulars flown in from the South 

Vietnamese 5th Infantry Division showed up to finish the job. The U.S. advisers brought armloads of M72 light antitank weapons from their camp to help 

clear out the bunkers. The job took several hours to complete; not a single Viet 

Cong soldier surrendered. Of the 135 enemy bodies that the allies recovered in 

Loc Ninh after the battle, 92 came from the northern half of the district compound. The South Vietnamese lost eight killed and thirty-three wounded.16

Later that morning, the U.S. 1st Infantry Division sent a battery of 105-mm. 

howitzers and two companies from the 2d Battalion, 28th Infantry, to set up a 

firebase near the southwest corner of Loc Ninh’s airstrip. The battery went into 

action around 0950. Its first job was to soften up a landing zone some 3,500 

meters to the northwest near the hamlet of Srok Silamite for Colonel Cavazos’ 

1st Battalion, 18th Infantry. Cavazos landed his battalion unopposed a short 

time later. His infantrymen quickly staked out a defensive perimeter and began 

digging bunkers as helicopters flew in a battery of 105-mm. howitzers, the weap15 AAR, Attacks on Loc Ninh SF Camp, 21st Mil Hist Det, 5th SF Gp (Abn), 23 Dec 67, 

pp. 4, 6, Encl 3, box 21, AARs, 1965–1971, Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 16 Ibid., p. 9; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 44, II FFV, p. 8.

An AC–47 Spooky gunship at Nha Trang Air Base
55

Opening Moves: Battles North and West of Saigon

ons and all of their ammunition slung like yo-yos on a rope 

beneath the aircraft.17

At 1200, one of the 

Montagnard companies from 

Loc Ninh radioed that it had 

made contact with a North 

Vietnamese platoon some 1,000 

meters to the north of the landing zone. Cavazos immediately 

sent Company C to trap the 

enemy. Moving quickly through 

the evenly spaced rubber trees, 

his company slammed into the 

enemy platoon from behind, 

killing nine soldiers and dispersing the rest. When two more 

North Vietnamese platoons 

counterattacked, Cavazos sent 

Company D to turn the enemy’s flank. The outnumbered 

Communists soon fled, leaving behind five more bodies. 

Captured documents indicated 

that the men were from the

165th PAVN Regiment, two battalions of which General Thai 

had assigned to Colonel Cam, 

along with several hundred fillers from the 141st Regiment,

to make up for the loss of the 

271st Regiment.

18

When Colonel Cam learned that U.S. units were searching the rubber 

trees four kilometers from Loc Ninh, he dispatched more troops to engage 

them. The following morning, a battalion from the 165th Regiment pounced 

on Company A from the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry, as it was reconnoitering 

the area around the landing zone. Cavazos immediately sent Company D and 

a company of Montagnards to the rescue. The relief force helped Company A 

push the enemy back to a low hill where the North Vietnamese soldiers took 

17 This section is based on AAR, Opn Shenandoah II, 1st Inf Div, an. B, p. 17, and D. 

After Action Interv, 17th Mil Hist Det with Lt Col Richard E. Cavazos, Cdr, 1st Bn, 18th Inf, 

Capt Carl W. Robinson, Cdr, Co A, 1st Bn, 18th Inf, Capt William M. Annan, Cdr, Co C, 

1st Bn, 18th Inf, and Capt Charles H. Carden, Cdr, Co D, 1st Bn, 18th Inf, n.d., sub: Battle of 

Srok Silamite, Vietnam Interv 144, Historians files, CMH; ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 1st Inf 

Div, p. 11; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 44, II FFV, pp. 8–9. 18 AAR, Opn Shenandoah II, 1st Inf Div, pp. 17–18; John H. Hay Jr., Tactical and Materiel 

Innovations, Vietnam Studies (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 1974), pp. 42–56.

A soldier carrying an M72 antitank weapon
Staying the Course

56

refuge in some shallow irrigation trenches. The allied soldiers gave air strikes 

and helicopter gunships a chance to soften up the hill before they resumed 

their advance (Map 6). 

The lightly armed Montagnards rarely got the chance to overpower an 

entire North Vietnamese battalion, so they attacked with particular zeal. 

Many used up their ammunition so quickly that they began picking up AK47 

and RPD light machine guns from dead enemy soldiers to continue the fight. 

One soldier even snatched a .45-caliber pistol from a surprised U.S. officer 

and then charged a North Vietnamese machine gunner who was pinned down 

under heavy fire. When the pistol failed to chamber a round, the Montagnard 

soldier pistol-whipped the man senseless.19

The ferocity of the charge proved too much for the North Vietnamese. 

They fled into a gully where many died from a rain of artillery shells, cluster 

bombs, and napalm canisters. The allies found eighty-three enemy dead and 

captured thirty-two weapons.20

General Hay pored over the intelligence that trickled into the 1st 

Division headquarters looking for signs of the enemy’s next move. From 

captured documents and prisoner interrogation reports, Hay knew that he 

faced the 165th and 273d Regiments along with elements from the 141st 

Regiment. The 88th Regiment remained a threat to Song Be, and Hay was 

now learning that the headquarters of the 5th PLAF Division and its 275th 

Regiment were marching toward that area as well. There were also signs 

that the 5th Division had taken operational control of the 88th Regiment, 

raising the possibility that the enemy might open a new front in Phuoc 

Long Province while the 9th Division continued its campaign in Binh Long. 

For the moment, however, Hay’s greatest concern was another attack on 

Loc Ninh.21

Hay ordered the commander of the 1st Brigade, Col. George E. Newman, 

to move his headquarters to Quan Loi, a staging area and airstrip in central 

Binh Long Province, where he would take charge of the coming fight. At that 

point, the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry, was west of the district capital, while a 

company from the 2d Battalion, 28th Infantry, guarded the artillery firebase at 

the airfield. Colonel Newman’s 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry, and the remainder 

of the 2d Battalion, 28th Infantry, waited at Quan Loi.22

Colonel Newman did not have long to wait for Cam’s next move. 

Shortly after midnight on 31 October, a hail of rockets and mortar shells 

crashed into the district compound, the Special Forces camp, and the 1st 

Division artillery firebase at the south end of the Loc Ninh airfield. The 

bombardment was more accurate than it had been two nights before. At the 

19 Interv, 21st Mil Hist Det with M Sgt Thurman D. Ramy et al., n.d., sub: The Battle of 

Loc Ninh, pp. 171, 176, Vietnam Interv 166 Transcribed, Historians files, CMH. 20 AAR, Opn Shenandoah II, 1st Inf Div, pp. 18–19. 21 AAR, Opn Shenandoah II, 1st Bde, 1st Inf Div, 8 Dec 67, p. 11, Historians files, CMH; 

Periodic Intel Rpt no. 43, II FFV, 22–28 Oct 68, 28 Oct 68, p. 2, Historians files, CMH; 

Periodic Intel Rpt no. 44, II FFV, pp. 1–3; Interv, George L. MacGarrigle with Lt Gen John 

D. Hay, former Commanding General (CG), 1st Inf Div, 29 Apr 80, Historians files, CMH. 22 Hay, Tactical and Materiel Innovations, p. 47.
165(-)

PAVN

III

165(-)

PAVN

III

273

PLAF

III

272(-)

PLAF

III

272(-)

PLAF

III

272(-)

PLAF

III

1 26

I I

B 2–33

I

1 18

I I

A 2–33

I

2 28(-)

I I

A 6–15

I

C 1–7

I

1 16

I I

2 12

I I

C 2–13

I

1 28

I I

2–33

I

7 Nov

30 Oct 

2 Nov

3 Nov

LOC NINH

31 Oct 

LOC NINH

Special Forces Camp

14

14

13

13

N

A

B

A

NO

D

DE

Ap Loc Thanh (2)

Xa Loc Thien

Ap Loc Thanh (1)

Loc Ninh

OPERATION SHENANDOAH II

PHASE II

30 October–19 November 1967

Fireght Enemy Axis of AttackMilitary InstallationUnit Field Location

0

0 2 1 Kilometers

Miles 2 1

0 100 150 200 and Above

ELEVATION IN METERS

Map 6
Staying the Course

58

Special Forces camp, no fewer than six 122-mm. rockets exploded inside or 

near the compound in the opening moments of the battle. As the barrage 

tapered off, a swarm of helicopter gunships and a Spooky arrived over 

Loc Ninh to strafe the surrounding forests. They were met by blistering 

fire from the heavy machine guns of the 208th Anti-Aircraft Battalion; one 

forward air controller later said it was the heaviest antiaircraft fire he had 

ever seen in Vietnam.23

Two hours later, several hundred troops from the 272d Regiment emerged 

from the tree line on the eastern side of the airfield. They came under interlocking fire from the two allied camps on the west side of the runway and the 

1st Division outpost at the south end. The American artillerymen exploded 

proximity-fuse shells over the heads of the advancing soldiers, while the infantrymen at the firebase fired directly at them with three 106-mm. recoilless rifles 

and a pair of .50-caliber machine guns.24

Although the enemy took terrible losses, several dozen soldiers made it 

across the airfield and attacked the district headquarters compound. Using 

straw mats to slither over the concertina wire that surrounded the headquarters, the platoon-size force fought its way into the compound. With no more 

Viet Cong troops coming up behind to help them, however, the group retreated 

23 AAR, Attacks on Loc Ninh SF Camp, 21st Mil Hist Det, 5th SF Gp (Abn), p. 13; Su 

Doan 7: Ky Su [7th Division: A Record] (Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1986), p. 43 

(hereafter cited as 7th Division), copy in Historians files, CMH. 24 AAR, Attacks on Loc Ninh SF Camp, 21st Mil Hist Det, 5th SF Gp (Abn), p. 14.

Soldiers prepare to load a 106-mm. recoilless rifle.
59

Opening Moves: Battles North and West of Saigon

less than twenty minutes later. The fighting continued until dawn when the 

272d Regiment withdrew east, leaving behind 110 dead. Friendly losses came 

to nine killed and fifty-nine wounded.25

The defenders did not realize it at the time, but they were the recipients of 

some good luck that night. The 165th Regiment had been scheduled to join the 

attack, but its guides had become lost in the seemingly endless rows of rubber 

trees. The regiment never made it to the fight.26

At first light, Colonel Newman organized a pursuit of the 272d Regiment

by sending the 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry, commanded by Lt. Col. James 

F. Cochran III, into a clearing two kilometers southeast of Loc Ninh. The 

unit built a sturdy firebase using sandbags and wood-reinforced bunkers 

before going in search of the enemy. Over the next two days, patrols from 

the 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry, killed a total of eleven enemy soldiers, but 

the main body of the 272d remained out of sight.27

On the evening of 1 November, elements from the 84A Artillery Regiment

hit Loc Ninh with mortar and rocket fire. When the barrage ended, a battalion from 272d Regiment peppered the district compound with machine 

gun fire. The attacks were a ruse. Cam revealed his true hand around thirty 

minutes after midnight when 82-mm. mortar shells began to pummel the 

firebase of the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry. From the ambush teams that 

Colonel Cavazos had placed on nearby trails he learned that hundreds of 

Viet Cong were converging on the firebase. After making their hushed radio 

calls, the ambush teams detonated the claymore mines that they had hidden 

along the trails, shredding dozens of unwary Viet Cong troops. The scouts 

then slunk away as the enemy columns pressed on toward their target.28

When the Viet Cong reached the firebase, they raked it with small 

arms fire, first from one direction and then from another, to provoke the 

Americans into firing back and thus reveal their positions. The trick failed 

because Cavazos had already warned his men to hold their fire. They 

could see by the light of the parachute flares now drifting down that the 

ground attack had not yet begun. When enemy mortar crews went into 

action, Cavazos brought in helicopter gunships to silence them. When U.S. 

fighter-bombers swooped in to drop their ordnance, at least twelve Viet 

Cong heavy machine guns blasted back in defiance, sending streams of 

deadly green tracers into the sky. The fighters immediately focused on the 

new threat and took out the antiaircraft weapons with several well-aimed 

bombing runs.

At 0415, the 273d Regiment finally launched its main assault. Several 

hundred screaming soldiers charged the perimeter. Cavazos now turned his 

men loose. Claymore mines and machine guns scythed into the advancing 

force, killing many attackers, including three Viet Cong soldiers who were 

25 AAR, Opn Shenandoah II, 1st Inf Div, p. 19; Interv, 21st Mil Hist Det with Ramy et 

al., p. 54. 26 7th Division, p. 43. 27 AAR, Opn Shenandoah II, 1st Inf Div, p. 20. 28 Ibid., pp 19–20; Interv, 17th Mil Hist Det with Cavazos et al., p. 5.
Staying the Course

60

armed with Soviet-made flamethrowers. The defensive fire was simply too 

much and the 273d Regiment called off the attack thirty minutes later. Taking 

advantage of what darkness remained, the depleted regiment slipped away 

toward Cambodia. 

The next morning, the Americans recovered 263 enemy dead from the battlefield. Numerous drag marks and blood trails hinted at even greater losses for the 

273d Regiment, now on the verge of being combat ineffective. U.S. losses were 

remarkably light: one killed and eight wounded. Colonel Cavazos had executed 

a nearly textbook example of how to defeat a numerically superior enemy force 

at night through a combination of timely intelligence, excellent troop discipline, a 

well-organized defense, and accurate supporting fire.29

Seeing that Cam was eager for a fight, General Hay gave Colonel Newman 

operational control over the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry, from the 3d Brigade of 

the 1st Infantry Division. Commanded by Lt. Col. Arthur D. Stigall, the battalion 

made an unopposed helicopter landing four kilometers northwest of Loc Ninh 

on 2 November. Through General Weyand, Hay also gave Newman control over 

the 2d Battalion, 12th Infantry, from the 3d Brigade, 25th Infantry Division. Led 

by Lt. Col. Ralph D. Tice, the unit made an uncontested landing six kilometers 

northeast of Loc Ninh on the same day. With their arrival, four U.S. infantry 

battalions now formed a box around Loc Ninh. Confident that the town now had 

enough men to repel another attack, and with a South Vietnamese ranger battalion set to arrive there the following day, Hay’s next step was to locate the three 

enemy regiments still lurking somewhere near the district capital.30

Cam lost no time going on the attack. That evening he sent the 1st Battalion

of the 272d Regiment to assault the 2d Battalion, 12th Infantry, northeast of 

town, hoping that the firebase would be only half built. Colonel Tice and his men 

worked quickly, however, finishing their foxholes and bunkers by 0230 when the 

enemy attacked. Unable to close in on the position and punished by air and artillery strikes, the enemy withdrew from the field around 0400. He left fifty-seven 

dead on the field, and seven wounded Viet Cong soldiers became prisoners of war. 

American losses came to four killed.31

When the next several days passed without contact, Newman used the lull to 

rearrange his forces. On 6 November, he ordered the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry, 

to dismantle its firebase northwest of Loc Ninh where there had been no enemy 

sightings and to establish a new base northeast of town. Newman instructed the 

unit’s commander, Colonel Stigall, to probe eastward where he thought the 272d 

Regiment was regrouping. Just south of Stigall’s location, the 1st Battalion, 28th 

Infantry, continued to shield the eastern approaches to Loc Ninh. With two of 

29 AAR, Opn Shenandoah II, 1st Bde, 1st Inf Div, p. 12; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 44, II FFV, 

p. 9. The 273d Regiment lost an estimated 600 men between 29 October and 2 November 1967. 30 Interv, MacGarrigle with Lt Gen (Ret.) Fillmore K. Mearns, CG, 25th Inf Div, 27 May 

76, Historians files, CMH; AAR, Opn Shenandoah II, 1st Inf Div, an. F and H. 31 AAR, Opn Shenandoah II, 1st Bde, 1st Inf Div, an. F, pp. 12–15, Encl to AAR, Opn 

Shenandoah II, 1st Inf Div; AAR, Opn Shenandoah II, 1st Inf Div, pp. 21–22; Capt Richard 

W. Flanagan, “Shenandoah II,” Danger Forward, 1st Inf Div, vol. 2, no. 2, Jun 68, p. 17, 

Historians files, CMH; Interv, MacGarrigle with Maj Gen R. Dean Tice, Cdr, 2d Bn, 12th 

Inf, 25th Inf Div, 3 Feb and 9 Mar 81, Historians files, CMH.
61

Opening Moves: Battles North and West of Saigon

Newman’s battalions interposed between the Viet Cong and the district capital, 

he felt at liberty to move the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry, from Loc Ninh back to 

Quan Loi and to fly the 2d Battalion, 12th Infantry, east to Song Be just in case 

Cam was tempted to move in that direction. A portion of the 2d Battalion, 28th 

Infantry, remained in Loc Ninh to man the artillery base at the airfield.32

Stigall began his search for the 272d Regiment on the morning of 7 November. 

Leaving Company A to guard his new base, he marched the rest of his battalion 

west down a dirt road flanked on the left by a plantation and on the right by 

jungle. Other than an occasional sniper round whipping through the air, there was 

no sign of the enemy. 

At 1305, three hours into the march, the colonel decided to turn his column 

northeast into the rubber trees. The lead company had barely entered the forest 

when dozens of Viet Cong soldiers from the 3d Battalion, 272d Regiment, sprang 

their ambush. Enemy small arms and machine guns raked the exposed Americans 

crowded on the road. A salvo of rocket-propelled grenades killed Stigall and his 

battalion command group. Enemy fire also wounded two of his company commanders and put most of the U.S. radios out of action.

One of the few officers remaining was the commander of Company D, Capt. 

Raymond H. Dobbins, who happened to be at the rear of the column and thus 

outside the main killing zone. When enemy soldiers attempted to curl around 

Company D’s position to roll up the left flank of the American line, Dobbins 

repositioned some of his men to block the maneuver. One of those men was Sgt. 

Robert F. Stryker of Company C, who 

helped foil the assault with well-aimed 

shots from his M79 grenade launcher. 

Later he threw himself on a grenade just 

before it exploded, sacrificing his own life 

to save several wounded comrades. For his 

actions he received the Medal of Honor.33

After checking the Viet Cong flanking 

attack, Captain Dobbins assumed temporary command of the battalion, calling in 

air and artillery strikes as he reorganized 

his men and moved them back some one 

hundred meters to a more defensible position on higher ground. The enemy fought 

for another hour before breaking contact, 

leaving behind sixty-six of his dead. The 

1st Battalion, 26th Infantry, had sustained 

eighteen killed and twenty-two wounded. 

After flying out those casualties, bringing 

in new supplies, and reorganizing the battalion, Colonel Newman decided that the 

32 AAR, Opn Shenandoah II, 1st Inf Div, an. B. 33 U.S. Senate, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Medal of Honor Recipients, 1863–1973 

(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1973), p. 931.

Robert Stryker 

(shown here as a private)
Staying the Course

62

unit was still capable of performing its mission, and so kept it in the field. When 

no further contact with the enemy took place around Loc Ninh over the next 

few days, General Hay concluded that the battle-worn units of the 9th Division

were heading back to Cambodia. The week-long battle for Loc Ninh was over.34

Second Wave at Song Be and Bo Duc

Even as the 9th PLAF Division began withdrawing from Loc Ninh, elements of the 5th PLAF Division were massing near Song Be town, some 

forty kilometers to the east. The 275th Regiment arrived from War Zone D 

in southern Phuoc Long Province to join the 88th Regiment, now attached 

to the 5th Division. The second phase of Military Region 10’s campaign to 

improve the security of Communist lines of communications into III Corps 

was about to unfold.

On the morning of 6 November, elements from the 275th Regiment 

ambushed a company from the South Vietnamese 5th Infantry Division that 

was stationed south of Song Be. The enemy continued the fight even when 

South Vietnamese reinforcements arrived. The two sides became intermingled, 

preventing the allies from using air and artillery strikes, but the government 

soldiers eventually prevailed. They claimed to have killed 265 enemy soldiers. 

That figure is in doubt because airpower and artillery, which together usually 

inflict the most casualties in a battle, played little or no role here. Whatever 

the truth, South Vietnamese losses were significant: fifty-four dead, fifty-five 

wounded, and fifteen missing in action.35

General Weyand thought something big might be brewing because the 

275th Regiment did not usually operate this far to the north. With General 

Hay’s 1st and 3d Brigades of the 1st Infantry Division fully committed to Binh 

Long Province, Weyand ordered two battalions from the 25th Infantry Division 

to sweep the area around Song Be. After two fruitless weeks of searching, he 

called off the effort and returned the two battalions to their parent brigades.36

Just as the two battalions left Song Be, trail watchers observed a new enemy 

regiment (later identified as the 271st Regiment) moving into the area. They 

also detected a large number of Communist troops building fortifications near 

Bu Gia Map, an abandoned hamlet twenty-eight kilometers northeast of Song 

Be that had a small airfield formerly used by the Special Forces. The enemy, it 

appeared, was gearing up for a new campaign in Phuoc Long Province.37

More evidence supporting that view came on 25 November when part of 

the 275th Regiment attacked the South Vietnamese Army camp south of Song 

34 AAR, Opn Shenandoah II, 1st Bde, 1st Div, pp. 8, 14–15; AAR, Opn Shenandoah II, 

1st Inf Div, an. A, pp. 22–23, and G; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 45, II FFV, 5–11 Nov 67, 11 Nov 67, 

an. F, p. 2, Historians files, CMH. See Flanagan, “Shenandoah II,” pp. 18–20. 35 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 45, II FFV, pp.1, 3, 9.

36 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 25th Inf Div, n.d., p. 3, box 71, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd 

Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP; AAR, Opn Kolekole, 2d Bde, 25th Inf Div, 29 Dec 

67, pp. 28–30, box 18, AARs, Asst Ch of Staff, J–3, MACV, RG 472, NACP. 37 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 46, II FFV, 12–18 Nov 67, 12 Nov 67, p. 4, Historians files, CMH.
63

Opening Moves: Battles North and West of Saigon

Be. The fight lasted more than four hours, resulting in approximately one hundred enemy dead. That attack, it later turned out, was a diversion. Cam’s real 

targets were Bo Duc, a district capital some twenty kilometers northwest of 

Song Be, and the neighboring Special Forces camp at Bu Dop, located two 

kilometers to the north of Bo Duc.38

Cam’s plan was similar to the one he had used at Loc Ninh. The 272d 

Regiment was to overrun Bo Duc and destroy the district headquarters. 

Following that, the 271st and the 273d Regiments would assault the nearby 

Special Forces camp at Bu Dop and fight any reinforcements that might 

land at its small airfield. The major shortcoming in Cam’s plan was the 

weakened state of his division. His regiments were short on manpower, 

despite receiving several hundred North Vietnamese fillers in the intervening weeks. It remained to be seen whether his battered division could rise 

to the occasion.39

Cam’s preparations did not go unnoticed. On 26 and 28 November, 

Montagnard troops from Bo Duc observed unidentified enemy forces moving 

through the area. General Hay believed that the 88th and 275th Regiments

were hovering near Song Be, but the 9th Division had dropped out of sight 

after the Loc Ninh battle. Hay could not discount the possibility that Cam 

had snuck into Phuoc Long Province in the intervening weeks. He decided to 

wait for the situation to develop before committing troops to either Song Be 

or Bo Duc.40

The answer came shortly after midnight on 29 November. The second 

phase of Cam’s dry season campaign began when the 2d and 3d Battalions of 

the 272d Regiment attacked the Bo Duc District headquarters, a fortified compound defended by a reconnaissance company from the South Vietnamese 

5th Division, a company of Regional Forces soldiers, and two Popular Forces 

platoons. Viet Cong mortar fire prevented the Montagnard soldiers stationed 

at the nearby Bu Dop Special Forces camp from reinforcing the embattled 

district headquarters. 

The enemy attacked the compound from multiple directions to take advantage of his superior numbers. The tactic worked. A group of Viet Cong troops 

fought its way through the southern perimeter and forced the defenders to 

regroup in the northern half of the compound. The U.S. adviser attached to 

the reconnaissance company, Capt. Harold E. Bolin, repeatedly exposed himself to hostile fire to direct air strikes against Viet Cong machine gun positions. 

When the situation became critical, he called down napalm and 750-pound 

bombs a mere seventy-five meters from his location to prevent the enemy from 

overrunning the compound. The air strike landed on target, violently jarring 

38 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 47, II FFV, 19–25 Nov 67, 25 Nov 67, p. 2; Periodic Intel Rpt, 

MACV, J–2, 1–30 Nov 67, Nov 67, p. 4. Both in Historians files, CMH. 39 Rpt, Asst Ch of Staff, G–2, USARV, 5 Feb 70, sub: History of the 273 VC Regiment, p. 

15, Historians files, CMH. 40 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 48, II FFV, 26 Nov–2 Dec 67, 2 Dec 67, p. 2, Historians files, 

CMH.
Staying the Course

64

the government soldiers in their bunkers but also killing many Viet Cong 

troops caught in the open. 

When the defenders saw the enemy waver, they counterattacked and drove 

him back into the jungle. Both Communist battalions broke contact around 

0630, leaving behind ninety-six dead. Friendly losses came to fifteen killed and 

fifty-seven wounded.41

Allied reinforcements arrived the next afternoon, 29 November, in several 

flights of helicopters. Two infantry battalions from the South Vietnamese 5th 

Division took up defensive positions in the town, while General Hay sent Colonel 

Cochran’s 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry, as well as Battery A from the 2d Battalion, 

33d Artillery, equipped with 105-mm. howitzers, from Quan Loi to Bu Dop. The 

U.S. units established a firebase at the northwestern end of the runway. 

The enemy tested the American position later that night. Shortly after 

2200, a salvo of mortar rounds and 122-mm. rockets plunged into the firebase. One rocket landed squarely on a bunker, killing all four of its occupants. 

When the bombardment ended, hundreds of Viet Cong soldiers from the 3d 

Battalion, 271st Regiment, and elements of the 80A Replacement and Training 

Regiment emerged from rubber trees on the eastern side of the runway. As 

they crossed the open ground that separated the woods from the firebase, 

a distance of some 200 meters, the American artillery crews depressed their 

howitzer barrels and fired directly into the onrushing infantry. Small arms 

and machine gun fire from the 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry, brought down 

more Communist troops, but still the enemy pressed his assault.42

Minutes later, the besieged Americans heard the thump of rotor blades 

as a pair of helicopter gunships arrived overhead. A dozen or more enemy 

antiaircraft machine guns greeted the aircraft, but their pilots evaded the 

ribbons of fire that streamed skyward. Keen-eyed helicopter crews spotted 

a cluster of enemy mortars firing from a soccer field in a nearby hamlet. 

Several strafing runs disabled the weapons and decimated their operators. A 

flight of F–100 fighter-bombers thundered in low to tear at the enemy-held 

woods with bombs and cannon fire. The enemy assault faltered and soon 

Viet Cong soldiers were scurrying back into the forest. By 0030 almost all 

of the shooting had stopped. U.S. casualties were seven killed and eleven 

wounded. The Communists left behind thirty-one bodies. Enemy prisoners 

later reported that the rest of the 271st and the entire 272d Regiment had 

been lurking nearby during the engagement to exploit any breakthrough 

that occurred.43

Despite the drubbing he had administered to the 9th Division so far, 

General Hay doubted Colonel Cam was ready to give up just yet. During the 

41 Ibid.; ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, II FFV, 12 Apr 68, p. 36, box 18, ORLLs, 1966–1971, 

Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP; Recommendation for Award, G–2 Adviser, 

Advisory Team 70, South Viet 5th Inf Div Advisory Det, n.d., sub: Capt. Harold E. Bolin, 

Distinguished Service Cross, Awards Br, Mil Personnel Div, Adjutant Gen sec., USARV, RG 

472, NACP. 42 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 1st Inf Div, pp. 8–9; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 49, II FFV, 3–9 

Dec 67, 9 Dec 67, p. 10, Historians files, CMH. 43 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 1st Inf Div, pp. 8–9.
65

Opening Moves: Battles North and West of Saigon

next week, allied patrols continued to clash with enemy forces around Bo Duc, 

and each night mortar shells landed in the town. Believing that a second and 

larger attack against the district capital might still be in the offing, Hay sent 

the 2d Battalion, 28th Infantry, and a 4.2-inch mortar platoon to fortify a 

second firebase at the Bu Dop airstrip on 4 December. Two days later, he sent 

the 1st Battalion, 2d Infantry, under the command of Lt. Col. Mortimer L. 

O’Connor, and Battery B, 1st Battalion, 5th Artillery, to establish a firebase 

southeast of Bo Duc where enemy activity had been spotted.

Viet Cong soldiers were indeed in that area. An hour after midnight on 

8 December, the 3d Battalion, 273d Regiment, attacked the firebase of the 

1st Battalion, 2d Infantry, with the main assault party advancing behind a 

steady barrage of rocket-propelled grenades. U.S. artillery, using the minimum 

amount of propellant possible because the engagement range was so short, 

tore through the enemy with high-explosive shells and prevented him from 

reaching the outer wire. After taking further losses from air strikes, helicopter gunships, and 4.2-inch mortars, the enemy withdrew around 0300. The 

Americans counted forty-nine enemy dead the next day against their own loss 

of four killed. When B–52 bombers began to pound the area around Bo Duc 

and Bu Dop, Colonel Cam finally decided it was time to withdraw back into 

Cambodia for rest and refitting.44

The second phase of the Military Region 10 campaign had not gone well 

for the enemy. Between 25 November and 8 December, the Communists 

had lost at least 400 men and possibly up to twice that number at Song 

Be, Bo Duc, and Bu Dop in unsuccessful attacks on fixed allied positions. 

Their only success had occurred on 5 December when a battalion from the 

44 Ibid., p. 9; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 49, II FFV, pp. 10–11.

An F–100D Super Sabre releases a napalm bomb over a rain forest canopy 

in South Vietnam.
Staying the Course

66

88th Regiment had attacked a Montagnard refugee camp called Dak Son, 

located just north of Song Be. In the days preceding the attack, Viet Cong 

propagandists had warned the villagers to return to their original village in 

Cambodia so they could provide manpower and food for the Communists. 

The Stieng tribesmen, who had repulsed three Viet Cong attacks earlier 

in the year, refused to leave, but this time the enemy came in overwhelming strength. The North Vietnamese soldiers burned down the hamlet with 

flamethrowers, killing more than 200 women and children and abducting 

at least 400 villagers.45

Thunder Road 

As the 5th and 9th PLAF Divisions fought their battles at Song Be and 

Bo Duc in late November and early December, the 7th PAVN Division, commanded by Senior Col. Nguyen Hoa, tried to cut Highway 13, the allies’ main 

supply route in Binh Long and Phouc Long Provinces. If Hoa succeeded, he 

would undercut Weyand’s dry season offensive by making it impossible for II 

Field Force to sustain operations along the border. 

The 7th Division’s main adversary was the 3d Brigade, 1st Division, which 

had spent the last several months reopening the road between An Loc, a district capital in southern Binh Long Province, and the brigade’s headquarters at 

Lai Khe, a distance of some seventy kilometers. The 3d Brigade operated from 

a series of firebases named Caisson I through VII built at ten-kilometer intervals along that stretch of highway. Early every morning, detachments would 

emerge from these bases to check for mines or other damage the Communists 

might have done to the road the previous night. Within two hours the road 

would be ready for civilian and military traffic. Troops would occasionally 

search communities along the road for enemy agents, while other soldiers distributed propaganda and performed civic actions. As dusk approached, traffic 

would be stopped and curfews imposed. Hamlet gates would be locked and 

positions secured against the possibility of nighttime harassment by enemy 

mortars. Through the subsequent hours of darkness, the brigade would use 

tower-mounted radar to detect, and mortars to disrupt, enemy activity along 

the road. It would also deploy troops to temporary positions between the 

firebases to further discourage enemy meddling during the night. Still other 

artillery would launch harassment and interdiction fire against suspected 

enemy areas of activity. Then, when the dawn again crept over the horizon, 

the brigade would repeat the process all over again in what had proven to be a 

highly successful system.46

Colonel Hoa made his opening move against Highway 13 on 24 November. 

Shortly after midnight, the 165th Regiment sent its 2d Battalion to overrun a 

45 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, II FFV, pp. 12–15, 20, 36–37; Pamphlet, United States 

Information Service (USIS), Massacre at Dak Son, n.d., Historians files, CMH. 46 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 3d Bde and Lai Khe Base, 1st Inf Div, 8 Feb 68, pp. 1, 10; 

ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 1st Inf Div, 31 Jan 68, p. 15. Both in Historians files, CMH.
67

Opening Moves: Battles North and West of Saigon

night defense position on the shoulder of Highway 13, some twelve kilometers 

south of An Loc. Company B of the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry, manned the 

position, assisted by a platoon from the 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry, consisting of three M48A3 tanks and four M113 armored personnel carriers, and 

two platoons from the 2d Battalion, 2d Infantry (Mechanized), equipped with 

eleven M113s.47

When the North Vietnamese attacked, the armored vehicles that ringed 

the perimeter exacted a fearful toll on them. Rocket-propelled grenades hit 

several of the vehicles but did not put any of them out of action. Enemy 

sappers were unable to reach the wire in order to blow gaps for the infantry behind them. Pinned down by the tremendous volume of fire emanating 

from the base, the North Vietnamese became easy targets for artillery and 

tactical air strikes. When helicopter gunships and Spooky aircraft joined the 

action, the North Vietnamese commander called off the attack and withdrew his men around 0145. The enemy left behind fifty-seven dead and a 

large amount of equipment. American losses came to four killed. Hoa’s first 

effort had failed.48

Nine days later, Hoa sent his 141st Regiment into action against a second 

night defense position that was three kilometers south of his first target. This 

second outpost might have appeared to be an easier target because it contained 

a smaller force, Company D, 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry, and one mechanized 

platoon from Company C of the 2d Battalion, 2d Infantry. Shortly after midnight on 3 December, the 1st Battalion, 141st Regiment, stormed the perimeter and got inside the wire before being driven back by defensive fire and 

an onslaught of artillery, air strikes, and helicopter gunships. The Americans 

lost seven killed while claiming at least twenty-seven North Vietnamese 

lives. Perhaps helping to explain the relatively modest enemy body count, 

the Americans discovered several hundred fighting holes approximately 200 

meters from the camp that would have been fairly effective in sheltering the 

enemy from allied bombs and shells.49

A week later, Colonel Hoa gave his 165th Regiment another chance. The 

target this time was Caisson VI, situated in the Xa Cat Rubber Plantation six 

kilometers south of An Loc. The base contained two artillery units, Battery 

A of the 6th Battalion, 15th Artillery, equipped with 105-mm. howitzers, and 

Battery C of the 8th Battalion, 6th Artillery, armed with 155-mm. howitzers. 

Company A from the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry, protected the camp along 

with three M48A3 tanks and four M113 armored personnel carriers from 

Troop A of the 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry, which were dug into fighting positions along the outer perimeter (Map 7).50

Two hours after midnight on 10 December, a barrage of 75-mm. recoilless rifles and 82-mm. and 120-mm. mortars slammed into the firebase. When 

the bombardment lifted, a mass of North Vietnamese soldiers assaulted 

47 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 47, II FFV, p. 10; ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 1st Inf Div, p. 6. 

48 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 1st Inf Div, pp. 6–7.

49 Ibid., p. 7.

50 Ibid.
165(-)

PAVN

III

165(-)

PAVN

III

165(-)

PAVN

III

A 1-18

I

A 6-15

I

C 8-6

I

3 C/1–4

to Highway 13

BREACH ZONE

Firebase Perimeter 

10 December 1967

SKETCH NOT TO SCALE

BAT TLE OF CAISSON VI

Bermed 105-mm. Towed Howitzer 

155-mm. Self-Propelled Howitzer

M48 Tank

M113 Armored Cavalry Assault Vehicle (ACAV)

Bunker

Map 7
69

Opening Moves: Battles North and West of Saigon

the perimeter. Sapper teams rushed forward with their heads bowed low to 

avoid being hit by the rocket-propelled grenades that whooshed through the 

air from their comrades behind them. When the sappers had blown several 

holes in the wire, Viet Cong infantry sprinted through the gap. Defensive 

fire cut down scores of them but some made it through. The U.S. tanks 

fired canister rounds, shells filled with shotgun-like steel balls, to seal the 

gaps. The defenders soon hunted down the enemy soldiers who had gotten 

into the compound, although not before one sapper team managed to disable an M48 tank.

A cascade of artillery shells eventually forced the North Vietnamese to 

withdraw. By 0330 the fighting was over. When the sun rose, U.S. soldiers collected 143 enemy dead along with large quantities of discarded weapons and 

military gear. The cost to the defenders had been one killed. After the battle 

of Caisson VI, the battered 165th Regiment ceased further attempts to cut 

Highway 13.51

Screaming Eagles

General Weyand received the additional reinforcements he needed to cut 

the enemy supply lines in Phuoc Long Province when the 101st Airborne 

Division’s 2d and 3d Brigades arrived from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, in 

November and December of 1967. Known as Operation Eagle Thrust, the 

deployment was the largest and longest military airlift into a combat zone that 

the United States had ever attempted, requiring no fewer than 369 sorties by 

U.S. Air Force C–141 Starlifter transport aircraft. All told, the aircraft carried 

9,794 passengers and 5,083 tons of equipment. An additional 4,110 tons of 

equipment made the journey by sea.52

The commander of the 101st Airborne Division, Maj. Gen. Olinto 

M. Barsanti, and his advance party arrived at Bien Hoa Air Base on 18 

November where they established the division headquarters. The division’s 

3d Brigade arrived in the first week of December and immediately moved to 

Phuoc Vinh in Binh Duong Province, fifty kilometers northeast of Saigon. 

When the division’s 2d Brigade arrived in the third week of December, it 

moved in temporarily with the 25th Infantry Division at Cu Chi, twenty-five 

kilometers northwest of Saigon. The support units of the 101st Airborne 

Division, the last elements of the division to leave Fort Campbell, arrived at 

their new stations during the last week of December. By placing the 2d and 

3d Brigades of the division at long-established bases, Weyand had given the 

newcomers a chance to acclimate in relatively safe areas while freeing up his 

more experienced forces to go after the enemy regiments in Binh Long and 

Phuoc Long Provinces.53

51 Ibid., pp. 7–8.

52 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, II FFV, pp. 37–38.

53 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 51, II FFV, 17–23 Dec 67, 23 Dec 67, p. 3, Historians files, CMH; 

ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, II FFV, pp. 37–38.
Staying the Course

70

The unit that escorted the 3d Brigade 

of the 101st Airborne Division to its new 

home at Phouc Vinh, the 11th Armored 

Cavalry, normally operated east of Saigon 

in Bien Hoa Province, but Weyand shifted 

two of its three squadrons to northern 

III Corps in early December to secure 

Highway 13 during the dry season campaign. Those two squadrons brought with 

them several dozen M48A3 tanks and over 

a hundred M113 ACAVs (armored cavalry 

assault vehicles), a modified version of the 

M113 troop carrier equipped with a swivelmounted M60 machine gun on either side 

of the rear deck behind the commander’s 

.50-caliber machine gun. Backed by a helicopter troop with forty-eight aircraft, the 

famed “Blackhorse” Regiment was capable 

of protecting long stretches of roadway 

while its engineer company made improvements and cleared mines.54

On 4 December, the commander of the 11th Armored Cavalry, Col. Jack 

MacFarlane, began Operation Quicksilver with his 1st and 2d Squadrons. Their 

task was to open and secure parts of Highway 13 in Binh Duong Province for 

the movement of the 3d Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, and the 1st Brigade, 

1st Division. Mines and roadblocks had rendered some sections of the highway 

impassable, so it was up to MacFarlane and his men to make the way safe for the 

hundreds of unarmored trucks that would convey the two brigades to their new 

base camps. 

Operating out of the 1st Division base camp at Lai Khe, the Blackhorse troopers got off to a fast start. Although there were several local force companies in the 

area, and two battalions of the newly formed Dong Nai Regiment were less than 

a day’s march to the southeast, the enemy stayed out of sight. Engineers attached 

to the 1st and 2d Squadrons disarmed a number of buried mines, including a 

750-pound bomb and a 155-mm. artillery round that guerrillas had rigged with a 

pressure detonator. The engineers also repaired road surfaces that guerrillas or the 

weather had damaged. Colonel MacFarlane stationed tanks and armored cavalry 

assault vehicles at regular intervals along the highway to provide around-the-clock 

security. The regimental helicopter troop and U.S. Air Force observation planes 

equipped with Starlight night-vision scopes assisted the forces on the ground. Just 

developed by the Army, these Starlight scopes (optical instruments that magnified 

the ambient light that reflected down from the stars and the moon) turned night 

for the viewer into a green-hued day. Under that protective shield, the 3d Brigade, 

54 Simon Dunstan, Vietnam Tracks: Armor in Battle, 1945–1975 (Novato, Calif.: Presidio 

Press, 1982), p. 104.

General Barsanti
71

Opening Moves: Battles North and West of Saigon

101st Airborne Division, made its way to Phouc Vinh without loss. With the mission complete, Quicksilver came to an end on 21 December.55

The next day, the regiment turned its attention to northern Binh Long 

Province, initiating Operation Fargo to secure Highway 13 between An Loc and 

Loc Ninh. After building a base near Loc Ninh, MacFarlane had orders to open 

Highway 14A between Loc Ninh and Bo Duc. Weyand instructed him to patrol 

the Cambodian border during the holiday season. In past years, the Communists 

had used the cease-fire periods at Christmas, New Years, and Tet to step up 

infiltration.56

On 22 December, the 11th Armored Cavalry’s 1st and 2d Squadrons began 

moving north from An Loc. Encountering almost no resistance, the Blackhorse 

troopers spent the next four days securing Highway 13, constructing three firebases to defend the road, and establishing a regimental command post and logistical center at Loc Ninh. Following the Christmas truce, engineers equipped with 

Rome plows, armored bulldozers named for the town in Georgia where they were 

built, cleared a 100-meter strip on either side of Highway 13 to make it harder for 

the enemy to set up ambushes. 

On 28 December, the 3d Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry, turned over Camp 

Blackhorse to the 3d Squadron, 5th Cavalry, from the 9th Infantry Division, so 

it could travel north to join its sister squadrons in northern III Corps. Lt. Col. 

Howard R. Fuller Jr. and his 9th Division cavalrymen took over Operation 

Kittyhawk to protect Highway 1 and other lines of communications in Long 

Khanh Province. Having only one squadron instead of three to secure his area 

of operations, Fuller was fortunate that the Viet Cong chose to keep a low profile 

during the inaugural month of his unit’s deployment.

When the 3d Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry, joined the 1st and 2d 

Squadrons at Loc Ninh on 31 December, it marked the first time that the regiment 

would operate with all of its subordinate elements together since it had arrived the 

previous December. It was also the regiment’s first exposure to combat in a triplecanopy rainforest. Despite the restricted sight lines and obstacles to movement, 

Colonel MacFarlane was confident that his troopers could go almost anywhere in 

the jungle and keep the enemy on the run.57

Assessing the Campaign North of Saigon

During the opening phase of his dry season campaign, General Weyand 

had accomplished his initial objectives in Binh Long and Phuoc Long Provinces 

while also turning back a major enemy offensive. General Hay’s 1st Infantry 

Division had succeeded in opening Highway 13 as far north as Loc Ninh, a 

necessary precursor to future operations along the border. Hay had then posi55 AAR, Opn Quicksilver, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (ACR), n.d., pp. 5–6, 10, box 

25, AARs, Asst Ch of Staff, J–3, MACV, RG 472, NACP. 56 AAR, Opn Fargo, 11th ACR, n.d., p. 2, box 25, AARs, Asst Ch of Staff, J–3, MACV, 

RG 472, NACP. 57 Ibid., pp. 1, 6.
Staying the Course

72

tioned his 1st and 3d Brigades, reinforced by elements of the 11th Armored 

Cavalry, into the sector between An Loc and Loc Ninh where they could strike 

at the Communist bases and supply routes that ran parallel to and across the 

upper portion of Highway 13. At the same time, Hay’s division, with only 

minor support from the South Vietnamese 5th Infantry Division and the U.S. 

25th Infantry Division, had thwarted COSVN’s seven-regiment offensive in 

the battles at Loc Ninh, Song Be, Bo Duc, and Bu Dop, not to mention several clashes along Highway 13. Furthermore, Weyand had successfully moved 

the 2d and 3d Brigades of the 101st Airborne Division into position for the 

next stage of his campaign—an airmobile assault into northern Phuoc Long 

Province to block the Adams Trail supply channel that fed War Zone D.58

Weyand nevertheless recognized that the enemy had scored a few points 

of his own. The Communist offensive had damaged government influence in 

the border region. In Phuoc Long Province, the North Vietnamese assault on 

Dak Son had generated nearly 1,800 refugees who by year’s end had still not 

been resettled. The fighting at neighboring Song Be had caused still more suffering. Meanwhile, in Long Binh Province, one Revolutionary Development 

team and three Truong Son teams (Revolutionary Development teams 

assigned to Montagnard communities) had abandoned their work through 

most of November. More serious had been the effect on Loc Ninh District 

town. At the outset of the battle, most of the town’s residents had fled by bus 

and U.S. Army helicopters to temporary shelters established for them in the 

provincial capital. When they returned home a few weeks later, they found 

the town destroyed by the U.S. counterattack and looted by members of 

the South Vietnamese 5th Infantry Division. The allies provided humanitarian assistance throughout the ordeal, and 1st Division engineers rebuilt Loc 

Ninh’s market, but the populace’s faith in the ability of the government to 

protect them was shaken. As a II Field Force report conceded, the enemy’s 

seizure of Loc Ninh, no matter how temporary, had represented “a significant political victory” for the enemy. 59

Tropic Lightning Strikes War Zone C

There was, however, one more piece of Weyand’s offensive—the thrust 

into the Communist base area known as War Zone C. Encompassing the 

northern half of Tay Ninh Province, War Zone C was one of the largest 

enemy-controlled areas in South Vietnam. The sparsely inhabited, triple58 Intel Information Cable, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 27 Dec 67, sub: Summary 

of Viet Cong activities in III Corps during November 1967, pp. 3–4, box 90, NSF-Vietnam 

Country files, LBJL. 59 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, II FFV, 12 Apr 68, p. 13 (quoted words). Periodic Intel Rpt 

no. 45, II FFV, pp. 4–5; Memo, MACV Office of Information (MACOI) for Press, no. 332-67, 

28 Nov 67, sub: Radio Hanoi and Liberation Radio Statements on the Battle of Loc Ninh 

Release; Rpt, RD Advisory Team 81, Binh Long Province, 30 Nov 67, pp. 2, 5; Memo, Lt Gen 

Frederick C. Weyand for COMUSMACV, 4 Jan 68, sub: The CORDS Field Overview for 

December, 1967, pp. 20–21. All in Historians files, CMH. 
73

Opening Moves: Battles North and West of Saigon

canopy rainforest offered ideal concealment for the supply dumps maintained by the 50th and 82d Rear Service Groups. The trees and vegetation 

grew so thick in many places that the forest floor remained in near darkness 

even on the sunniest days. Only a handful of provincial roads penetrated 

War Zone C and they turned to mud during the wet season. For nearly 

half of the year, this vast territory was an opaque and nearly impenetrable 

stronghold.

Hidden from the prying eyes of allied reconnaissance aircraft, Viet 

Cong logisticians had constructed an elaborate logistical network that ran 

from Cambodia through War Zone C and down the course of the Saigon 

River through Tay Ninh, Hau Nghia, and western Binh Duong Provinces 

to the outskirts of the capital. To counter this threat, Westmoreland had 

conducted extensive bombing and defoliation campaigns, backed during 

the past two dry seasons by large search-and-destroy operations. The most 

recent operation, Junction City in February and March of 1967, had 

netted around 850 tons of supplies and eliminated 2,700 Communist soldiers. Nevertheless, the supply channel remained open, supporting the 9th 

PLAF Division, the 84A PLAF Artillery Regiment, and at least a dozen 

Viet Cong infantry battalions. As the third and final component of the 

dry season offensive, MACV intended to interdict the corridor as close to 

the Cambodian border as possible until the rainy season once again made 

operations in the remote areas problematic.

The organization Weyand chose for the task was the 25th Infantry 

Division. Nicknamed “Tropic Lightning” for the lightning-bolt patch worn 

by the soldiers of this Hawaii-based unit, 

the division headquartered at Cu Chi, 

a Communist-infested section of Hau 

Nghia Province thirty-five kilometers 

northwest of Saigon. The division’s 3d 

Brigade (formerly the 3d Brigade of the 

4th Division, which the 25th Division 

had acquired in a troop swap) resided at 

Dau Tieng, Tay Ninh Province, a former 

French villa situated on the edge of the 

massive Michelin Rubber Plantation 

some thirty-five kilometers northwest of 

Cu Chi. By the fall of 1967, Maj. Gen. 

Fillmore K. Mearns led the division. 

The son of an Army general, Mearns 

had graduated from the U.S. Military 

Academy in 1938 and had fought in Sicily 

and Italy during World War II, receiving 

a Silver Star Medal in the process.60 

Mearns’ orders for Operation 

Yellowstone were to cut the Saigon 

60 MACV History, 1966, vol. 1, p. 69. 

General Mearns
Staying the Course

74

River corridor, to destroy supply caches, and to build two new Special Forces 

camps deep in War Zone C to monitor the border. To accomplish this mission, Mearns would have available his 1st and 3d Brigades, an armed helicopter unit—the 3d Squadron, 17th Cavalry (less one troop)—based at Tay 

Ninh West, and two battalions from the South Vietnamese 49th Regiment, 

25th Division. General Weyand expected COSVN to resist the incursion with 

some of the main force units that used Tay Ninh Province as their rear area. 

The most likely opponents would be two North Vietnamese regiments, the 

141st and 165th, believed to be in War Zone C or just to the east in Binh Long 

Province. The operational area likely contained several rocket or mortar battalions from the 84A Artillery Regiment, and COSVN might even use the 9th 

Division despite the recent beating it had taken at Loc Ninh and Song Be.61

General Mearns set Yellowstone in motion on 8 December, directing 

the operation from a forward command post at Dau Tieng. Two battalions 

from the 3d Brigade—the 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry, led by Lt. Col. John 

M. Henchman, and the 2d Battalion, 14th Infantry, commanded by Lt. Col. 

James V. Ladd—moved by helicopter to the small hamlet of Katum, located 

at the northern terminus of provincial Route 4 in the north-central part 

of War Zone C. They met no resistance. When the two battalions finished 

securing the area a few days later, General Mearns ordered several units 

at Tay Ninh West—the 2d Battalion, 34th Armor, the 7th Battalion, 11th 

61 MacGarrigle, Taking the Offensive, October 1966 to October 1967, p. 141.

Battery B, 7th Battalion, 11th Artillery, at a firebase at Katum await a fire 

mission during Operation Yellowstone.
75

Opening Moves: Battles North and West of Saigon

Artillery, equipped with towed 105-mm. howitzers, and the 588th Engineer 

Battalion—to proceed north along Route 4 to Katum. Arriving without 

incident, the engineers began building Firebase Custer, which would serve 

as the 1st Brigade’s forward base for the duration of Yellowstone. They 

also helped the 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry, build a second base known as 

Beauregard some five kilometers to the southeast near the village of Bo 

Tuc. The engineers positioned the base on the shoulder of Route 246, a seasonal road that led from Katum into the eastern half of War Zone C. 

As the 25th Division’s 1st Brigade punched deep into enemy territory, Col. 

Leonard R. Daems sent his 3d Brigade into the southeastern edge of War 

Zone C, led by Lt. Col. Thomas U. Harrold’s 3d Battalion, 22d Infantry. Two 

battalions from the South Vietnamese 49th Regiment joined the search for 

enemy supply caches. Armed helicopters from the 3d Squadron, 17th Cavalry, 

supported the 1st and 3d Brigades from the air, looking for signs of the enemy 

around Katum and Dau Tieng.62

The crews of those low-flying scout aircraft helped the infantry locate 

dozens of well-concealed supply dumps and bunker complexes. Some 

were lightly defended by Viet Cong rear service troops while others were 

unguarded. One of the biggest finds went to the 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry, 

which discovered 350 tons of rice stashed six kilometers northwest of Katum. 

Four days later in the southeastern corner of War Zone C, the 3d Brigade’s 

3d Battalion, 22d Infantry, found 15,000 grenades buried in 55-gallon oil 

drums. The haul represented enough ordnance to equip ten Communist 

main force battalions with their normal combat load. The B–52 bombers 

destroyed any bases spotted by helicopter crews that infantry patrols could 

not reach.63

Enemy resistance stiffened during the second week of Yellowstone. 

Around two hours after midnight on 15 December, mortar crews from the 

2d and 3d Battalions of the 141st PAVN Regiment began shelling Firebase 

Beauregard, which was home to Colonel Henchman’s 4th Battalion, 9th 

Infantry. When the barrage ended, several hundred pith-helmeted North 

Vietnamese soldiers scrambled across the open ground between the firebase 

and the forest. Most did not make it through the defensive fire, but a team of 

sappers found a way into the base and placed satchel charges in the ammunition dump, setting off 600 105-mm. shells before Americans forced the infiltrators to retreat. Colonel Henchman directed air and artillery strikes, which 

relieved some of the pressure on the base, and the battle settled into a longdistance gunfire duel that raged until 0735. The retreating North Vietnamese 

left behind forty bodies. The 4th Battalion lost six killed and twelve wounded. 

That same night, a Special Forces camp at Tien Ngon on the western edge 

62 Material in this section is based on AAR, Opn Yellowstone, 1st Bde, 25th Inf Div, and 

AAR, Opn Yellowstone, 3d Bde, 25th Inf Div. Both in ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 25th Inf 

Div, box 71. AAR, Opn Yellowstone, 3d Sqdn, 17th Cav, 20 Mar 68, box 2, 7th Mil Hist Det, 

USARV, RG 472, NACP; and ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, II FFV, 42–44. 63 AAR, Opn Yellowstone, 3d Bde, 25th Inf Div, p. 3; AAR, Opn Yellowstone, 3d 

Squad, 17th Cav, p. 3. 
Staying the Course

76

of War Zone C withstood a similar attack that included a 300-round mortar 

barrage followed by infantry and sapper probes.64

The next day, men from the 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry, found a notebook 

on the body of a senior sergeant from the 141st Regiment who had died during 

the attack on Beauregard. The notebook indicated that the unit, now operating directly under COSVN, had orders to overrun Firebase Custer as well 

as Beauregard. If left intact, those bases could severely disrupt Communist 

supply lines that led from the Fishhook region of Cambodia, a wedge of land 

that jutted into South Vietnam on the border of Tay Ninh and Binh Long 

Provinces, down through the eastern half of War Zone C.65

In anticipation of a showdown, both sides moved extra forces into the 

region during the second half of December. The 9th Division’s 271st and 272d 

Regiments joined COSVN in the Fishhook after wrapping up the Military 

Region 10 offensive at Song Be. On the U.S. side, the 3d Brigade, 25th Division, 

conducted a brief blocking operation south of Dau Tieng to support Operation 

Camden, the search for the 101st PAVN Regiment, before heading back into 

War Zone C to join the 1st Brigade with Operation Yellowstone. Colonel 

Daems decided to build his forward base camp for the 3d Brigade on Route 

64 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 50, II FFV, 10–16 Dec 67, 16 Dec 67, pp. 1, 3, Historians files, 

CMH; ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 25th Inf Div, p. 7; 7th Division, p. 46. 65 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 51, II FFV, pp. 1–12.

Soldiers of the 2d Battalion, 22d Infantry, 25th Infantry Division, move through 

heavy growth in their armored personnel carriers during 

Operation Yellowstone.
77

Opening Moves: Battles North and West of Saigon

244, a south-running branch of Route 246, some twelve kilometers southeast 

of Firebase Beauregard.

Colonel Daems needed only two days to get his men in place. On 28 

December, he sent Lt. Col. Awbrey G. Norris and the 2d Battalion, 22d 

Infantry (Mechanized), up Route 4 to Beauregard accompanied by two 105-

mm. batteries from the 2d Battalion, 77th Artillery, and a battery of M109 

self-propelled 155-mm. howitzers from the 3d Battalion, 13th Artillery. The 

following morning, Colonel Harrold’s 3d Battalion, 22d Infantry, boarded 

helicopters at Dau Tieng and flew to the spot on Route 244 that Colonel 

Daems had chosen for his new forward outpost, Firebase Burt. Harrold’s soldiers encountered no resistance. Later that day, the 2d Battalion, 22d Infantry, 

and the three artillery batteries that were waiting at Beauregard traveled east 

on Route 246 and then south on Route 244, also without incident. Meanwhile, 

the 2d Battalion, 12th Infantry, commanded by Colonel Tice, and several 

additional artillery batteries traveled from Dau Tieng to Beauregard where 

they assumed the defense of the base. By the evening of 29 December, the 

lion’s share of the 3d Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, was now arrayed to the 

east of the 1st Brigade on the general line of Route 246.66

The soldiers at Firebase Burt quickly built fighting positions and strung 

razor wire around the perimeter, knowing that the enemy might attack at any 

time. Bisected by Route 244, the outpost measured a kilometer from east to 

west and half that distance from north to south. Unable to fit all 900 men and 

their equipment on open ground, Colonel Daems’ task force had extended 

the eastern tip of Burt a few dozen meters into the trees. The brigade commander located his command post and supply area at the center of the base. 

The 3d Battalion, 22d Infantry, built and occupied around forty bunkers on 

the eastern half of the perimeter. The 2d Battalion, 22d Infantry, placed their 

M113 armored personnel carriers in a series of hull-down positions along the 

western half of Burt. Batteries A and C from the 2d Battalion, 77th Artillery, 

placed their eleven 105-mm. howitzers in the southern portion of the firebase. 

The five 155-mm. self-propelled howitzers belonging to Battery A of the 3d 

Battalion, 13th Artillery, were arrayed in the northern half of the perimeter. 

A pair of M42 tracked antiaircraft vehicles, colloquially known as “Dusters,” 

from Battery B of the 5th Battalion, 2d Artillery, and a pair of M55 truckmounted quad .50-caliber machine guns from Battery D, 71st Artillery, gave 

the defenders additional protection (see Map 8).67

COSVN reacted quickly to the presence of Firebase Burt. Daems’ 3d 

Brigade was now only a few kilometers west of the trail network that connected Base Area 353 in the Fishhook with the Sub-Region 1 base camps on 

the Saigon River. COSVN’s military head, General Thai, ordered the 9th 

Division, which had returned to the Fishhook following the Loc Ninh–Song 

Be campaign, to attack the base as soon as possible. Colonel Cam moved his 

66 AAR, Opn Yellowstone, 3d Bde, 25th Inf Div, pp. 2, 9. 67 AAR, Battle of Soui Cut, 3d Bde, 25th Inf Div, 9 Jan 68, p. 1, Encl 2 to ORLL, 1 Nov 

67–31 Jan 68, 25th Inf Div, box 71.
B 2-22

I

2 22

I I

3 22

I I

3 25

X

A 2-22

I

C 2-22

I

A 3-22

I

B 3-22

I

C 3-22

I

C 2-77

I

A 3-13

I

SP

2 77

A 2-77 I I

I

271(-)

PLAF

III

271(-)

PLAF

III

271(-)

PLAF

III

272(-)

PLAF

III

272(-)

PLAF

III

I I

I

I

II

II

B

A

C

A

A

B

C

B

2-22

3-22

2-22

3-22

244

244

Dirt and Bush Mound

155-mm. Self-Propelled Howitzers

105-mm. Towed Howitzers 

105-mm. Towed Howitzers 

Fire Base Perimeter 

1–2 January 1968

SKETCH NOT TO SCALE

BAT TLE OF FIREBASE BURT

Map 8
79

Opening Moves: Battles North and West of Saigon

271st and 272d Regiments into position on the evening of 31 December, while 

a 24-hour truce for the New Year went into effect.68

At 1800 on the first of January 1968, some of those Viet Cong troops 

attacked a squad of U.S. soldiers at an outpost some 200 meters east of 

Firebase Burt. After losing two men killed, the Americans retreated to Burt. 

Colonel Daems put the firebase on alert and ordered the other ambush teams 

positioned to the north, south, and west of Burt to remain where they were.

Two hours later, the enemy fired a few mortar rounds into Burt, apparently to check the range, and then the shelling stopped. A few minutes later, 

U.S. ambush patrols that were hiding in the jungle several hundred meters to 

the north and to the south of Burt reported large numbers of enemy soldiers 

moving through the trees. There were so many, in fact, that the ambush teams 

chose not to open fire for fear of being annihilated. Burt’s defenders made a 

final check of their weapons and ammunition as Colonel Daems’ staff got on 

the radio to coordinate artillery support from Beauregard.

68 The following section is based on AAR, Battle of Soui Cut, 3d Bn, 22d Inf, n.d., box 32, 

AARs, 1965–1971, Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP. AAR, Opn Yellowstone

II, 3d Bn, 22d Inf, n.d., in ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 25th Inf Div, box 71; AAR, Battle of 

Suoi Cut, 3d Bde, 25th Inf Div; AAR, Opn Yellowstone, 2d Bn (Mech), 22d Inf, 20 Mar 68, 

in ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 25th Inf Div, box 71; ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, II FFV, pp. 

42–44; 9th Division, p. 98.

An M42 40-mm. self-propelled antiaircraft gun, or “Duster,” provides 

perimeter defense.
Staying the Course

80

At 2330, Viet Cong mortar crews opened a fifteen-minute barrage. When 

the final shell hit, a wave of Viet Cong soldiers from the 1st and 3d Battalions

of the 271st Regiment streamed out of the trees to attack the northern end of 

the base, while the 2d and 3d Battalions of the 272d Regiment hit the perimeter 

from the south.

The Americans let loose with M16 rifles and M60 machine guns, detonated dozens of claymore mines, and fired canister rounds from their 90-mm. 

recoilless rifles. The lethal metal tore into the advancing Viet Cong, but those 

who survived did not falter. Firing a steady stream of rocket-propelled grenades at the firebase, which knocked out an M113 carrier and an M42 Duster, 

the 2d and 3d Battalions of the 273d Regiment advanced toward the razor wire 

that protected Burt. Artillery rounds from Beauregard smashed into the 

surrounding jungle, but still the Viet Cong infantry came on.

At 0230, a squad of sappers breached the wire along the southern face 

of Burt. Enemy soldiers wriggled through the holes and then ran toward 

the bunker line. Colonel Daems ordered every 105-mm. howitzer that could 

be brought to bear to lower its barrel and fire directly into the advancing 

Communists with beehive rounds. The metal darts posed little danger to the 

American soldiers inside their bunkers, but the onrushing Viet Cong had no 

such protection. The steel needles cut down dozens of enemy soldiers, including one man who was vaporized by an expanding cone of darts as he attempted 

to stuff a grenade into a company command bunker.69

Confronted by such murderous fire, the Communists fell back beyond the 

wire to regroup. Taking advantage of the lull, a flight of UH–1 helicopters 

from the 145th and the 188th Assault Helicopter Companies swooped in to 

resupply Burt with ammunition and artillery shells. When they departed, U.S. 

fighter-bombers streaked in to drop napalm and cluster bombs on suspected 

enemy staging areas.70

The Viet Cong resumed the battle at 0330 with a battalion-size attack 

aimed at the southern end of Burt. Colonel Daems shifted several infantry 

platoons and two M113s from less-threatened sectors to the area under attack. 

The enemy assault faltered and then died away at 0500, bringing to an end a 

twenty-hour battle that General Mearns later described as a “cliffhanger.”71

As soon as the sun came up, helicopter gunships from the 3d Squadron, 

17th Cavalry, went in search of the enemy. They observed small groups of 

Viet Cong heading toward Cambodia and killed around twenty of the fleeing 

troops. Meanwhile, Colonel Daems’ men collected numerous bodies, some 115 

enemy weapons, and large quantities of ammunition and equipment scattered 

around Burt. General Weyand flew in by helicopter to see the results himself, 

while General Mearns stayed aloft in his command helicopter to direct the 

pursuit of the retreating 9th Division. In all, the 271st and 272d Regiments had 

lost 379 men killed in the attack on Burt and another 8 wounded who became 

69 AAR, Battle of Soui Cut, 3d Bde, 25th Inf Div, pp. 2–4.

70 Ibid., p. 4; AAR, Opn Yellowstone II, 3d Bn, 22d Inf, p. 2; AAR, Opn Yellowstone, 

3d Bde, 25th Inf Div, p. 3. 71 Interv, MacGarrigle with Mearns, p. 20.
81

Opening Moves: Battles North and West of Saigon

prisoners. Radio Hanoi claimed that the Communists had killed or wounded 

600 Americans, but the actual tally was 23 dead and 146 wounded. Even so, 

the battle for Firebase Burt was the heaviest action the 25th Division had seen 

since Operation Junction City back in February, March, and April of 1967. 

Colonel Daems gave much of the credit for his victory to the precision artillery 

and close air support that his forces had received.72

The Situation at the Beginning of the New Year

At the start of 1968, the 25th Infantry Division appeared to be on track 

with its dry season campaign. General Mearns’ 1st and 3d Brigades were 

firmly entrenched in northeastern War Zone C and astride the infiltration trail 

that fed the enemy bases that lined the Saigon River in Hau Nghia and Binh 

Duong Provinces. In less than a week, the two brigades had already located 

and destroyed a number of supply caches, and stood to uncover many more 

before the end of the dry season. As a bonus, their incursion into War Zone 

C had forced the better part of the 9th PLAF Division and elements of the 

7th PAVN Division to engage in another costly fight only weeks after sustaining huge casualties in the Loc Ninh–Song Be campaign. Meanwhile, the 2d 

Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division appeared to have the enemy main force 

threat under control in the populated districts between Tay Ninh City and Cu 

Chi. General Mearns later recalled feeling a sense of “supreme confidence” as 

1968 began, anticipating the effect his division would have on the Saigon River 

infiltration network over the next four months, and by his own admission, not 

yet aware of the massive enemy buildup that would soon result in the general 

offensive–general uprising.73

72 AAR, Battle of Soui Cut, 3d Bde, 25th Inf Div, p. 5; ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, II FFV, 

pp. 43–44. 73 Interv, MacGarrigle with Mearns, p. 28.

3

Protecting the Heartland

When the U.S. 1st and 25th Infantry Divisions kicked off the dry 

season offensive by invading the enemy-held wilderness of northern 

III Corps, other elements of II Field Force protected the rest of the corps 

zone. Of particular interest was the National Priority Area around Saigon—a 

heavily populated region averaging fifty kilometers in depth that included Gia 

Dinh and Bien Hoa Provinces and portions of the provinces of Binh Duong, 

Hau Nghia, Long An, Phuoc Tuy, and Long Khanh. No fewer than fifteen 

Viet Cong infantry battalions and four North Vietnamese infantry regiments 

operated in or adjacent to this area, threatening the nation’s capital, the logistical and administrative facilities that sustained much of the allies’ armed forces, 

and the lines of communications that connected this vital region to the rest of 

the country.1

To protect the heartland of the South Vietnamese state, General Weyand 

retained half of his combat force—the equivalent of eight combat brigades—

in a loose ring around the capital. Supporting them were the 79th Engineer 

Group, the 89th Military Police Group, the 12th Aviation Group, and the 

23d and 54th Artillery Groups. Weyand could also call on the services of 

Air Force attack squadrons based in III Corps and, through Westmoreland, 

B–52 bombers based outside the country. Not under his control, but carrying 

the majority of the burden, were General Khang’s three infantry divisions, 

one ranger group, and additional combat support elements. At any one time, 

Khang usually assigned 16 of his infantry battalions to the province chiefs to 

directly support pacification, supplementing the roughly 200 Regional Forces 

companies and over 700 Popular Forces platoons already under their control. 

Taken together, General Weyand believed the allies had sufficient forces to 

defend the Saigon region for the next six months, while the remaining elements 

of II Field Force attacked the borderlands.2

In accordance with allied concepts, U.S. forces performed several missions. 

They secured bases and roads, conducted patrols to keep the enemy away from 

areas that were either pacified or undergoing pacification, launched searchand-destroy operations against large enemy units and bases whenever they 

were found, and reinforced friendly units attacked by the enemy. U.S. soldiers 

also helped train South Vietnamese forces and performed civic actions to 

1

 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, II FFV, 12 Apr 68, pp. 26–29, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd 

Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP; MACV Planning Dir 9-67, 29 Oct 67, sub: Planning 

Guidance for Senior Commander for the period 1 Nov 67–30 Apr 68, pp. 7–8, Historians files, 

CMH. 2

 MACV Planning Dir 9-67, 29 Oct 67, pp. 7–8.
Staying the Course

84

relieve war-related suffering and to improve the population’s opinion of the 

allied cause. The South Vietnamese focused their attention on defending communities and installations; on eliminating enemy local forces, guerrillas, and 

clandestine elements in and around populated areas; and on spreading the 

government’s control within the area shielded by U.S. forces. 

As things stood at the end of October, only about half of the 188 hamlets 

targeted for Revolutionary Development in III Corps in 1967 appeared to be 

on track. Tay Ninh Province, populated by the intensely anti-Communist Cao 

Dai religionists, and Phuoc Tuy Province, assisted by the 1st Australian Task 

Force, had already met their year-end goals. As for the remaining provinces, 

their officials predicted that most of the 1967 hamlets could be finished by the 

end of January 1968 if the security situation held and programmatic obstacles 

were overcome. As CORDS helped the South Vietnamese address pacification 

issues, Westmoreland expected that Weyand would do his part by keeping a lid 

on enemy large-unit activity, thereby “enabling an increase in economic activity and resultant rural prosperity” so as to strengthen popular support for the 

government and bring more food and manpower resources under its control.3

Binh Duong and Hau Nghia Provinces

As the 1st and 25th Infantry Divisions pushed toward the Cambodian 

border during the final months of 1967, each left one brigade behind to perform long-standing security missions. In the 1st Division, General Hay ordered 

the commander of his 2d Brigade, Col. Charles C. Thebaud, to shield pacification activities in Binh Duong Province. Likewise, General Mearns instructed 

the commander of the 2d Brigade, 25th Division, Col. Edwin W. Emerson, to 

protect Hau Nghia and to support allied operations in adjacent portions of 

Binh Duong Province. 

Just north of Saigon, Binh Duong shared a border with six other provinces and was the strategic linchpin of northern III Corps. Bisected from north 

to south by Highway 13, with the Saigon River to its west and the enemy-held 

wilderness known as War Zone D to its east, it was a logistical crossroads 

for both sides. The Communists controlled 45,000 of Binh Duong’s 226,000 

inhabitants and exerted significant influence over another 41,000, most of 

them in the province’s three northern districts. 

Colonel Thebaud’s 2d Brigade operated from two main bases. The largest 

was at Di An in neighboring Bien Hoa Province, twenty kilometers northeast of Saigon. The other was at Phu Loi, located near Binh Duong’s capital 

of Phu Cuong, twenty-five kilometers north of Saigon. Also located at Phu 

Cuong was the headquarters of the South Vietnamese 5th Infantry Division. 

3

 Quote from Msg, Westmoreland MAC 10295 to General Earle G. Wheeler, Chairman, JCS, 

30 Oct 67, p. 10; CCP, 1967, p. 85, Historians files, CMH. Memorandum for the Record (MFR), 

MACV, CORDS Directorate, 15 Oct 67, sub: Report of On and Behind Schedule of Provinces 

with Respect to the 1967 RD Program as of 30 September 1967, p. 1; Rpt, MACV, CORDS 

Directorate, 20 Nov 67, sub: HES Newsletter, Encl 1. All in Historians files, CMH.
85

Protecting the Heartland

Its commander, Brig. Gen. Pham Quoc Thuan, had two infantry regiments 

and one armored cavalry squadron in Binh Duong. He typically loaned 

as many as four of his infantry battalions to the province chief to support 

Revolutionary Development.4

Since February 1967, Colonel Thebaud’s 2d Brigade had been engaged 

in a local security mission known as Operation Lam Son 67 that shielded the 

heavily populated districts of Lai Thieu, Chau Thanh, and Phu Hoa in the 

southern third of Binh Duong, part of III Corps’ National Priority Area. 

Prior to November, the brigade operated largely within the National Priority 

Area itself—primarily Lai Thieu and Chau Thanh Districts. Thereafter, 

it shifted much of its operations farther north into areas dominated by the 

Communists, in part to provide additional security for Highway 13, the 1st 

Division’s lifeline during Operation Yellowstone. The northern districts 

included Tri Tam in the northwestern part of the province, a jungled area that 

contained the Viet Cong base area known as the Trapezoid; Ben Cat, in which 

government-controlled areas around the district seat and Highway 13 were 

juxtaposed against such major enemy bases as the Iron Triangle and the Long 

Nguyen Secret Zone; and sparsely populated Phu Giao in northeastern Binh 

Duong Province, which bordered War Zone D. The province chief and his U.S. 

adviser were uncomfortable about the northern shift of the 2d Brigade’s activities, fearing it would weaken the security of the southern districts.5

Regardless of where it operated, the brigade performed frequent battalion- and company-sized reconnaissance-in-force and harassment operations 

to keep the local force Viet Cong off balance. It set up nightly ambushes in 

4

 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 1st Inf Div, n.d., p. 4, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd Historian, 

HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 5

 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 1st Inf Div, p. 4.

Soldiers of the 1st Infantry Division during an operation near Phu Loi
Staying the Course

86

squad and platoon strength and extensively employed stay-behind ambushes. 

In the latter, a force that was moving through the countryside would leave 

behind a small detachment that would secret itself, waiting to strike any Viet 

Cong who might return to the area thinking the Americans had departed. 

Colonel Thebaud considered the technique “quite successful.”6

Thebaud coordinated his activities with the South Vietnamese and conducted combined operations with them. An aspect of this effort was a combined task force of two infantry companies and an armored cavalry platoon 

that routinely operated with Vietnamese paramilitary forces. The brigade 

also performed combined operations to weaken the infrastructure and to 

prevent contraband from reaching the enemy. One commonly used method 

were cordon-and-search operations. In these actions, U.S. units surrounded 

a hamlet to prevent escape, while Vietnamese police looked for Viet Cong 

political and intelligence agents, guerrillas, draft dodgers, and contraband. 

To lessen the inhabitants’ ordeal, the allies conducted psychological and 

civic actions, distributed humanitarian supplies, and performed free medical 

exams. Thebaud considered cordon-and-search operations to be an effective 

technique, assuming sufficient time was available to coordinate the operation with Vietnamese authorities beforehand. Another method used in Binh 

Duong and throughout Vietnam were Mobile Resource Control Teams. 

These teams—mixed groups of U.S. Military Police and South Vietnamese 

Military and National Police—established impromptu checkpoints along 

thoroughfares. Here they checked identity papers and blocked the transportation of food, medicines, and other supplies into Viet Cong areas. To be 

effective, the allies found that they had to move the checkpoints frequently 

as the enemy quickly learned to evade static posts.7

Conducting operations absorbed the majority of the brigade’s time, but 

it also helped the Vietnamese improve their skills. In addition to the small 

combined task forces mentioned above, 2d Brigade personnel participated in 

the 1st Division’s refresher training program for the South Vietnamese 5th 

Infantry Division and 1st Armored Cavalry. A mixture of U.S. and Vietnamese 

soldiers taught the six-week course that emphasized junior leader skills, with 

two battalions graduating from the 2d Brigade’s course at the end of the year. 

The 2d Brigade also supplied personnel for the 1st Division’s Mobile Advisory 

Teams and Improvement Action Teams. These teams strove to enhance security in Revolutionary Development areas. Each of the division’s six Mobile 

Advisory Teams consisted of one officer, two noncommissioned officers, a 

medic, and a radio operator. The men lived with and trained Vietnamese territorial forces. They also joined the units they advised in conducting patrols 

and ambushes. Improvement Action Teams of one officer, one noncommissioned officer, an interpreter, and a varying number of specialists performed 

6

 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 2d Bde, 1st Inf Div, 8 Feb 68, pp. 1 (quoted words), 2, 

Historians files, CMH. 7

 Ibid., pp. 1–2; ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 1st Mil Police Co, 1st Inf Div, 4 Feb 68, p. 1; 

Pamphlet, MACV, Guide for Province and District Advisers, 1968, pp. 13-5–13-12. Both in 

Historians files, CMH.
87

Protecting the Heartland

short-duration projects in support of territorial outposts. By late 1967, three 

Mobile Advisory Teams and two Improvement Action Teams were operating 

in the province. The actual conduct of community security operations at the 

hamlet and village level remained a Vietnamese responsibility, although in one 

unusual case the 1st Division provided eight U.S. soldiers as bodyguards to a 

village chief in Chau Thanh District. CORDS personnel believed the act was 

unwise, since the chief had a “shaky reputation” and was not someone they 

thought Americans should be identifying with.8

Thanks to the 2d Brigade’s efforts, security had gradually improved in 

southern Binh Duong Province during 1967. Thebaud’s continuous probes 

had kept the regional Viet Cong units, including the 3d Di An and 4th Thu 

Duc Battalions, largely out of the Lam Son zone. By year’s end, companies 

and platoons could move safely in areas where in February an entire battalion 

would have been required. Contact with the enemy had been light. Between 1 

November 1967 and 31 January 1968, the brigade killed eighty-one Viet Cong, 

captured thirty prisoners, and believed it may have killed another seventy 

enemy soldiers whose bodies it did not recover.9 

CORDS and 1st Division personnel reported that relations between the 

populace and U.S. combat troops were generally positive. Perhaps the greatest 

cause of criticism was American driving habits, and both CORDS and the 

1st Division harped on military drivers to behave courteously. To minimize 

civilian casualties and property damage, U.S. forces did not use napalm in 

Binh Duong and kept a tight control over artillery fire near hamlets. Realizing 

this, and perhaps hoping to provoke a retaliatory strike that might alienate 

civilians, the Viet Cong set up their own artillery near hamlets. U.S. officials 

responded by encouraging communities to report the presence of Viet Cong 

troops, promising that the allies would respond by direct action without resorting to artillery. Conversely, they warned that failure to report enemy activity 

would force the Americans to respond to enemy bombardments in kind, even 

if they originated from populated areas. In one case, U.S. artillery reacted to 

enemy fire coming from a hamlet that had not taken up the American offer, 

killing one civilian and injuring several others. The next time the Viet Cong 

came to that hamlet, the people promptly reported them, and the Popular 

Forces drove them out without resorting to heavy fire support.10

Brigade personnel burnished their image, and by association hopefully 

that of the South Vietnamese government, by hosting parties and conducting over 120 medical and dental visits, treating 14,000 Vietnamese civilians from 1 November 1967 to 31 January 1968. Projects completed by the 

2d Brigade in the Revolutionary Development area of Binh Duong during 

the last months of 1967 included the construction of houses, culverts, and 

8

 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 1st Inf Div, pp. 10–11; Rpt, Michael B. Cook and David T. 

Kenny, Field Evaluators, CORDS, 4 Feb 68, sub: Completed Ap Doi Moi Khanh Loc, Binh 

Duong Province, p. 7, Historians files, CMH. 9

 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 2d Bde, 1st Inf Div, p. 1; ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 1st Inf 

Div, pp. 1, 13–14. 10 CORDS Representative Debrief, Binh Duong Province, Vietnam, 1966–1967, Honolulu, 

Hawaii, Asia Training Center, no. 6677B, n.d., pp. 19–22, Historians files, CMH. 
Staying the Course

88

village dispensaries. So active were U.S. units in performing civic actions 

here and elsewhere in Vietnam that in September Westmoreland assigned 

CORDS the mission of coordinating military-civic action with comparable 

efforts on the civilian side, both to reduce duplication and to assure that 

aid was applied where it would best serve the allied cause. The need for 

such coordination was demonstrated in southern Binh Duong when the 23d 

Artillery Group teamed up with the citizens of Gadsen, Alabama, to build 

a refugee camp so sumptuous by local standards that it created jealously 

and discontent in the neighboring communities.11

Ultimately, however, CORDS officials in Binh Duong believed that security, and not good deeds, was the bedrock on which pacification would succeed 

or fail, and on this point they felt uneasy. For all the 2d Brigade’s good work, 

U.S. advisers believed that the allies simply did not have enough forces to protect the populated areas. Indeed, no sooner had the 2d Brigade begun to shift 

its attention to northern Binh Duong than the enemy exploited its absence with 

increased activity in the south. Small groups of Viet Cong guerrillas, aided by 

an infrastructure that the Americans believed had been weakened but was still 

intact, committed acts that undermined the confidence of the inhabitants in 

the government. On 8 November, for example, a Viet Cong party attacked 

Tan Phuoc Khanh village in Chau Thanh District. The defenders, including 

a Revolutionary Development team and a Popular Forces platoon, repulsed 

the attack. On 22 November, the Viet Cong in neighboring Lai Thieu District 

11 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 2d Bde, 1st Inf Div, p. 1; ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 1st Inf 

Div, p. 14; CORDS Representative Debrief, Binh Duong Province, Vietnam, 1966–1967, p. 31; 

MACV History, 1967, vol. 2, pp. 692–93. 

A medical assistant treats a child under the Medical Civic Action 

Program (MEDCAP).
89

Protecting the Heartland

peppered a South Vietnamese Army post with mortar, small arms, and automatic weapons fire. The following day, the Viet Cong returned in company 

strength to assault Tan Phuoc Khanh despite the fact that the government had 

reinforced the village with forty Regional Forces soldiers. The guerrillas used 

small arms, automatic weapons, and light antitank weapons to inflict nine 

casualties on government forces before the latter drove them off. Then, in early 

December, a Viet Cong platoon attacked a Revolutionary Development team 

that was giving a literacy class in the hamlet of Hoa My, killing eight team 

members and wounding four others. By January 1968, reports indicated that 

enemy main force units were beginning to filter into the southern districts of 

the province, their mission as yet unknown. Unless the teams and the villagers 

they were attempting to organize enjoyed greater security, pacification would 

remain a delicate proposition in Binh Duong Province.12

While the 2d Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, attempted to protect the 

populated areas of Binh Duong, Colonel Emerson and his 2d Brigade, 

25th Infantry Division, performed a similar task in neighboring Hau Nghia 

Province. Like Binh Duong, the Viet Cong had always been strong in Hau 

Nghia, and since its arrival in 1966 the 25th Division had labored mightily, but 

not always successfully, to tame the province. CORDS personnel attributed a 

noticeable improvement in security over the course of the year to the activities 

of U.S. combat forces, yet by the fall of 1967 the enemy was still ubiquitous.13

In September, as part of the preparations for the 25th Infantry Division’s 

dry season offensive against War Zone C, the allies reapportioned responsibility for security in Hau Nghia. Although U.S. units could operate anywhere 

when circumstances dictated, the 2d Brigade was only responsible for the territory between the Saigon River and Highway 1 in the northern districts of Cu 

Chi and Trang Bang. Here the brigade would secure both the division’s base 

camp at Cu Chi town and Highway 1 while attacking the Communist bases 

that lined the southern end of the Saigon River corridor in northeastern Hua 

Nghia, southern Tay Ninh, and western Binh Duong Provinces. The South 

Vietnamese 25th Infantry Division and provincial troops assumed responsibility for securing the rest of the province. This included the western parts 

of Trang Bang and Cu Chi Districts; Duc Hoa District in southeastern Hau 

Nghia, home of the provincial capital at Bao Trai; and the swamp-filled Duc 

Hue District of western Hau Nghia, which was divided from the more populated districts to the east by the winding Vam Co Dong River and the enemyheld plantations that lined its course.

October was largely uneventful. As the 25th Infantry Division prepared 

for the thrust against War Zone C, only the 1st Battalion (Mechanized), 5th 

Infantry, operated below Highway 1, where it protected a jungle-clearing 

12 Rpt, RD Advisory Team 23, Binh Duong Province, 31 Dec 67, p. 3; Memo, RD Advisory 

Team 23, Binh Duong Province, for Deputy, CORDS, III CTZ, 6 Nov 67, sub: Special Joint 

Narrative Report on Revolutionary Development, p. 1; Rpt, CORDS, III CTZ, Binh Duong 

Province, period ending 30 Nov 67, n.d., pp. 1–3. All in Historians files, CMH. Rpt, Cook and 

Kenny, 4 Feb 68, pp. 2–5, 9. 13 For the story of the 25th Division in Hau Nghia, see Eric M. Bergerud, The Dynamics of 

Defeat: The Vietnam War in Hau Nghia Province (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1991).
Staying the Course

90

operation executed by special bulldozers called Rome plows in Thai My village 

about ten kilometers northwest of Cu Chi town. Within their zones of responsibility U.S. and South Vietnamese soldiers, sometimes working as combined 

teams, provided security for both the national elections and the winter rice 

harvest. The latter task, which continued through the remainder of the year, 

was particularly important, both to help the economy and to deny the enemy 

food. The 2d Brigade responded to a number of small harassment actions, 

while South Vietnamese forces, backed by timely assistance from U.S. Army 

artillery and helicopter gunships, handily repulsed several small probes by the 

269th Battalion west of Highway 1. The only significant U.S. losses occurred 

in the early morning hours of 15 October when the Viet Cong used mortars 

and recoilless rifles to bombard Duc Hoa, a town about a dozen kilometers 

southeast of Bao Trai. The shelling killed two Americans and wounded eleven, 

all members of the advisory team to the South Vietnamese 25th Infantry 

Division. The fire likewise killed or injured twenty-seven South Vietnamese 

soldiers and twenty-one civilians. A similar bombardment of Bao Trai that 

same night wounded fourteen civilians.14

Notwithstanding the fact that the brigade confined most of its operations 

to the northeastern edge of the province, Colonel Emerson placed his forward tactical operations center in Bao Trai to maximize coordination with the 

province chief and the headquarters of the South Vietnamese 25th Infantry 

Division. Indeed, combined activities remained a staple of 2d Brigade operations. One such example was the Combined Lighting Initial Project. Begun 

in May, the experiment entailed having U.S. and Vietnamese soldiers live and 

14 Special Joint Narrative Rpt, RD, Hau Nghia Province, period ending 31 Oct 67, n.d., pp. 

1–3, Historians files, CMH.

Rome plows during a land-clearing operation
91

Protecting the Heartland

fight together for the purpose of upgrading the effectiveness of the province’s Popular Forces. Two such platoons had been formed, with individual 

U.S. squads farmed out to various Popular Forces outposts. On 31 October, 

General Mearns ended the project, replacing it with two Mobile Advisory 

Teams drawn from 25th Division personnel. These continued to work closely 

with the province’s territorials. Meanwhile, the 2d Brigade provided refresher 

training for a South Vietnamese Army battalion. 

The brigade’s participation in pacification entailed psychological warfare and civic action activities conducted in close coordination with CORDS 

and the Vietnamese. The unit sponsored youth and sports programs and 

helped build a high school. It also supported a major propaganda campaign 

in September and October to generate defectors to the Chieu Hoi program. 

By the time the effort ended, 102 Viet Cong had rallied to the government, a 

number CORDS officials found disappointing.15

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the 25th Division’s support for 

pacification in Hau Nghia involved the counterinfrastructure campaign. By 

November, the Vietnamese government and CORDS advisers had established 

District Intelligence and Operations Coordination Centers (DIOCCs) in all 

of Hau Nghia’s districts. These centers brought together all of the entities 

generating intelligence at the district level—be they civil, military, paramilitary, police, or intelligence—for the purpose of sharing information on the 

enemy. Overseeing the effort in Bao Trai was a U.S.-Vietnamese Intelligence 

Coordination and Exploitation (ICEX) committee whose primary goal was to 

ferret out the Viet Cong politico-military apparatus. Among its activities was 

the publication of a “most wanted” list. This was as much a psychological as 

a counterintelligence action because the names on the list were not necessarily 

the Viet Cong the allies most wanted to neutralize, but the ones upon which 

they had the most information and who were therefore the easiest to target. 

The idea was to announce a target and then to eliminate him as soon as possible, thereby making a disproportionate impression on both the citizenry and 

the Viet Cong. After the publication of the first such list in November, the 

allies flooded the province with over a million leaflets naming known Viet 

Cong. The 25th Division assigned a permanent liaison officer to the ICEX 

committee, while the Vietnamese National Police posted policemen to 2d 

Brigade units whenever they conducted cordon-and-search operations.16

One novel element of the 25th Division’s counterinfrastructure contribution was the creation of a Combined Reconnaissance and Intelligence Platoon 

(CRIP). Formed in the spring of 1967, the unit merged the reconnaissance platoon of the 2d Brigade’s 2d Battalion, 27th Infantry, with a Regional Forces 

intelligence platoon. Acting on information from the provincial intelligence 

apparatus, the CRIP specialized in rapid foot and airmobile strikes to nab 

enemy agents and guerrillas as soon as the news was received. In October the 

CRIP conducted eight airmobile raids. In one strike, the platoon acted on 

15 Ibid., pp. 1–5.

16 Memo, Lt Gen Frederick C. Weyand for COMUSMACV, 4 Jan 68, sub: The CORDS 

Field Overview for December, 1967, app. B, p. 3, Historians files, CMH.
Staying the Course

92

information provided by a defector to kill two Viet Cong and to capture two 

more along with weapons and documents.17

To secure the division’s rear before it moved north against War Zone C, in 

November General Mearns ordered elements of the entire division to assist 

the 2d Brigade in an assault against enemy sanctuaries near the Saigon River. 

In addition to destroying hidden supply dumps and clearing jungle, the general 

hoped the sweep would draw out the 101st PAVN Regiment, a former element 

of the 7th PAVN Division that COSVN had detached for independent operations in the Saigon River corridor. Other targets included the Viet Cong main 

force units stationed in Hau Nghia—the 267th Battalion, the 269th Battalion, 

and the 1st Quyet Thang Battalion—that might be attempting to gather in the 

winter rice harvest.18

Colonel Emerson’s base-clearing mission, Operation Atlanta, got under 

way on 18 November when he landed his 1st Battalion of the 27th Infantry by 

helicopter into the western part of the Iron Triangle, a heavily forested enemy 

base 310 square kilometers in area wedged between the Saigon River and 

Highway 13 in Binh Duong Province. The 3d Battalion, 22d Infantry, from 

the 3d Brigade set up a blocking position along its northern rim, and units 

from the South Vietnamese 5th Infantry Division screened the Highway 13 

corridor east of the Iron Triangle. Emerson’s infantry battalions encountered 

only light resistance from Viet Cong rear service and security personnel. After 

those troops had secured transit points on the Saigon River, Emerson sent the 

4th Battalion, 23d Infantry (Mechanized), on loan from the 1st Brigade, 25th 

Division, and engineers equipped with Rome plows across the river by barge 

to begin the jungle-clearing phase of Operation Atlanta. 

Over the next three weeks, Emerson’s task force cleared nearly 11,000 acres 

of jungle and destroyed approximately 7,000 meters of tunnels, reducing the 

size and effectiveness of the Viet Cong sanctuary, though not eliminating it. 

The Americans also seized nearly 200 tons of rice and killed 143 enemy soldiers; U.S. losses came to 18 dead and 74 wounded, mainly from mines and 

booby traps that the enemy used to protect his supply caches. There was no 

sign of the 101st PAVN Regiment.

19

In the first week of December, Colonel Emerson recalled the 1st and 2d 

Battalions, 27th Infantry, from the Iron Triangle so they could prepare for the 

next phase of his dry season campaign, Operation Saratoga, a much broader 

operation that covered northeastern Hau Nghia, southern Tay Ninh, and 

western Binh Duong Provinces. Designed to interfere with the enemy’s food 

collection effort during the winter harvest, Operation Saratoga also aimed to 

neutralize enemy bases in the Filhol Plantation and the Ho Bo Woods north 

of Cu Chi. General Mearns also placed the 3d Squadron, 4th Cavalry, under 

Emerson’s control for the duration of Saratoga, with orders to maintain 

17 Special Joint Narrative Rpt, RD, Hau Nghia Province, pp. 1–5.

18 MacGarrigle, Taking the Offensive, October 1966 to October 1967, pp. 372–76; AAR, Opn 

Atlanta, 2d Bde, 25th Inf Div, 16 Jan 68, p. 3, box 18, AARs, Asst Ch of Staff, J–3, MACV, RG 

472, NACP. 19 AAR, Opn Atlanta, 2d Bde, 25th Inf Div, pp. 4, 7, 26–27.
93

Protecting the Heartland

security on Highway 1 between Gia Dinh Province and Tay Ninh Province, 

the 25th Infantry Division’s supply line for Operation Yellowstone.

20

When Saratoga got under way on 8 December, Colonel Emerson landed 

the 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry, led by Lt. Col. Ernest F. Condina, into the 

Ho Bo Woods and the Filhol Plantation to secure the area for a Rome plow 

sweep. The battalion encountered no serious resistance. That same day, the 

4th Battalion, 23d Infantry, escorted the division engineers and their plows 

out of the Iron Triangle and back across the Saigon River via barges, reaching Cu Chi without incident. Four days later, the 1st Battalion, 101st PAVN 

Regiment, attacked Condina’s battalion as it was setting up a night defense 

position in the Filhol Plantation. The Americans repulsed the assault 

with help from artillery crews based at Cu Chi, twelve kilometers to the 

south. Condina’s battalion sustained ten wounded while killing thirty-nine 

Communist soldiers. The most dangerous enemy in southern Binh Duong 

Province had at last come out to fight.21

After several days passed without further sign of the 101st, General 

Mearns decided to put Saratoga on hold so he could launch a new operation known as Camden to trap the North Vietnamese unit. On 17 December, 

20 AAR, Opn Saratoga, 2d Bde, 25th Inf Div, n.d., p. 4, box 18, AARs, Asst Ch of Staff, J–3, 

MACV, RG 472, NACP. 21 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 50, II FFV, 10–16 Dec 67, 16 Dec 67, pp. 1, 9, Historians files, CMH. 

A lieutenant kneels next to a tunnel entrance in the Iron Triangle.
Staying the Course

94

the 1st and 2d Battalions, 27th Infantry, and several companies from the 2d 

Battalion, 34th Armor, began a sweep through the Ho Bo and Boi Loi Woods. 

The 3d Brigade, commanded by Col. Leonard R. Daems Jr., established a 

blocking force along the eastern side of the Saigon River to prevent the North 

Vietnamese regiment from escaping into the Trapezoid base area located just 

north of the Iron Triangle. Two battalions from the South Vietnamese 49th 

Regiment, 25th Division, also joined the hunt.22

Camden’s first major contact occurred on the twenty-first when a battalion-size enemy force ambushed Company A, 2d Battalion, 27th Infantry, 

and several M48 tanks that were searching the Ho Bo Woods. The Americans 

sustained four killed and sixteen wounded in the sharp fight, while also 

losing two tanks destroyed. Enemy losses came to forty-two dead. The uniforms worn by the enemy suggested that they belonged to a Viet Cong local 

force unit, most likely the 1st Quyet Thang Battalion, rather than the North 

Vietnamese 101st Regiment.

23

The next day on the eastern side of the river, the 3d Battalion, 22d 

Infantry, a 3d Brigade unit commanded by Lt. Col. Thomas U. Harrold, 

found the elusive 101st Regiment while combing through the Trapezoid. 

His men stumbled onto a pair of bunker complexes manned by North 

Vietnamese soldiers, resulting in an all-day fight that left fourteen 

Americans dead and thirty-nine wounded. The enemy withdrew during 

the night, carrying away all but three of his dead. General Mearns spent 

another week searching for the 101st, finally terminating Camden on 31 

December. During the operation, the allies had killed over 100 enemy soldiers, captured 29 detainees and 19 tons of rice, and destroyed another 35 

tons of rice that could not be easily relocated.24

All of the attention devoted to degrading the enemy’s main forces and 

bases along the Saigon River corridor in November and December necessarily pulled troops away from maintaining Hau Nghia’s day-to-day security. 

Usually the 2d Brigade could muster only one battalion for security duties, 

and sometimes none. The allies had also removed two South Vietnamese Army 

battalions from Hau Nghia and sent them to Tay Ninh Province to participate 

in Operation Yellowstone. When U.S. troops were available, they performed 

ground patrols, small airmobile raids, search-and-destroy operations, and 

hamlet cordon-and-search actions. One of the hamlet searches, conducted 

by the 2d Battalion, 27th Infantry, and Vietnamese police on 16 December 

apprehended one hundred Viet Cong suspects. Forty Kit Carson Scouts, Viet 

Cong defectors assigned to U.S. units as intelligence and reconnaissance personnel, assisted in most of these operations. Meanwhile, the 25th Division’s 

military police continued to perform resource control operations with their 

22 The following section is based on ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 25th Inf Div, n.d., pp. 5–6, 

and ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, II FFV, 12 Apr 68, p. 30. See also AAR, Opn Camden, 2d Bde, 

25th Inf Div, n.d.; AAR, Opn Camden, 3d Bde, 25th Inf Div, 23 Jan 68; AAR, Opn Camden, 

3d Squad, 4th Cav, n.d.. All in box 40, Cmd Reporting files, 18th Mil Hist Det, USARV, RG 

472, NACP. 23 AAR, Opn Camden, 2d Bde, 25th Inf Div, pp. 5–6.

24 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, II FFV, 12 Apr 68, p. 30, Historians files, CMH.
95

Protecting the Heartland

South Vietnamese counterparts, netting 100,000 piasters worth of contraband, 

almost a kilogram of marijuana, and fifty-three deserters and draft dodgers 

in December. The brigade’s training and civic action activities likewise continued unabated, while the Combined Reconnaissance and Intelligence Platoon 

vigorously harried the enemy. By year’s end, the platoon had killed ninety-two 

Viet Cong, captured thirty-six, and destroyed twenty tunnels since its formation in the spring. Inspired by its success, other U.S. divisions created their 

own CRIP organizations.25

Security did not decline during the last quarter of 1967 as a result of 

the allies’ decision to reduce forces in Hau Nghia, but the rate of progress 

slowed. If the province’s advisory personnel wished more troops had been 

available, they took pride in the fact that Vietnamese regular and territorial forces had been able to maintain existing levels of security despite 

the drawdown. True, the enemy could be counted on to commit five to 

ten acts of terrorism per month, assassinating officials and Revolutionary 

Development cadre and throwing grenades into public places, but such 

actions were impossible to stop entirely. Clashes between allied and 

Communist units were rare and generally small affairs, with the South 

Vietnamese holding their own. 

As for pacification, the winter rice harvest was bountiful thanks to the 

use of U.S.-financed fertilizer, a good growing season, and an expansion of 

the acreage farmed due to improved security. Harvest losses to the Viet Cong 

were moderate. All roads were considered safe to travel during the day, with 

the volume of commercial traffic steadily increasing. The primary agents in 

the battle against the Viet Cong infrastructure—the police and Hau Nghia’s 

CIA-advised provincial reconnaissance unit—were still not functioning as well 

as could be hoped. During the last quarter of the year counterinfrastructure 

activities resulted in the death of eleven Viet Cong agents and the capture of 

seventeen more, with sixteen people turning themselves in to the Chieu Hoi

program. Revolutionary Development continued, albeit behind schedule, 

thanks in part to the close collaboration between the advisory detachment and 

a fine province chief. All in all, Hau Nghia’s U.S. advisers were satisfied with 

the amount of pacification progress at year’s end.26

Yet just as in neighboring Binh Duong, disturbing reports of enemy troop 

movements began to filter into allied intelligence centers during the final days 

of the year. The focal point of these movements was the enemy-dominated 

Duc Hue District and the Vam Co Dong River. Several small clashes occurred 

during the last weeks of December that indicated that the enemy intend to 

attack the provincial capital. On the night of 12 December, the Viet Cong 

lobbed thirty-five mortar shells into the city, while a platoon unsuccessfully 

attacked a Popular Forces post north of town. Two weeks later, a CRIP patrol 

25 AAR, Opn Saratoga, 8 Dec 67–10 Mar 68, 2d Bde, 25th Inf Div, n.d., p. 11; Rpt, CORDS, 

Hau Nghia Province, period ending 31 Dec 67, n.d., p. 8. Both in Historians files, CMH. Memo, 

Weyand for COMUSMACV, 4 Jan 68, p. 10. 26 Monthly Progress Rpts, RD Advisory Team 81, Hau Nghia, Province, 31 Dec 67, p. 1, 

Historians files, CMH.
Staying the Course

96

located fifty Viet Cong outside Bao Trai and dispersed them by calling in 

artillery. Far more serious than these skirmishes were indications that the Viet 

Cong in Hau Nghia were refitting both their local forces and the guerrillas with 

AK47 assault rifles, weapons that would give them a significant advantage 

in any firefight with government forces. Anticipating that the enemy would 

soon launch his winter offensive, province officials looked forward to early 

January, when the two South Vietnamese battalions participating in Operation 

Yellowstone were scheduled to return.27

Gia Dinh: A Province in Transition

In December 1966, General Westmoreland had initiated an experiment 

in U.S. military support to pacification in Gia Dinh Province. The province, 

which surrounded Saigon, was a logical place to conduct such an experiment, 

for any effort to spread pacification out from the capital into the countryside 

in “oil-spot” fashion would necessarily have to work through Gia Dinh. In 

Operation Fairfax, Westmoreland committed three battalions drawn from 

the 1st and 25th Divisions to work with the South Vietnamese 5th Ranger 

Group to secure three of Gia Dinh’s most troubled districts—Binh Chanh, 

Nha Be, and Thu Duc. The following month, MACV replaced the ad 

hoc force with the recently arrived 

199th Infantry Brigade (Light), 

which remained in Gia Dinh until 

the closing weeks of 1967 (Map 9).

Between January and December 

1967, the 199th Infantry Brigade 

assigned each of its three infantry battalions to a district where they paired 

off with a South Vietnamese ranger 

battalion. The area security mission 

entailed a mixture of search-anddestroy missions, daylight saturation patrols, night ambushes, roving 

highway checkpoints, and cordonand-search operations. Sometimes 

the U.S. and South Vietnamese battalions worked together in combined 

operations with their respective companies integrated down to the squad 

level. At other times, they mixed U.S. 

and South Vietnamese platoons to 

form provisional companies. When 

operating with Vietnamese river 

27 Ibid., pp. 5–7.

A scout dog and handler from the 44th 

Infantry Platoon (Scout Dog)
97

Protecting the Heartland

assault groups in the marshy areas south of Saigon, the brigade often brought 

along a team from the 49th Infantry Platoon (Scout Dog) to sniff out Viet Cong 

hidden in the dense vegetation. The brigade also worked extensively with the 

territorial forces, conducting combined operations and training.28 

28 AAR, Opn Fairfax/Rang Dong, 11th Inf Bde, 3 Jan 68, p. 9, box 18, AARs, Asst Ch of 

Staff, J–3, MACV, RG 472, NACP.

6 Binh Tan

PLAF

I I

5 Nha Be

PLAF

I I

4 Thu Duc

PLAF

I I

2 3

I I

4 12

I I

3 7

I I

5

III

R

ARVN

II

II

BIEN HOA

LONG BINH

DI AN

PHU CUONG

TAN SON NHUT

CU CHI

S ong Dong Nai

Song Nha Be

Song Vam Co Dong

RUNG SAT

Song Sai G o n Song Sai Gon

13

4

1

1

1

1

5A

Binh Chanh District

Nha Be District

Thu Duc District

Hoc Mon District

Ta n B i n h D i s t ri c t

Quang Xuyen District

Can Gio District

Go Vap District

G I A D I N H

BI N H D U O N G

H AU N G H I A

G I A D I N H

G I A D I N H

LO N G A N

BI E N H OA

G I A D I N H

BI E N H OA

G I A D I N H

BI E N H OA

BI N H D U O N G

G I A D I N H

G O CO N G

LO N G A N

Duc Hoa

Nha Be

Can Giuoc

Can Duoc

Binh Chanh

Hoc Mon

Di An

Gia Dinh Tan Binh

Go Vap

Cu Chi

Thu Duc

SAIGON

Bien Hoa

Phu Cuong

OPERATION FAIRFAX

AREA OF OPERATIONS

November 1967

0

0 5 Kilometers

Miles 5

Operational Boundary

Battalion Boundary

Military Installation

Gia Dinh District Boundary

II

Map 9
Staying the Course

98

The integration of U.S. and South Vietnamese forces extended upward 

through the command and control structure of the 199th Infantry Brigade. 

Under the command of Brig. Gen. Robert C. Forbes, the 199th Infantry Brigade 

headquarters contained a staff liaison team from the South Vietnamese 5th 

Ranger Group, as did the headquarters of each of the brigade’s three battalions. Each district also contained an Area Security Coordination Committee 

consisting of the district chief and his U.S. adviser, the commander of territorial forces, the senior police officer, the commanders of the U.S. and South 

Vietnamese forces, and officials from civilian aid agencies. The committees 

collated information about the Viet Cong infrastructure and performed combined planning.29

Briefing General Westmoreland on the status of Operation Fairfax in 

the fall of 1967, General Forbes reported that the integrated operations “have 

proven beneficial to U.S. and South Vietnamese forces alike,” and had produced an improved security environment. When the operation had begun, the 

targeted districts had contained three Viet Cong battalions totaling around 

1,400 soldiers who regularly conducted company-size attacks. Eight months 

later, that number had been halved, and allied activities had forced one of the 

three Viet Cong battalions to leave its assigned district for the relative safety 

of eastern Long An Province. The brigade’s Red Catcher Training Teams 

had provided refresher training to all of the South Vietnamese ranger and 

Regional Forces units in the Fairfax sector, putting the Vietnamese through 

a two-week course followed by two weeks of combined operations with U.S. 

units. The number of enemy attacks had fallen from a high of twenty-four 

in August to just two in October, and the number of terrorism incidents had 

declined from thirty to two during the same period. All of the Revolutionary 

Development teams in the affected districts were working in their assigned 

hamlets, and the major roads that passed through the sector were rated as 

secure both day and night. Much indeed had been accomplished.30

Yet there were shortcomings too. Revolutionary Development had proceeded slowly due to programmatic delays, while the South Vietnamese 

police and intelligence services had not taken effective action to uproot the 

enemy infrastructure, rendering all government progress among the population tentative. Although Vietnamese soldier skills had improved under U.S. 

tutelage, leadership throughout the regular and territorial forces remained 

marginal, with Vietnamese commanders taking only a passing interest 

in pacification-related issues. Just as disturbing to Westmoreland, the 

Vietnamese had begun to exhibit “a tendency to let the Americans do the 

job alone.” Believing that U.S. soldiers had taught the Vietnamese all they 

could, and concerned that the experiment in integration might be fostering 

dependency rather than self-reliance, the MACV commander decided it was 

time to move on. The lesson he drew from Fairfax was that it was “better 

29 MFR, MACV, 12 Oct 67, sub: MACV Commander’s Conference 24 September 1967, p. 4, 

Encl 6, Historians files, CMH. 30 Ibid., p. 4 (quote), Encl 6; and an. F, app. 2 and 3; Rpt, CORDS, III Corps, p. 13, attached 

to Memo, Weyand for COMUSMACV, 4 Jan 68.
99

Protecting the Heartland

for South Vietnamese and 

American units to operate side by side in cooperation than to integrate.” 

“The South Vietnamese in 

the long run simply had 

to learn to stand on their 

own,” he remarked, and 

integration, despite its benefits, did not necessarily 

offer a clear path to achieving that ultimate objective. 

After a year of integrated 

operations, it was time for 

the Vietnamese to take 

full responsibility. General 

Weyand was confident that 

they were prepared to do 

so.31

Leaving the South 

Vietnamese 5th Ranger 

Group and the territorials 

to continue operations in 

the Fairfax zone, General 

Forbes moved his brigade 

from Gia Dinh to Bien 

Hoa Province in three 

stages. The 4th Battalion, 

12th Infantry, left Thu Duc 

District on 15 November, moving to Camp Frenzell-Jones. Two weeks later, 

the 3d Battalion, 7th Infantry, ended its mission in Binh Chanh District, 

and on 14 December the 2d Battalion, 3d Infantry, departed Nha Be 

District, closing out Operation Fairfax.

32

The brigade’s departure did not, however, end its support for pacification in Gia Dinh. The unit continued to run two-week refresher courses for 

Regional Forces units and to provide three of the province’s eight Mobile 

Advisory Teams, the others being supplied by the 1st, 9th, and 25th Infantry 

Divisions. In addition to training the province’s territorials and to accompanying them on missions, the teams helped all South Vietnamese forces 

conduct their own in-place training and provided civic action assistance to 

villages, making them in the words of province adviser, “a valuable asset.” 

31 Quotes from Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, p. 207. MacGarrigle, Taking the Offensive, 

October 1966 to October 1967, pp. 31–59, 95–162, 327–90. Rpts, CORDS, Gia Dinh Province, 

period ending 30 Nov 67, pp. 5–7; CORDS, Gia Dinh Province, period ending 31 Dec 67, pp. 1, 

11. Both in Historians files, CMH. 32 AAR, Opn Fairfax/Rang Dong, pp. 1–3. 

General Weyand (left) with 

General Forbes
Staying the Course

100

The Viet Cong recognized their worth as well, attacking two of the teams 

in December without success.33

As in Hau Nghia, CORDS advisers attributed much of the progress 

that had occurred in Gia Dinh during the year to the presence of U.S. 

combat units. They likewise expressed satisfaction that security remained 

relatively stable after the 199th Infantry Brigade had departed. By year’s 

end, the government continued to control all the people and places it had 

dominated during Fairfax, and it looked as though the province would 

complete the 1967 Revolutionary Development campaign in January 1968, 

although CORDs officials worried that in their rush to meet the goal their 

counterparts were sacrificing quantity for quality, a recurring problem in 

Vietnamese pacification schemes. True, the number of Viet Cong incidents 

and acts of terror increased noticeably in November and December, and 

agents reported seeing a growing number of enemy soldiers, most notably sappers, moving through the province. These activities, together with 

the withdrawal of the 199th Infantry Brigade, had led to a decline in the 

population’s sense of security. Concern, rather than alarm, characterized 

the reaction of the senior province adviser, who regarded the developments 

as entirely predictable. Enemy activity always increased with the onset of 

the dry season, and it was natural for the Viet Cong to test government 

security forces once U.S. combat units had left. What the enemy’s plans 

held in store remained to be seen.34

East of Saigon

One of the factors that contributed to the termination of Operation 

Fairfax was Weyand’s need to adjust his dispositions in eastern III Corps. 

By the fall of 1967, Weyand had four maneuver units—the 1st Brigade of 

the 9th Infantry Division, the 11th Armored Cavalry, the 1st Australian Task 

Force, and the Royal “Queen’s Cobra” Thai Regiment—assisting the South 

Vietnamese 18th Infantry Division in securing the four provinces east of 

Saigon (Bien Hoa, Phuoc Tuy, Long Khanh, and Binh Tuy). However, since 

the II Field Force commander planned to send the 11th Armored Cavalry to 

the northwest in December to support the borderland offensive, he needed 

to shuffle his forces to fill the impending void. Moving the 199th Infantry 

Brigade eastward would help compensate for the loss of the cavalry.

Eastern III Corps was a large theater. Stretching from the upper limits 

of the Mekong Delta to the lower spur of the Central Highlands, the region 

measured some 130 kilometers at its widest point and a similar distance from 

north to south. More than half of the 725,000 people who resided there lived 

within 50 kilometers of Saigon, principally in central and southern Bien Hoa 

Province, western Long Khanh Province, and western Phuoc Tuy Province, 

where the flat terrain and moderately wet climate could support rice farming. A 

33 Rpt, CORDS, Gia Dinh Province, period ending 31 Dec 67, p. 12. 

34 Ibid., pp. 9–10.
101

Protecting the Heartland

smaller percentage of the population lived in fishing hamlets along the southeastern coast, or in the dry interior districts of eastern III Corps. Relatively 

few people lived in northern Bien Hoa, Long Khanh, and Binh Tuy Provinces, 

which were blanketed with triple-canopy forests and low rolling hills. 

Of the four eastern provinces, Bien Hoa demanded the lion’s share of 

General Weyand’s attention. An estimated 287,000 of its 386,000 inhabitants 

lived in contested areas, while another 55,000 people resided in Viet Cong territory. Not even the capital city was safe at all hours. The province chief was 

notoriously ineffective, as was the principal South Vietnamese Army unit, the 

48th Regiment. The corps commander, General Khang, relied on his mobile 

reserves, a pair of South Vietnamese ranger battalions, to protect Bien Hoa 

City and his III Corps headquarters.

Owing to the marginal security situation, Weyand retained a sizable force 

in Bien Hoa to defend three installations. Bien Hoa Air Base, located on the 

eastern bank of the Dong Nai River some thirty kilometers northeast of 

downtown Saigon, contained numerous aviation units. Two kilometers farther 

east of Highway 1, the massive complex known as Long Binh contained the 

main logistical facilities of U.S. Army, Vietnam, as well as the II Field Force 

headquarters, Camp Frenzell-Jones, and the headquarters of the 12th Aviation 

Group. Finally, the 9th Infantry Division maintained its headquarters and 

rear support area at Camp Martin Cox, also known as Bearcat, located ten 

kilometers southeast of Long Binh via Highway 15. 

Several Viet Cong bases located on the fringes of Bien Hoa Province posed 

a constant threat to Weyand’s facilities. The northern districts of Tan Uyen 

and Cong Thanh lay within the southern edge of War Zone D, while a battalion-size sapper force known as Group 10 sometimes operated in the marshy, 

southernmost district of Nhon Trach, where it harassed cargo vessels that 

made their way up the Dong Nai River to off-loading points near Long Binh. 

Just as disconcerting, southeastern Long Thanh District contained a portion 

of the Hat Dich Secret Zone, a favorite sanctuary of the 274th Regiment of the 

5th PLAF Division. 

During the preceding wet season campaign, General Weyand had relied 

mainly on Maj. Gen. George C. O’Connor and his 9th Infantry Division to 

keep the enemy at bay in northern and central Bien Hoa Province. General 

O’Connor in turn had relied on his 1st Brigade, which was stationed at Camp 

Martin Cox. By relocating the 199th Infantry Brigade to northern Bien Hoa, 

Weyand was able to shift the 1st Brigade, 9th Division, into neighboring Long 

Khanh Province. This move in turn would eventually free the Long Khanh–

based 11th Armored Cavalry for service in northern III Corps (see Map 10).

As a few dozen soldiers from the 199th Infantry Brigade continued to work 

with Gia Dinh’s security forces, the rest of the brigade turned its attention to 

its new assignment. The mission had two components. The first, Operation 

Uniontown, was designed to prevent enemy units based in War Zone D—

especially those armed with 122-mm. rockets that had a maximum range of 

almost 9,000 meters—from attacking the Bien Hoa–Long Binh complex. 

General Forbes assigned to Uniontown the 3d Battalion, 7th Infantry, in 

eastern Tan Uyen District on the north side of the Dong Nai River, and the 2d 
Staying the Course

102

Battalion, 3d Infantry, in Cong Thanh District on the south side of the river. 

General Forbes deployed his remaining unit, the 4th Battalion, 12th Infantry, 

to the second component, Operation Manchester. Its role was to interdict 

the Communist supply channel that led from War Zone D to southern Binh 

Duong Province, following a network of foot and ox trails that ran parallel to 

the Dong Nai River through western Tan Uyen District. The battalion would 

also help screen the southern edge of War Zone D, thereby permitting one 

battalion from the South Vietnamese 48th Regiment, headquartered in Tan 

Uyen District town, to guard the hamlets that lined the river.35

The principal enemy threat in the Manchester zone was the Dong Nai 

Regiment, a unit that COSVN formed in the summer of 1967 by merging 

local Viet Cong battalions with a large number of North Vietnamese infiltrators. The regiment’s mission was to defend the supply line that ran between 

War Zone D and the capital region. General Forbes was eager to come to 

grips with the unit, which had recently attacked Tan Uyen town and the base 

camp of the South Vietnamese 2d Battalion, 48th Regiment, killing several 

dozen South Vietnamese soldiers between 22 and 25 November.36

Forbes assumed control of the Uniontown/Manchester sector from the 

9th Infantry Division on 1 December. Three days later, the commander of the 

4th Battalion, 12th Infantry, Lt. Col. William S. Schroeder, landed his unit 

from Long Binh to a large field several kilometers north of Tan Uyen town. 

A flight of CH–47 helicopters also delivered Battery C of the 2d Battalion, 

40th Artillery, equipped with 105-mm. howitzers. Other aircraft brought in 

bulldozers and a large amount of building material, including prefabricated 

bunkers, to construct a new outpost called Firebase Nashua.

37

35 AAR, Opn Uniontown/Manchester, 199th Light Inf Bde, 8 Feb 68, p. 8, box 40, Historians 

Background files, 18th Mil Hist Det, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 36 Rpt, RD Advisory Team 5, Bien Hoa Province, 30 Nov 67, p. 7, Historians files, CMH.

37 Ibid., an. F, p. 3.

An aerial view of the logistical facility at Long Binh
103

Protecting the Heartland

The soldiers encountered a vastly different environment from the one they 

had known in Gia Dinh. Their previous sector had been flat, inundated, and 

densely populated, a checkerboard of farms and hamlets crisscrossed with 

waterways and roads. The area north, east, and west of Firebase Nashua was 

essentially a wilderness. Thick vegetation covered most of the terrain. Large 

anthills that the sun had baked to concrete-like hardness dotted the landscape. 

Map 10

OPERATION FARGO

21 Dec 67–21 Jan 68

OPERATION QUICKSILVER 4–21 Dec 67

OPERATION SANTA FE 2 Nov 67–5 Jan 68

LOC NINH

SONG BE

PHUOC VINH

XUAN LOC

PHU CUONG BIEN HOA

GIA RAY

BEN CAT

IV CTZ

II CTZ

SOUTH CHINA SEA

14

1

1

4

4

20

20

22

15

13

1A

SAIGON

PHUOC TUY

BINH TUY

BINH

THUAN

LONG KHANH

PHUOC LONG

BINH

DUONG

HAU

NGHIA

LONG AN

GO CONG

KIEN HOA

KIEN TUONG

DINH TUONG

GIA DINH

TAY NINH

BIEN

HOA

QUANG DUC

LAM DONG BINH LONG

BA XUYEN

VINH BINH

VINH LONG

CAMBODIA

11TH ARMORED CAVALRY

III CORPS 

2 November 1967–21 January 1968

Axis of Ground Movement

Corps Tactical Zone Boundary

Military Installation

0

0 50 Kilometers

Miles 50

Map 10
Staying the Course

104

There were few streams capable of inhibiting movement, but also few roads. 

Most of the 15,000 people in Tan Uyen clustered near the district town or 

along the river. What little intelligence the 199th Infantry Brigade possessed 

about its new sector came mainly from aerial reconnaissance and long-range 

patrols; no longer would there be a South Vietnamese police or military security service information network to draw upon.

As it happened, the 4th Battalion, 12th Infantry, did not have long to wait 

before the enemy made himself known. On the early morning of 6 December, 

a Viet Cong mortar barrage pummeled Firebase Nashua, killing or wounding 

several Americans. At daybreak, two platoons from Company A and a scout 

dog team searched for the enemy gunners, believed to be southeast of the firebase, while Company C swept the area to the north in case the Viet Cong force 

had retired toward War Zone D. 

That afternoon, the two-platoon force was moving through an area of 

thick undergrowth several kilometers from Nashua when it fell victim to a 

devastating ambush. Unknown to the patrol, it had walked into the middle 

of a concealed bunker complex defended by the Dong Nai Regiment’s D800 

Battalion. The intense fire killed or wounded more than a dozen U.S. soldiers 

in the opening moments. The survivors sought cover and radioed for help. 

Colonel Schroeder ordered Company C to race to the site. He also dispatched 

some armored personnel carriers from Troop D of the 17th Cavalry that were 

operating nearby, and flew in a company from the 3d Battalion, 7th Infantry, 

which was on thirty-minute standby at Long Binh. Assisted by helicopter gunships from the 3d Squadron, 17th Cavalry, the reinforcements extracted the 

survivors from Company A before night fell. The cost had been high. A total 

of twenty-five U.S. soldiers had been killed and another eighty-two wounded. 

General O’Connor (foreground on the right) and his staff listen as the commander of 

the Royal Thai Army Volunteer Regiment, Col. Sanan Yudhasaraprasit, gives a speech 

following his arrival at Bearcat.
105

Protecting the Heartland

Two M113s had fallen victim to enemy mines. The enemy left behind sixtyseven dead. COSVN was clearly unwilling to let the 199th Infantry Brigade 

operate so close to War Zone D without a fight.38

In the week that followed, General Forbes reinforced his position in Tan 

Uyen. He deployed the 3d Battalion, 7th Infantry, into the eastern part of 

the district, where it established Firebase Keane. He also placed a battery 

of 155-mm. self-propelled howitzers from the 2d Battalion, 35th Artillery, at 

Firebase Nashua. Most of the 3d Squadron, 17th Cavalry, moved from Di An 

to Tay Ninh City that month to participate in Operation Yellowstone, but 

one troop of helicopter gunships remained at Di An to support Uniontown/

Manchester. Forbes also gained operational control over Company F, 51st 

Infantry, a long-range reconnaissance patrol unit that had recently deployed to 

South Vietnam to operate with II Field Force.

On 19 December, a team from Company F, 51st Infantry, spotted troops 

from the Dong Nai Regiment while patrolling the southern edge of War Zone 

D. Colonel Schroeder sent a company from his 4th Battalion, 12th Infantry, 

by helicopter to investigate. When his men received fire at the landing zone, 

Schroeder sent additional troops from the 4th Battalion, 12th Infantry, 

assisted by helicopter gunships from the 3d Squadron, 17th Cavalry. The 

38 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 199th Inf Bde, n.d., p. 26; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 49, II FFV, 

3–9 Dec 67, 9 Dec 67, p. 9. Both in Historians files, CMH.

Soldiers of the 199th Infantry Brigade crossing a stream during a mission
Staying the Course

106

enemy eventually withdrew back into War Zone D, leaving behind forty-nine 

dead. U.S. losses came to seven killed and thirteen wounded. Eight days 

later, the 4th Battalion, 12th Infantry, engaged a company-size unit southeast 

of Nashua, claiming thirty more enemy dead for a loss of three Americans 

killed and twenty-eight wounded. The Dong Nai Regiment was quickly proving itself to be the most dangerous opponent the 199th Infantry Brigade had 

yet encountered.

By that point, the 199th Infantry Brigade had sustained a total of 35 

killed and 126 wounded in its first month of operations in the Uniontown/

Manchester zone, a far higher casualty rate than the brigade had experienced 

in Gia Dinh Province. Forbes’ brigade acquired some hard-won lessons about 

operating in a sector where the enemy had the time and resources to build 

extensive underground bunkers, something the 199th Infantry Brigade had not 

seen in Gia Dinh, and fighting a highly disciplined main force regiment instead 

of local Viet Cong units. Nevertheless, the 199th Brigade had accomplished its 

primary mission. Not a single rocket or mortar landed within the Bien Hoa–

Long Binh complex during December, and the Dong Nai Regiment kept its 

distance from Tan Uyen town after the U.S. soldiers moved into the sector.39

Opening Highway 1

As the 199th Infantry Brigade moved into northern Bien Hoa Province to 

defend Bien Hoa–Long Binh, the 9th Infantry Division turned its full attention to the security and Revolutionary Development support mission known 

as Operation Riley in central Bien Hoa and western Long Khanh Provinces. 

Begun on 22 July 1967, General O’Connor relied on Col. Harry O. Williams 

and his 1st Brigade to spearhead the assignment. In addition to the three infantry battalions in the 1st Brigade—the 2d and 4th Battalions, 39th Infantry, 

and the 2d Battalion, 47th Infantry (Mechanized)—the division’s reconnaissance element, the 3d Squadron, 5th Cavalry, also played a prominent role 

in Operation Riley. O’Connor typically retained a battalion-size mix of 

standard infantry companies and mechanized troops organized as Task Force 

Forsyth near Camp Martin Cox to defend the 9th Infantry Division’s base 

camp and to provide a reaction force in case Long Binh came under attack. 

His remaining forces divided their time between road security patrols, armed 

reconnaissance sweeps through the rubber plantations and forested areas in 

the Riley zone, and a variety of civic action and engineer support missions.40

One of the ways in which the 1st Brigade, 9th Infantry Division, supported 

the Revolutionary Development program was by establishing Improvement 

Action Teams to assist the Regional and Popular Forces in Bien Hoa Province. 

The Improvement Action Teams surveyed all of the territorial outposts in the 

province to determine what upgrades they required, how best to assist them 

when they came under attack, and the most efficient way of delivering supplies 

39 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 199th Inf Bde, p. 26.

40 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, II FFV, p. 28.
107

Protecting the Heartland

to each station. The 9th Division provided most of the engineer support and 

materials needed to bring each outpost to acceptable standards of defensibility and livability. Some problems were redressed through creative methods. 

Many Regional Forces outposts were surrounded by thick grass or vegetation 

that the troops inside refused to clear, fearing they would step on one of the 

unmarked landmines that had been buried around the outposts at some previous time. The 9th Infantry Division engineers solved the problem by using 

flamethrower-equipped M113s to burn away the vegetation at a safe distance. 

Likewise, the 9th Infantry Division conducted a civic aid operation known 

as Kansas that provided food and building materials to communities in Bien 

Hoa Province at the request of local authorities.41

General O’Connor’s principal partner in the Riley sector was the South 

Vietnamese 18th Infantry Division, headquartered at Xuan Loc, the capital 

of Long Khanh Province, located on Highway 1 due east of Long Binh some 

sixty kilometers from Saigon. U.S. advisers regarded the division commander, 

Brig. Gen. Do Ke Giai, as a “conscientious commander [who] demands 

high performance standards,” but a year in charge had done little to improve 

the performance of his unit, widely considered to be the worst in the South 

Vietnamese Army. O’Connor provided several Military Advisory Teams to 

help train the South Vietnamese, and the 54th Artillery Group maintained 

its headquarters and several medium artillery batteries in Xuan Loc to give 

Giai’s division extra firepower. A pair of II Field Force units further stiffened 

defenses south of Xuan Loc. The 11th Armored Cavalry maintained its main 

base, Camp Blackhorse, a dozen kilometers south of Xuan Loc on provincial 

Highway 2, where it conducted a regional security mission known as Operation 

Kittyhawk under the control of the 9th Infantry Division. Another twentyfive kilometers to the south via Highway 2, the 1st Australian Task Force operated out of its camp at Ba Ria to protect Phuoc Tuy Province.42 

The traditional enemy threats in the Riley and Kittyhawk sectors came 

from the 274th and 275th Regiments of the 5th PLAF Division and the D440

and D445 Local Force Battalions. The 5th Division maintained two main base 

camps in the region. The Hat Dich Secret Zone was located some fifty kilometers east of Saigon at the intersection of Bien Hoa, Long Khanh, and Phouc 

Tuy Provinces. It was flat and covered by wild forests. The smaller May Tao 

Secret Zone was located another forty kilometers to its east at the intersection 

of Long Khanh, Phouc Tuy, and Binh Tuy Provinces. It too was heavily forested but contained at its center a hill that rose approximately 500 meters above 

the surrounding countryside. The two base areas received most of their military supplies from War Zone D, which in turn received its supplies along the 

Adams Trail from Cambodia. Being at the end of that long chain meant that 

41 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 9th Inf Div, 30 Jan 1968, p. 14; and pp. 1, 4, Encl 9 to ORLL, 

1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 9th Inf Div, 30 Jan 68, boxes 40–41, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd Historian, 

HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 42 Quote from Msg, Lt Gen Frederick C. Weyand HOA 1539 to Westmoreland, 21 Oct 67, p. 

3, Historians files, CMH. ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 9th Inf Div, pp. 15–17.
Staying the Course

108

the Hat Dich and May Tao base areas had trouble building up their reserves, 

which somewhat restricted enemy operations in southeastern III Corps. 

Before he shifted the 11th Armored Cavalry to Binh Long to support the 

offensive near the Cambodian border, General Weyand wanted to take a swing 

at the 5th PLAF Division and its logistical system in eastern III Corps. At his 

instructions, General O’Connor laid plans for an operation known as Santa

Fe to neutralize the 5th Division’s base in the May Tao Secret Zone and to 

secure Highway 1 from Xuan Loc to the II Corps boundary, a distance of 

sixty kilometers. Once secure, U.S. engineers would repair the road and replace 

eleven bridges that the Viet Cong had destroyed in 1962. The road-opening 

mission was part of a larger campaign initiated by the South Vietnamese to 

restore an unbroken highway connection from Saigon to the Demilitarized 

Zone. The restoration of Highway 1 would also give the government better 

access to the civilian population in eastern III Corps, and give the civilian 

population better access to the commercial markets in Saigon.

The 1st Brigade, 9th Infantry Division, would spearhead Operation Santa

Fe, reinforced by elements of the 1st Australian Task Force, the 11th Armored 

Cavalry, and the South Vietnamese 18th Infantry Division. During the twomonth operation, the 9th Division would depend on its 3d Squadron, 5th 

Cavalry, to continue security missions in central Bien Hoa Province, and the 

The advance element of the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, 

arrives at Tan Son Nhut.
109

Protecting the Heartland

newly arrived Royal Thai Army Volunteer Regiment, stationed at Camp Martin 

Cox, to support the Revolutionary Development program in southern Bien Hoa.

Operation Santa Fe got under way on 3 November when the 1st Brigade, 

9th Division, loaded the entire 4th Battalion, 39th Infantry, aboard six helicopter companies at Long Binh. The air assault required careful preparation; 

never before had II Field Force attempted to airlift a complete battalion at 

one time and deliver it to a single landing zone. The mission went flawlessly. 

The soldiers wore colored scarves to denote which of the four companies they 

belonged to. The colors helped the air crews load their correct passengers, 

and when the helicopters delivered the troops to a landing zone just north of 

the May Tao Secret Zone, each helicopter company touching down one after 

another, all of the nearly 800 soldiers put their boots on the ground within 

the space of just three minutes. Gunships from Troop D, 3d Squadron, 5th 

Cavalry, prowled overhead to provide suppressive fire if needed, but the entire 

landing occurred without opposition.43

Pushing out from the landing zone, the soldiers secured the four-kilometer 

gap between Highway 1 and the Mao Tao Secret Zone, finding no sign of 

the 5th Division. Around 1500 that afternoon, the 2d Battalion, 47th Infantry, 

and the forward headquarters of the 1st Brigade arrived at the location via 

Highway 1, making the journey without incident. Several U.S. engineer and 

truck companies followed soon after to establish Firebase Wildcat, the 

forward supply area and operating base that would serve the brigade for the 

remainder of Santa Fe. 

43 AAR, Opn Santa Fe, 1st Bde, 9th Inf Div, 25 Apr 68, p. 9, in ORLLS, 1966–1971, Cmd 

Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP.

An M48 tank from the 11th Armored Cavalry on a search-and-destroy mission
Staying the Course

110

In the weeks that followed, the allies saw few signs of the enemy. The 11th 

Armored Cavalry and the 1st Australian Task Force placed blocking elements 

around the May Tao Secret Zone as the 1st Brigade, 9th Infantry Division, 

swept the northern rim of the zone, but only a handful of rear service troops 

contested the invaders. By the time the 11th Armored Cavalry withdrew from 

Santa Fe in early December, it was clear to General O’Connor that the headquarters of the 5th Division and the 275th Regiment had already gone north 

to participate in the fighting around Song Be. The latest intelligence suggested 

that part of the 274th Regiment had taken refuge in the Hat Dich area of 

southern Bien Hoa Province, and the remainder had withdrawn to War Zone 

D in northern Long Khanh. Between 3 November and 1 December, the 9th 

Division located and destroyed approximately 1,000 fortifications and cleared 

nearly 8,900 acres of forestland along the northern rim of the May Tao Secret 

Zone. In the process, the allies killed a total of 126 Viet Cong while losing 6 

killed and 35 wounded.44

During the final month of Santa Fe, the allies secured the stretch of 

Highway 1 between Firebase Wildcat and the II Corps boundary, building 

several temporary bases along the way and establishing a string of permanent 

Regional Forces outposts. At the same time, troops from the 15th and 86th 

Engineer Battalions set about repairing or replacing bridges, resurfacing 

damaged pavement, and removing the vegetation on either side of the highway to an average depth of one hundred meters. The engineers also repaired 

several branch roads that led to towns on the coast of southern Binh Tuy 

Province. A few days before Santa Fe ended on 5 January 1968, a military 

convoy carrying South Vietnamese Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky and a 

group of reporters took a highly publicized journey along Highway 1 from 

Saigon to the Demilitarized Zone, the first time in nearly a decade that such 

a trip was possible.45

Enemy activity remained low during December in the 1st Brigade area 

of operations. The only large-scale attack took place in southern Bien Hoa 

Province on the night of 20–21 December when a reinforced battalion from 

the 274th Regiment attacked a company night position held by the Royal Thai 

Army Volunteer Regiment. The outnumbered Thai soldiers fought off a determined but disorganized assault that lasted several hours, killing sixty-eight 

Viet Cong while sustaining a loss of six killed and eighteen wounded. A Viet 

Cong soldier taken prisoner during the battle told his interrogators that morale 

in the 274th Regiment was at rock bottom, with many troops suffering from 

hunger, fear of allied air raids, and untreated medical ailments. There was even 

less enemy activity in Long Khanh Province during December. When the 11th 

Armored Cavalry departed for northern III Corps at the end of the month 

to support the border offensive, the 3d Squadron, 5th Cavalry, moved from 

Camp Martin Cox to Camp Blackhorse to continue Operation Kittyhawk. 

At the conclusion of Santa Fe on 5 January 1968, the 1st Brigade of the 9th 

44 Ibid., p. 5.

45 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, II FFV, p. 32; Hammond, The Military and the Media, 1968–

1973, p. 337.
111

Protecting the Heartland

Infantry Division returned to central Bien Hoa to resume Operation Riley, 

leaving the 1st Australian Task Force to continue its security mission in Phuoc 

Tuy Province and the South Vietnamese 18th Infantry Division to keep an eye 

on the newly opened section of Highway 1.46

The 1st Brigade’s return to Bien Hoa Province was most welcome. Bien 

Hoa had made little progress on the pacification front during 1967. Viet 

Cong strength had combined with inefficiencies in the South Vietnamese civil 

bureaucracy to weaken allied efforts to spread government control. Some U.S. 

soldiers in Bien Hoa city had not helped the situation, creating disturbances 

at bars, reaching out from moving vehicles to snatch hats off pedestrians, 

and throwing smoke grenades into peaceful crowds.47 Nonetheless, the senior 

CORDS representative in Bien Hoa, a civilian, stated that what progress had 

occurred had “all been the result of unilateral U.S. actions.”48 Indeed, 

CORDS has had to increasingly rely on the resources, skills, and capabilities of resident U.S. military units. These units have, without exception, 

effectively filled the gaps and their efforts have succeeded in reducing the 

critical road situation that has been worsening throughout the years. Their 

action in many other areas has been highly commendable and CORDS Bien 

Hoa (as well as the government of Vietnam itself) owes a great deal to these 

units and their commanders who have unselfishly devoted themselves to 

furthering pacification.49

Even the misbehavior of some Americans had largely been offset “in the 

minds of the people by the frequent military civic action projects.”Although 

the situation was far from perfect, by the end of December 1967 the CORDS 

adviser reported that, thanks to U.S. efforts, “the average man enjoys a greater 

feeling of security today than he did last year or even last month.” But it 

remained up to South Vietnamese authorities to build on this achievement to 

create true, lasting progress in pacification, security, and governance, and this, 

regrettably, they had not yet done.50

Long An Province 

Much like the other U.S. brigades that ringed Saigon to the west, north, and 

east, the 3d Brigade, 9th Infantry Division, guarded the southern approaches to 

Saigon in Long An Province. The brigade’s mission in Operation Enterprise

was “to achieve military pacification by destroying the enemy; eliminating his 

infrastructure; denying him use of lines of communications; and extending 

46 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 1st Bde, 9th Inf Div, 15 Feb 68, p. 18, ORLLs, 1966–1971, 

Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 47 Rpts, CORDS, Bien Hoa Province, period ending 30 Nov 67, pp. 1, 5, 11; CORDS, Bien 

Hoa Province, period ending 31 Dec 67, pp. 1–6. Both in Historians files, CMH. 48 Rpt, CORDS, Bien Hoa Province, period ending 31 Dec 67, p. 1.

49 Ibid., p. 4.

50 Ibid., pp. 6, 1, 3, 7 (quote). 
Staying the Course

112

government of Vietnam control through the support of Revolutionary 

Development.” It was not an easy assignment, for Long An’s seven districts 

were some of the least secure in all of III Corps. That was of particular concern 

to the allies because the province was the gateway to the Mekong Delta. The 

population of Saigon relied on food purchased in the delta and shipped north 

on roads and canals that passed through Long An. Of particular importance 

was Highway 4, which ran through the province on its 350-kilometer journey 

from Saigon to An Xuyen Province at the delta’s southernmost tip. Long An 

produced around 280,000 tons of rice each year, representing over one-third of 

the total harvest in III Corps. The allies could ill afford to leave the province 

in enemy hands.51

Several factors made Long An, whose name meant “peaceful dragon,” a 

challenging environment. Two winding rivers, the Vam Co Tay and the Vam 

Co Dong, flowed in a southeasterly direction through the province from the 

Parrot’s Beak region of Cambodia to the Saigon River estuary, giving the 

enemy easy access to supply bases in Cambodia that were only fifty kilometers 

from the capital. Disused sugar cane and pineapple plantations lined the Vam 

Co Dong, offering year-round concealment to the 267th, 269th, and 6th Binh 

Tan Battalions from Sub-Region 2. In the eastern part of Long An Province, 

the 506th, 508th, 5th Nha Be, and Phu Loi II Battalions from Sub-Region 3

used the numerous streams that crisscrossed the swampy area for mobility and 

concealment, moving stealthily during the night in shallow-hulled sampans 

and hiding by day in the thick palms that grew along every creek. Last but 

not least, the enemy enjoyed active or passive support from more than half 

of the 480,000 people who lived in Long An. Over the past seven years, Viet 

Cong organizers had built a strong base of support by redistributing land 

from wealthy absentee owners to poor local farmers, by exploiting popular 

resentment against corrupt officials, and by resisting the government’s attempt 

to resettle communities who lived in remote and poorly guarded areas. As a 

result, the authority of the South Vietnamese government did not extend far 

beyond the district towns and a few strategic hamlets on Highway 4.52

At the start of November 1967, the commander of the 3d Brigade, 9th 

Division, Col. George W. Everett, controlled two infantry battalions and one 

mechanized battalion in the Enterprise sector. He maintained his primary 

base camp near Tan An, the provincial capital, some thirty-five kilometers 

southwest of Saigon at the intersection of Highway 4 and the Vam Co Tay 

River. The Tan An camp also contained the main U.S. airfield in Long An 

Province, where Everett kept several U.S. Huey helicopter companies for airmobile operations. 

51 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 3d Bde, 9th Inf Div, 30 Jan 68, p. 1, Historians files, CMH; 

“Route 4, Mekong Delta to Saigon,” in Rpt, OSAD (Systems Analysis), Southeast Asia 

Analysis, Dec 67, p. 43, Historians files, CMH. 52 AAR, Opn Enterprise, 3d Bde, 9th Inf Div, n.d., pp. 3, 8, box 11, AARs, 1965–1971, Cmd 

Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP; Jeffrey Race, War Comes to Long An: Revolutionary 

Conflict in a Vietnamese Province (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), pp. 174–75.
113

Protecting the Heartland

The 2d Battalion, 60th Infantry, operated from Tan Tru, a district town 

some seven kilometers east of Tan An. From a nearby base at An Nhut 

Tan, one company from the battalion patrolled the Vam Co Dong River in 

shallow-draft patrol boats known as Boston Whalers, equipped with 85-horsepower outboard motors and capable of carrying a dozen soldiers with their 

equipment. 

Everett’s second maneuver unit, the 3d Battalion, 39th Infantry, was based 

eleven kilometers northeast of An Nhut Tan in the district town of Rach Kien. 

The battalion stationed one of its companies in the town of Can Giuoc, eight 

kilometers to the east, and a second company at a former French post, fifteen 

kilometers southeast of Rach Kien, where the Vam Co Dong merged with 

the Saigon River. The battalion helped Vietnamese forces maintain control of 

provincial Highway 5A, which passed through Can Giuoc District, connecting 

Saigon with Go Cong Province in IV Corps.

The third major element of the 3d Brigade, the 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry 

(Mechanized), was headquartered in the district town of Binh Phuoc some 

ten kilometers southeast of Tan An. The unit was responsible for patrolling 

Highway 4 between Saigon and Dong Tam. It also provided a mechanized 

platoon for each of the supply convoys that traveled daily between Long Binh 

and Tan An. A 105-mm. howitzer battery from the brigade’s 2d Battalion, 4th 

Artillery, supported each of the battalions. 

The commander of the South Vietnamese 25th Infantry Division, Brig. 

Gen. Phan Trong Chinh, maintained two regiments in Long An Province, leaving them under the control of a deputy commander so that he could focus 

Members of the 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry, 9th Infantry Division, position 

their M113s.
Staying the Course

114

on operations in Hau Nghia and Tay Ninh Provinces. The South Vietnamese 

46th Regiment was headquartered in Can Giuoc, a district town in the eastern 

part of the province, and the South Vietnamese 50th Infantry Regiment was 

headquartered in Ben Luc, a district town twelve kilometers northeast of Tan 

An. Backing those regular forces were the usual assortment of Regional and 

Popular Forces troops assigned to district and village posts, while Revolutionary 

Development teams worked in those hamlets targeted for pacification.53

Since commencing Operation Enterprise on 13 February 1967, the 

3d Brigade of the 9th Infantry Division had helped the South Vietnamese 

establish a viable pacification program. In early 1967, the government had 

controlled less than a quarter of the population and only 4 percent of the 

province was considered physically secure. The enemy had held the initiative, 

conducting battalion-size attacks on a regular basis, and controlling all routes 

of communications by night. By the end of summer, however, the 3d Brigade’s 

hard-hitting search-and-destroy missions had reduced the enemy’s strength 

and freedom of movement. Four Viet Cong battalions that had routinely operated in the heart of Long An now spent most of their time along the eastern 

and western fringes of the province, dispersed into squad- and platoon-sized 

elements to more easily avoid detection. The South Vietnamese government 

had established a Revolutionary Development zone along the northeastern 

edge of Long An that had linked the government-controlled hamlets that lined 

Highways 4 and 5A so as to create a barrier to enemy forces attempting to 

approach Gia Dinh and Saigon from the south.54

The 3d Brigade used several techniques tailored for Long An’s environment. Its two standard infantry battalions conducted regular “jitterbug” missions throughout the province. These entailed putting several companies onto 

helicopters, which then flew from place to place, touching down long enough 

for a foot patrol to search a nearby tree line or vegetated canal, before heading 

off to another destination if no sign of the enemy was found. The flat, open 

farmland that covered much of the province offered ready-made landing zones 

when the rice fields were not inundated, as did the web of secondary roads. 

The 3d Brigade also made frequent use of night ambushes, inserting platoons 

on foot or by boat at likely enemy crossing points or staging areas. 

To help improve the performance of South Vietnamese forces and to benefit from their local knowledge, 30 percent of the brigade’s operations were 

combined actions. The Americans found that operations were most profitable 

from the pedagogical standpoint when troops were integrated at a low level. 

Thus, combined operations at the squad level were more productive than at 

the battalion level.55 

The increased security on the roads and waterways created as a result of 

allied operations produced a greater willingness by residents to provide intelli53 AAR, Opn Enterprise, 3d Bde, 9th Inf Div, pp. 3–4, 8.

54 Ibid., pp. 73–74.

55 ORLL, 1 Aug 67–31 Oct 67, II FFV, n.d., p. 27, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd Historian, HQ, 

USARV, RG 472, NACP; Memo, 9th Inf Div for CG, USARV, 22 Feb 68, sub: Senior Officer’s 

Debriefing Report, p. 9, Historians files, CMH.
115

Protecting the Heartland

gence. Commercial traffic increased as well. The task of protecting that traffic 

fell largely on the mechanized 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry, particularly with 

regard to the two main thoroughfares, Highways 4 and 5A. Convoys escorted 

by U.S. soldiers and military policemen traveled at night because there was no 

civilian traffic to impede their progress. The mechanized unit also ran frequent 

“roadrunner” missions by day and night, sending out an infantry platoon and 

five M113 armored personnel carriers to travel up and down Highway 4 looking for enemy sappers. The vehicles sometimes raced along at top speed to 

catch Viet Cong mine layers before they could hide. At other times, an infantry 

squad would hop off the moving vehicles and set an ambush for sappers who 

might appear when the sound of the carriers had died away.

In late 1967, both sides decided to escalate the battle for Highway 4. 

CORDS Director Robert Komer declared control of the road vital, both for 

Vietnam’s prosperity and as a way to deny the Viet Cong access to the ongoing rice harvest, and allied planners made safe travel along the highway an 

objective in the 1967–1968 campaign plan. Conversely, Communist officials in 

the upper delta ordered a renewed effort against Highway 4 so as to “smash 

[America’s] plan of pacifying the Mekong Delta.” In addition to ordering 

combat operations, they set quotas for communities located near the route to 

lay mines and erect barriers.56

On the nights of 24–27 October, enemy troops used explosives and 

shovels to crater the highway in almost fifty places between My Tho in 

56 Quote from “Route 4, Mekong Delta to Saigon,” p. 44; J. Mintz, “Game Warden, Mobile 

Riverine Force, and Revolutionary Development Operations in the Delta,” INS Research 

Contribution No. 26 (Washington, D.C.: Institute of Naval Studies, Center for Naval Analysis, 

June 1968), p. 12. 

A soldier looks through an AN/PVS-2 Starlight scope mounted on top of an 

M16 rifle.
Staying the Course

116

Dinh Tuong Province and Saigon, though only one site on the road was 

closed for more than four hours. Viet Cong sappers also destroyed several 

bridges, cutting traffic in those areas for a day or two until U.S. engineers 

could erect Bailey bridges as temporary replacements. Guerrilla units 

attacked Regional and Popular Forces outposts, and Viet Cong gunners 

shelled or mortared several towns, including the capital of Kien Hoa 

Province, Ben Tre.57

To better protect the nightly convoys between Long Binh and My Tho, the 

commander of the 5th Battalion, Lt. Col. William B. Steele, obtained a pair of 

M42 Dusters, each mounting a pair of rapid-fire 40-mm. cannon, and additional jeeps equipped with powerful searchlights. He also received extra AN/

PVS-2 night-vision scopes for his riflemen. In addition, Steele began sending 

a full mechanized company instead of a single platoon with each convoy. As a 

further measure, he received a pair of helicopter gunships to escort any convoy 

that made an emergency daytime run.58

The enhanced measures soon took effect. Colonel Steele’s battalion eliminated several mine-laying teams in the last week of October and neutralized 

favorite ambush spots with stay-behind patrols and intermittent artillery 

strikes. The local guerrillas who carried out most of the sniping missions soon 

faded away, as did the civilian labor gangs who dug up the roads. The frequency of enemy incidents diminished, and by the middle of November the 

flow of traffic in Long An had returned to normal.59

Although hostile actions along Highway 4 receded, elsewhere in the 

province the enemy stepped up his activities during the final two months of 

the year. Most of these episodes involved acts of harassment by fire, ambushes, 

raids, and terror conducted on a small scale. U.S. and South Vietnamese 

forces responded by increasing the number of night ambushes and patrols. 

By December, on any given night Colonel Everett had between one-third and 

one-half of his platoons out performing patrols and ambushes, sometimes as 

far as ten kilometers from their battalion base camps. Often their goal was to 

interdict known Viet Cong lines of communications, making it difficult for the 

enemy to move men and materiel. Perhaps due to this threat, the Viet Cong 

increased the number of mortar attacks on U.S. bases and district towns in 

Long An. To discourage these bombardments, the allies pulled some of their 

patrols back toward key installations, thereby lessening their coverage of Viet 

Cong routes.60

57 DoD Intel Rpt, no. 6027862967, 13 Nov 67, sub: Draft Plan, pp. 1, 8–9, document 28b, 

Vietnam 1967–1968 Winter-Spring Campaign (1 of 2), box 154; Cable, General William C. 

Westmoreland to CINCPAC, 16 Dec 67, sec. 4, p. 3, sec. 5, p. 2, document 14, Vietnam 2C 

(2) General Mil Activity (2 of 2), box 69; Cable, CIA, 17 Jan 68, sub: Summary of Viet Cong 

Activities in IV Corps During December 1967, p. 5, document 48, Vietnam-4B, VC Offensive 

Activity 3/67-9/68 (1 of 2), box 90. All in NSF-Vietnam Country files, LBJL. 58 AAR, Opn Enterprise, 3d Bde, 9th Inf Div, p. 71.

59 Ibid.; ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 9th Inf Div, pp. 36–37; and pp. 8–9, Encl 14 to ORLL, 

1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 9th Inf Div, box 41; AAR, Opn Enterprise, 3d Bde, 9th Inf Div, p. 76. 60 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 3d Bde, 9th Inf Div, pp. 2, 6, 8.
117

Protecting the Heartland

The one exception to the low-level harassment occurred during the early 

morning darkness of 10 December, when the 508th Battalion and elements of the

5th Nha Be Battalion attacked a U.S. company outpost at An Nhut Tan, located 

on the bank of the Vam Co Dong River. The Viet Cong overran three perimeter 

bunkers as well as the mortar pit. The defenders from Company A of the 2d 

Battalion, 60th Infantry, eventually repulsed the attackers, but only after losing 

seven killed and fifty-three wounded. The U.S. soldiers located thirty-five enemy 

dead when they searched the area after daylight. A subsequent investigation 

determined that some of the soldiers manning the perimeter had been asleep 

prior to the assault. It also appeared that the concertina wire was too loose and 

rusty to be effective, and most of the trip flares and claymore mines had been 

allowed to deteriorate, rendering them inoperative.61

Apart from the attack at An Nhut Tan, however, the Viet Cong local 

and main force battalions in Long An Province stayed out of sight, giving 

the Revolutionary Development areas some respite from serious attack. 

Although responsibility for Revolutionary Development resided primarily 

with the South Vietnamese and their U.S. advisers, Everett, like other 

U.S. commanders charged with area security missions, actively assisted 

pacification. To facilitate both military and counterinfrastructure operations, 

the brigade worked closely with Vietnamese military and civilian officials and 

their U.S. advisers. This was particularly true with regard to the province’s 

Tactical Operation Center and its Combined Operation Intelligence Center, 

as well as the six newly established District Intelligence and Operations 

Coordination Centers. In addition to conducting combined military police 

patrols and cordon-and-search actions to find enemy agents and contraband, 

in November Colonel Everett formed a Combined Reconnaissance and 

Intelligence Platoon. Over the next three months, the platoon killed fifteen 

Viet Cong, eight of whom were political cadre.62

Colonel Everett supplemented the security operations he conducted in 

conjunction with Vietnamese regular and territorial forces with training 

and civic action programs. A seven-man detail taught a six-week refresher 

course to a regular Vietnamese battalion, while three Mobile Advisory 

Teams honed territorial fighting skills and several Improvement Action 

Teams made weekly visits to upgrade territorial outposts. Between 1 

November 1967 and 30 January 1968, brigade medics treated 44,394 

civilians and taught first aid to Vietnamese assigned to village dispensaries. 

Brigade soldiers helped build two schools, three dispensaries, and three 

public latrines. They provided technical and commodity support to a 

joint effort to build a new marketplace, and they taught highly popular 

English language classes. Members of the brigade’s engineering element, 

the 15th Engineer Battalion, took time out from clearing mines and 

constructing bases and roads to build desks for schoolchildren, while 

61 AAR, Attack on An Nhut Tan, 19th Mil Hist Det, 20 Jun 68, pp. 1–3, Historians files, 

CMH. 62 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 3d Bde, 9th Inf Div, pp. 1–2, 6, 14.
Staying the Course

118

the 159th Engineer Construction Group focused its energies entirely on 

Revolutionary Development projects.63

Thanks to the security offered by the 3d Brigade, Revolutionary Development 

was moving forward slowly in Long An Province. Hounded by allied forces, 

more Viet Cong turned themselves in to the Chieu Hoi program in Long An 

during 1967 than in any other province in III Corps. By January 1968, U.S. Army 

engineers had nearly completed road and bridge construction that linked all of 

the district seats to the provincial capital for the first time in years, and a U.S. 

civilian company was poised to begin repaving Highway 4 from Saigon to My 

Tho. Under the protection of U.S. and Vietnamese soldiers, several areas of Long 

An provided rice to the government’s coffers for the first time in years. Through 

a myriad of mostly small actions, Colonel Everett had steadily chipped away at 

the enemy. Between 1 November 1967 and 30 January 1968, the 3d Brigade killed 

241 Viet Cong. It captured twenty-one soldiers and took possession of eighty 

ralliers. It also captured 14 crew-served weapons, 65 small arms, and 8 tons of 

rice among other supplies, and destroyed 79 enemy structures and 1,450 bunkers. 

During the same period, provincial officials reported eliminating 115 Viet Cong 

infrastructure personnel, of whom 43 were killed, 37 captured, and 35 rallied. 

The price borne by the 3d Brigade between 1 November 1967 and 30 January 

1968 was 31 killed and 363 wounded, while the South Vietnamese suffered about 

200 casualties during 1967’s final two months.64

Allied officials had reasons to hope that Long An would continue to progress, 

but there were challenges, too. Like elsewhere in III Corps, increased enemy 

activity coinciding with the onset of the traditional winter-spring campaign 

season created a heightened sense of insecurity among Long An’s population. 

The recent departure of the 199th Infantry Brigade from neighboring Gia Dinh 

Province exposed the province’s northern flank to infiltration. Reports indicated 

that by drafting manpower from local forces and by avoiding engagements, the 

Viet Cong battalions in Long An Province had no trouble making up their 

combat losses. Enemy morale was also allegedly on the rise thanks to the 

ongoing distribution of modern Communist Bloc weapons such as assault rifles 

and rocket-propelled grenades, the latter easily capable of punching through 

an M113 carrier. It was only a matter of time before COSVN used its growing 

strength to test allied defenses in the upper delta.65

Taking Stock 

At the beginning of 1968, General Weyand had accomplished most of the 

military goals he had hoped to achieve in III Corps’ National Priority Area 

63 Rpt, RD Advisory Team 86, Long An Province, 31 Dec 67, p. 3, Historians files, CMH; 

ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 3d Bde, 9th Inf Div, pp. 12–15. 64 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 3d Bde, 9th Inf Div, pp. 2, 6, 9, 11–12; Rpt, RD Advisory 

Team 86, Long An Province, pp. 1, 4, 6. 65 AAR, Opn Enterprise, 3d Bde, 9th Inf Div, pp. 30–31; Rpt, RD Advisory Team 86, Long 

An Province, p. 2; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 50, II FFV, p. 3.
119

Protecting the Heartland

during the first phase of the dry season campaign. His forces had whittled 

down the Iron Triangle and several other base areas on the Saigon River and 

had strengthened the antirocket barrier around Bien Hoa–Long Binh. They 

had also been fairly successful in discouraging the enemy from conducting 

major attacks in populated areas. Finally, road security efforts had enabled 

him to sustain the troops he had sent toward the Cambodian border. 

Meanwhile, South Vietnamese authorities and their U.S. advisers had 

continued to push forward on the pacification front. The Revolutionary 

Development program appeared to be gaining momentum. The number of 

Revolutionary Development teams in III Corps stood at around one hundred and was set to grow by another thirty in the next few months. General 

Khang had assigned roughly half of his regular South Vietnamese Army 

units to support Revolutionary Development, and security was improving in many pacification areas. In addition, fifty-one of the fifty-three 

districts in III Corps now had a functioning combined intelligence center, 

an important step toward energizing the new counterinfrastructure effort 

that the allies had inaugurated under the name Phuong Hoang, or Phoenix. 

Though the program was still in its infancy, by year’s end the district intelligence centers had already identified nearly 5,000 Viet Cong cadre, with 

allied forces eliminating 200 of them in October and November alone. 

True, small-scale attacks and harassment activities continued and could 

occur almost anywhere, but overall allied officials believed that conditions in III Corps were slowly improving. 

The U.S. Army forces that ringed Saigon during the first months of the 

dry season had contributed significantly to pacification progress. They had 

bolstered area security both directly, by conducting a myriad of saturation 

patrols, ambushes, road security, and strike missions, sometimes in concert 

with the Vietnamese, and indirectly, by training the regular and territorial forces above and beyond the assistance provided through the advisory 

system. Aid to the Regional and Popular Forces had been particularly 

important, with U.S. brigades supplying one logistical support, twentyfour Mobile Advisory Teams, and eleven Improvement Action Teams in 

the III Corps zone. The senior CORDS representative to III Corps deemed 

the work of these teams to be “most impressive.”66

Although responsibility for the counterinfrastructure campaign rested 

largely with the Vietnamese, U.S. forces had contributed here as well. They 

had collaborated in the collection and dissemination of information, had 

worked with police on population and resources control measures, and had 

executed combined cordon-and-search operations to capture Viet Cong 

among the villagers. Last but not least, they had formed special strike 

groups such as the Combined Reconnaissance and Intelligence Platoons. 

Weyand’s forces had also made their influence felt on the softer side of 

pacification. U.S. units had helped secure the winter rice harvest, with III 

Corps reporting a 10 percent increase in the amount of land farmed thanks to 

66 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, II FFV, pp. 52–54; Rpt, CORDS, III Corps, app. B, p. 9, 

attached to Memo, Weyand for COMUSMACV, 4 Jan 68.
Staying the Course

120

the improving security situation. Security and maintenance work performed 

by U.S. combat and engineer units on such roads as Highways 1, 4, and 13 

had directly benefited pacification by enhancing the movement of people 

and goods, facilitating government outreach, and building public confidence. 

Between 1 November 1967 and 31 January 1968, U.S. Army engineers had 

built or repaired 799 kilometers of roadway in III Corps, more than triple the 

amount of work performed over the previous three months.

U.S. forces had lent a hand to allied outreach efforts, too. From 

November 1967 through January 1968, U.S. Army and Air Force aviation 

in III Corps had delivered 468 million propaganda leaflets and 2,396 hours 

of broadcasts from the air. Meanwhile, on the ground, eighteen U.S. Army 

civil affairs platoons had worked with U.S. units and the Thai Volunteer 

Regiment to perform a myriad of civil assistance actions. Weyand had 

detailed another seven civil affairs teams to work directly for the senior 

province advisers in the high-priority provinces around Saigon. Medical 

Civic Action Program (MEDCAP) teams had treated nearly 344,000 

Vietnamese civilians, while unit commanders had provided their personnel and resources to a variety of formal and informal civic actions, from 

delivering construction supplies to sponsoring orphanages and hosting 

Christmas parties. Weyand embraced all of these efforts and augmented 

them by creating a special Friendship Platoon. The platoon worked to win 

the confidence of village officials and residents alike by distributing commodities, encouraging local self-help projects, and developing institutions 

of public education.67

Weyand was proud of what U.S. forces had achieved, but he recognized that a great deal remained to be done. Despite allied security and 

counterinfrastructure efforts, Viet Cong guerrillas could still harass civilians and outposts over most of III Corps. During 1967, the Viet Cong had 

committed over 4,000 acts of terrorism in III Corps, specifically targeting 

for execution 631 individuals and kidnapping another 614. Less discrete 

acts, such as throwing grenades into crowds, placing bombs in public areas, 

and conducting indiscriminate shootings, had killed or injured over 2,300 

Vietnamese, and by year’s end the rate of Viet Cong terrorist actions in 

III Corps was on the rise. Meanwhile, the enemy’s base camps along the 

Saigon River, diminished as they were, continued to harbor main force 

units capable of doing great harm. Nor was there any guarantee that the 

pacification program would continue to make the slow gains it had made 

in 1967. Indeed, II Field Force analysts had indications that the enemy had 

yet to deliver the main blow in the winter-spring campaign season. On 12 

December, the U.S. 25th Infantry Division captured a secret Communist 

Party document that declared that the enemy hoped the revolutionary 

movement would achieve a “new leap forward” during the 1967–1968 

dry season, creating conditions that would bring down the Thieu regime 

and pave the way for a coalition government dominated by the National 

67 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, II FFV, pp. 54–55; Rpt, CORDS, III Corps, pp. 2, 4, 11, 14, 

24–25; and app. 3, pp. 4–5, attached to Memo, Weyand for COMUSMACV, 4 Jan 68. 
121

Protecting the Heartland

Liberation Front. According to the document, the last months of 1967 and 

the year 1968 would prove to be the most important period in the war to 

date. The truth of that statement would soon be tested.68

68 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, II FFV, pp. 4, 11; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 52, II FFV, 24–30 Dec 

1967, 30 Dec 67, p. 10, Historians files, CMH.

4

Operations in the Mekong Delta

Roughly six million people, representing between 30 and 40 percent 

of South Vietnam’s population, lived on the 40,000 square kilometers of low-lying land to the south and west of Saigon known as the Mekong 

Delta. Fed by the Mekong and Bassac Rivers that flowed from Cambodia 

to the South China Sea, the delta’s rich alluvial soil and teaming waterways 

generated over 75 percent of South Vietnam’s food supply. Without the delta, 

the nation would starve.1

 

Since the emergence of the insurgency in 1959, the South Vietnamese government had lost access to a significant portion of the delta’s bounty. This 

was due partly to the fact that the Viet Cong’s message of land for the landless 

resonated with the region’s large number of tenant farmers. By November 

1967, MACV analysts determined that roughly a third of the people who lived 

in the sixteen delta provinces that made up the IV Corps Tactical Zone lived 

under some degree of Viet Cong control. Government influence was strongest near the district and provincial capitals and along the limited highway 

system that connected those cities. Outside the towns, control was difficult. 

Distances were large, communities scattered, and travel problematic because 

of the seasonal rains that inundated the countryside, and the presence of 

Viet Cong, who busily interdicted roads and waterways by laying ambushes, 

erecting barriers, placing mines, and demolishing bridges. Moreover, virtually no roads of any kind penetrated the marshy Plain of Reeds that covered 

most of Kien Tuong and Kien Phong Provinces in the northern delta, or the 

thick mangrove forests that blanketed many coastal districts in the western 

and southern delta. Here the enemy established his largest bases, but sanctuaries existed almost everywhere thanks to the wooded groves and trackless 

marshlands that dotted the landscape.2

By the fall of 1967, Viet Cong main and local forces in IV Corps numbered 

twenty-two battalions and seventy-four companies. Backing them were an 

additional 32,000 guerrilla and infrastructure personnel. COSVN controlled 

those forces through two regional headquarters. Military Region 2 encompassed the provinces in the upper part of IV Corps, an area more or less 

bounded by the Bassac River to the south and the Vam Co Tay River to the 

1

 Fact Book, Delta IV Corps, Deputy for CORDS, IV Corps, Can Tho, Dec 67, p. 4, 

Historians files, CMH. 2

 Rpt, CORDS, Ofc of Asst Ch of Staff, 20 Nov 67, sub: HES Newsletter, an. 4, p. 5, 

Historians files, CMH; MACV Planning Dir 9-67, 29 Oct 67, sub: Planning Guidance for 

Senior Commander for the period 1 Nov 67–30 Apr 68, pp. 8–9, Historians files, CMH; Mintz, 

“Game Warden, Mobile Riverine Force, and Revolutionary Development Operations in the 

Delta,” p. 6. 
Staying the Course

124

north. Its headquarters was in Base Area 704 on the border of Kien Tuong 

Province and Cambodia. The second command, Military Region 3, directed 

operations in IV Corps’ southern and western provinces. It resided in the U 

Minh Forest on the southwestern coast of Kien Giang Province (Map 11).3

The man tasked with restoring government control in the delta was IV 

Corps commander Lt. Gen. Nguyen Van Manh. Manh controlled forty-three 

3

 Rpt, HQ, U.S. Army Advance Gp, IV CTZ, 24 Feb 68, sub: CORDS Field Overview for 

CY 1968, Historians files, CMH; Cable, Saigon to CIA, 17 Jan 68, sub: Summary of Viet Cong 

Activities in IV Corps During December 1967, p. 7, document 48, Vietnam-4B, VC Offensive 

Activity Mar 67–Sep 68 (1 of 2), box 90, NSF-Vietnam Country files, LBJL; MACV History, 1967, 

vol. 1, pp. 55–59; Rpt, MACV, Asst Ch of Staff, J–2, 31 Jan 68, sub: Order of Battle Summary, 1–31 

Jan 68, p. IV-34, box 142, MACV, J–03, RG 472, NACP.

2 9

X

ARVN

7

X X

ARVN

9

X X

ARVN

21

X X

XXX

IV

ARVN

BAC LIEU

CAN THO

SA DEC DONG TAM MY THO

482

483

480

488

487

478 490

470

400

704

III CTZ

Song Hau Giang (Mekong)

Song Co Chien (Mekong)

Song My Tho (Mekong)

Song Vam Co Tay

SOUTH CHINA SEA

GULF

O F

THAILAND

Song Vam Co Dong 

4

4

4

4

4

1

SAIGON

BAC LIEU

CHUONG THIEN

KIEN GIANG

AN GIANG SA DEC 

KIEN

PHONG 

KIEN TUONG

DINH

TUONG

HAU NGHIA

LONG AN

KIEN

HOA

GO CONG

GIA DINH

BIEN

HOA

CHAU

DOC

BA XUYEN

VINH BINH

VINH

 LONG PHONG

DINH

AN XUYEN

CAMBODIA

Corps Tactical Zone Boundary

Military Installation

Enemy Base Area

November 1967

IV CORPS TACTICAL ZONE

0 50 Miles

0 50 Kilometers

Map 11
125

Operations in the Mekong Delta

maneuver battalions, most of which were part of three South Vietnamese 

divisions—the 7th Infantry Division in the upper delta, the 9th Infantry 

Division in the central delta, and the 21st Infantry Division in the south. 

He assigned sixteen of these battalions to provide dedicated support for 

Revolutionary Development. The rest performed offensive or security duties. 

Backing them were the territorial forces that belonged to the governors of the 

various provinces—roughly 300 Regional Forces companies and 1,700 Popular 

Forces platoons. Five ranger battalions and three armored cavalry squadrons 

rounded out the government’s land forces. Cooperating with Manh but not 

under his control were a dozen South Vietnamese Navy River Assault Groups 

of twenty landing craft each and a U.S. Navy group known as Task Force 116, 

equipped with nearly 200 armed patrol boats and a squadron of U.S. Navy 

“Seawolf” UH–1 gunships. These forces performed anti-infiltration and antismuggling missions on the delta’s many waterways.4

Since the Saigon government was loathe to allow the U.S. Army to operate in the densely populated delta, Westmoreland had only a modest presence 

in IV Corps. In November 1967, the senior adviser in IV Corps, Brig. Gen. 

William R. Desobry, oversaw the activities of ten helicopter companies and 

two observation aircraft companies belonging to the 164th Aviation Group 

and nearly two dozen Special Forces teams at border surveillance camps. He 

also supervised roughly 3,000 U.S. advisers assigned to provincial governments and regular and territorial units. Not under his control was the most 

potent offensive force in IV Corps, a special U.S. Army-Navy amphibious 

group known as the Mobile Riverine Force.5

The Mobile Riverine Force was a unique organization. Based at Dong 

Tam in Dinh Tuong Province, some six kilometers west of the provincial 

capital of My Tho, it consisted of the 2d Brigade, 9th Infantry Division, and 

the U.S. Navy’s Task Force 117. Officially, the chain of command remained 

divided, with the 2d Brigade reporting to II Field Force through the 9th 

Infantry Division, and Task Force 117 reporting to the headquarters of the 

U.S. Naval Forces, Vietnam, in Saigon. In practice, Westmoreland brokered 

an agreement between the services that placed the force under the control 

of the Task Force 117 commander when it was moving or at anchor on a 

river, and under the command of the senior Army officer whenever troops 

went ashore. Usually this was Brig. Gen. William B. Fulton, one of the 9th 

Infantry Division’s two assistant commanders. Essentially a gentleman’s 

agreement, the system proved effective.6

The Army component of the Mobile Riverine Force consisted of three 

infantry battalions—the 3d and 4th Battalions, 47th Infantry, and the 3d 

Battalion, 60th Infantry—supported by the 3d Battalion, 34th Artillery (105-

4

 Victory Daniels and Judith C. Erdheim, Game Warden (Washington, D.C.: Office of Naval 

Research, 1976), pp. 15–16; Mintz, “Game Warden, Mobile Riverine Force, and Revolutionary 

Development Operations in the Delta,” p. 6. 5

 Daniels and Erdheim, Game Warden, pp. 15–16. 6

 Mintz, “Game Warden, Mobile Riverine Force, and Revolutionary Development Operations 

in the Delta,” pp. 9–11. For details about the origins of the Mobile Riverine Force and its early 

operations, see MacGarrigle, Taking the Offensive, October 1966 to October 1967, ch. 24.
A heavily armed and armored monitor patrols the waterways.

Tango boats and monitors tied alongside the USS Benewah
127

Operations in the Mekong Delta

mm. howitzers), and Company D, 15th Engineer Battalion. General O’Connor 

also maintained the 1st Battalion, 84th Artillery, and Battery B of the 2d 

Battalion, 84th Artillery, both equipped with 105-mm. howitzers, at Dong Tam 

to defend the base.

The Mobile Riverine Force’s naval component, Task Force 117, contained three squadrons. The first was a support squadron that performed 

headquarters, logistical, and housekeeping chores. The other two were 

assault squadrons designed to make amphibious landings. Each assault 

squadron contained about one hundred Landing Craft, Mechanized 

(LCMs) that had been modified to create a variety of transport, command, medical, and fire support vessels. Additional fire support could be 

obtained by placing artillery on barges. The Navy had converted more than 

one hundred LCM–6 vessels into armored troop carriers known as Tango 

boats that were armed with four 50-caliber machine guns, two 20-mm. 

cannon, and an MK19 40-mm. automatic grenade launcher. Another variant of the LCM–6, the “monitor,” served as a floating tank, exchanging its 

troop-carrying capability for extra armor, a 40-mm. cannon, and either a 

105-mm. howitzer or a flamethrower.7

Taking the Offensive

After moving to Dong Tam in June 1967, the 2d Brigade commenced a series of operations code-named Coronado with Task Force 

117 and South Vietnamese marines. Per agreement with the Vietnamese, 

the Mobile Riverine Force operated just in the northern delta, particularly the provinces of Kien Tuong, Kien Phong, Dinh Tuong, Kien 

Hoa, and Go Cong. These provinces fell within the tactical zone of the 

South Vietnamese 7th Infantry Division, whose commander, Brig. Gen. 

Nguyen Viet Thanh, resided in My Tho. General Thanh’s battalions typically operated separately from one another to defend specific district or 

Revolutionary Development areas. The Vietnamese troops stayed close 

to the major towns and roads, rarely venturing into remote areas. With 

his manpower dispersed, Thanh had neither the means, nor frankly the 

inclination, to take the fight to the enemy.8

The Mobile Riverine Force gave the allies the ability to go on the 

offensive in the upper delta. Through aggressive search-and-destroy missions against major enemy units and bases, the allies hoped the force 

would keep the enemy off balance, interfere with his line of communications, and erode his strength. Achieving these ends would help the allies 

7

 MFR, MACV, 12 Oct 67, sub: MACV Commanders’ Conference 24 September 1967, 

pp. 2–4, Encl 7, Historians files, CMH; Rpt, Seventh Air Force, Contemporary Historical 

Examination of Current Operations (CHECO) study, 31 Aug 69, sub: Riverine Operations in 

the Delta, May 1968–Jun 1969, Historians files, CMH. 8

 Rpt, MACCORDS, 2 Dec 67, sub: Monthly Pacification Report, an. 3, p. 7, Historians 

files, CMH.
Staying the Course

128

protect the southern approaches to Saigon, maintain government access 

to the delta’s rich bounty, and provide a more suitable environment for 

pacification to move forward. 

The force’s targets were the over 15,000 full-time enemy soldiers and 

cadre who regularly operated in the upper delta. The enemy organized these 

groups into five battalions of infantry and fifteen companies of support 

troops—three sapper, four engineer, two heavy machine gun, and six artillery (two 82-mm. mortar, one 120-mm. mortar, and three 75-mm. recoilless 

rifle). Between March and December, 639 tons of military equipment and 

supplies flowed into the region from North Vietnam via Cambodia, as the 

foe steadily increased his capabilities.9

Between June and September, the Mobile Riverine Force conducted 

Operations Coronado I through V that ranged across the lower tributaries of the Mekong River. It battered the 261st, 263d, and 514th Battalions 

in Dinh Tuong Province and the 516th and 520th Battalions in Kien Hoa 

Province. The amphibious group also swept through the Rung Sat swamp 

in southern Gia Dinh Province and Long An’s Can Giuoc District, discouraging the mortar and rocket-propelled grenade attacks that occasionally threatened the shipping that passed through the Saigon River 

estuary. Benefits appeared to accrue for pacification, too. Attitude surveys conducted by South Vietnamese officials showed that farmers living 

in government-controlled areas of Long An and Dinh Tuong felt more 

secure as a result of U.S. combat operations, encouraging them to till 

more land and to feel less pressure from Viet Cong taxation.10

During these initial operations, General Fulton and the 2d Brigade learned 

how to fight as part of an amphibious task force, something they had not 

been trained to do before deploying to Vietnam. The inundated conditions 

presented a set of challenges rarely seen elsewhere in the country. Nearly all 

of the soldiers attached to the Mobile Riverine Force developed some degree 

of dermatophytosis, more commonly known as immersion foot, from living 

in the water-logged environment. Fungal infections were also commonplace, 

affecting the hands, arms, and waist as well as the lower extremities. The 

division surgeon determined that the uniforms and boots worn by the U.S. 

soldiers greatly contributed to the outbreak of these fungal lesions, noting 

that none of the Viet Cong prisoners captured in the delta who wore shorts 

and sandals had any kind of skin disease. To reduce the severity of these 

afflictions, the 9th Infantry Division adopted a policy of keeping soldiers in 

the field for no more than forty-eight hours at a stretch before pulling them 

out for twenty-four hours so they could dry out their lower extremities. The 

rest period also helped soldiers recover from the persistent high temperature and humidity, and the exhaustion of slogging through deep mud. As an 

9

 Cao Minh et al., Quan Khu 8: Ba Muoi Nam Khang Chien (1945–1975) [Military Region 8: 

Thirty Years of Resistance War (1945–1975)] (Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1998), 

p. 612 (hereafter cited as Military Region 8). 10 Senior Ofcr Debriefing Rpt, Maj Gen George C. O’Connor, 22 Feb 68, p. 2, Historians 

files, CMH.
An armored troop carrier, known as a Tango boat, discharges soldiers from the 

2d Brigade, 9th Infantry Division, during an operation in the Mekong Delta.

Soldiers of Company B, 3d Battalion, 9th Infantry Division, rest after 

slogging through deep mud.
Staying the Course

130

additional measure, Fulton rotated his three infantry battalions between the 

riverine fleet and Dong Tam on a regular basis to give each of them a few 

uninterrupted weeks on dry land.11

When Military Region 2 launched its dry season offensive against Highway 

4 in late October 1967, General O’Connor directed the Mobile Riverine Force 

to return from a sweep of the Rung Sat swamp to destroy the enemy units that 

had become active in Dinh Tuong Province. According to South Vietnamese 

intelligence, the 261st, 263d, and 514th Battalions had reportedly gathered in 

the Cam Son Secret Zone, sandwiched between Highway 4 and the My Tho 

River in south-central Dinh Tuong. The commander of the 2d Brigade, Col. 

Burt A. David, ordered the 3d Battalion, 60th Infantry, to remain at Dong 

Tam, while the 3d and 4th Battalions, 47th Infantry, boarded the vessels of 

Task Force 117, commanded by U.S. Navy Capt. Wade C. Wells.

Operation Coronado IX began on 2 November when the Mobile Riverine 

Force steamed upriver some twenty kilometers and landed troops in the Cam 

Son Secret Zone. Colonel David’s infantrymen saw few signs of the enemy as 

they waded through the Cam Son Secret Zone, leading the colonel to believe 

that the 261st and 263d Battalions were probably operating from another base 

nearby, most likely the Ban Long Secret Zone just to the east.12

To increase David’s chances of catching the enemy, the Joint General Staff 

placed the South Vietnamese 5th Marine Battalion under his control. The unit 

had four rifle companies and a heavy weapons company, making it larger than 

its American counterparts, and its soldiers were among the best trained and 

equipped in the South Vietnamese armed forces. Joining the Mobile Riverine 

Force on 9 November, the marines and U.S. infantrymen began a three-day 

sweep of the Ban Long Secret Zone. They located more than a hundred enemy 

bunkers but only a handful of Viet Cong, killing eleven and capturing eight. 

The lack of contact in the two secret zones to the south of Highway 4 plus 

new intelligence strongly suggested that the two Viet Cong battalions were 

located in Base Area 470 in the western part of Dinh Tuong Province. The 

South Vietnamese corps commander, General Manh, asked General Weyand 

to assist the South Vietnamese 7th and 9th Infantry Divisions in a sweep of 

Base Area 470. The II Field Force commander agreed to lend the Mobile 

Riverine Force and elements of the 3d Brigade, 9th Infantry Division, for 

Operation Kien Giang 9-1.

The area of northeastern Cai Be District targeted in Kien Giang 9-1

resembled the state of Nevada in a somewhat elongated form. Roughly ten 

kilometers long and four kilometers wide, the region was bounded on the 

north by the twelve-meter-wide Ton Duc Loc Canal, on the west by the tenmeter-wide So Bay Canal, on the east by the four-meter-wide Ca Nhip Canal, 

and on the south by the three-meter-wide Ong Tai Creek. Houses lined the 

palm-fringed canals, while rice paddies covered the vast majority of the land. 

By day, thousands of sampans plied the canals carrying goods and people. By 

11 Ibid.

12 Cable, General William C. Westmoreland to CINCPAC, 16 Dec 67, sec. 5, p. 2, document 

14, Vietnam 2C (2) General Mil Activity (2 of 2), box 69, NSF-Vietnam Country files, LBJL.
131

Operations in the Mekong Delta

night, the waterways were empty except for Viet Cong vessels that slunk along 

the shadowed riverbanks.

A unit from the 2d Brigade, Lt. Col. Guy I. Tutwiler’s 3d Battalion, 47th 

Infantry, was first to depart Dong Tam on the morning of 15 November. A 

flight of helicopters landed Companies A, B, and C into the southern part of 

the Kien Giang zone to secure a firebase for howitzers from Colonel Everett’s 

3d Brigade. After patrols failed to locate the enemy, the trio of companies 

established Firebase Cudgel at the intersection of the So Bay Canal and the 

smaller Ong Tai Creek. At around 0900, CH–47 helicopters delivered Battery 

C from the 2d Battalion, 4th Artillery, bringing along experimental firing platforms for each of the six 105-mm. howitzers. Battery D arrived with additional 

platforms later that afternoon.

That same morning, Company A from Lt. Col. Richard E. Zastrow’s 2d 

Battalion, 60th Infantry, moved by helicopter into the northern part of the 

Kien Giang zone. The company located and captured just one enemy soldier 

in its sector. The day went less smoothly for Company B of the 3d Battalion, 

39th Infantry, and the battalion’s reconnaissance platoon, which landed at a 

different location. They came under heavy fire from a Viet Cong company 

shortly before noon. The sharp engagement cost the Americans two killed and 

four wounded; four M16s and one AN/PRC–25 radio also went missing. The 

enemy soon withdrew, allowing Company B and the reconnaissance platoon 

to secure a location at the intersection of the Ton Duc Loc Canal and the So 

Bay Canal. Company C from the 2d Battalion, 60th Infantry, soon arrived 

by helicopter, as did Battery B from the 2d Battalion, 4th Artillery. The site 

known as Firebase Mace became operational early that afternoon.

As the various units from the U.S. 9th Infantry Division moved into position 

on the morning of 16 November, U.S. helicopters landed three South Vietnamese 

infantry battalions from General Thanh’s 7th Infantry Division along the Ton 

Duc Loc Canal, the northern boundary of the Kien Giang zone. The government troops swept south as U.S. forces finished establishing the two firebases that 

were to provide them with artillery support. The South Vietnamese 2d Battalion, 

11th Infantry, recorded the most valuable find, apprehending a Viet Cong security 

chief who directed his captors to a camp containing a supply of booby traps and a 

stack of documents detailing supply operations. Meanwhile, six CIDG companies 

took up screening positions along the canals to the north of the Kien Giang

zone, while elements of Brig. Gen. Lam Quang Thi’s 9th Infantry Division did the 

same on the western side of Base Area 470.

The enemy tested the defenses of Firebase Mace later that evening when 

several companies brought the outpost under fire from the east and west. The 

firefight that began around two hours before midnight lasted for several hours, 

killing six Americans. The withdrawing enemy left no casualties behind. The 

ferocity of their fire and skill in policing the battlefield suggested that they were 

well-armed and highly disciplined main force regulars, not district-level guerrillas. The assault confirmed that at least one Viet Cong battalion was indeed 

located in Base Area 470, though its identity was not yet known.

The following day, 17 November, the 3d Battalion, 47th Infantry, swept 

north from Firebase Cudgel, while Lt. Col. William B. Steele’s 5th Battalion, 
Staying the Course

132

60th Infantry (Mechanized), maneuvered south from Mace, each battalion leaving behind one company to protect the firebases. Colonel Tutwiler’s battalion 

marched back to Cudgel that afternoon where a flight of helicopters lifted the 

unit back to Dong Tam, ending its role in Kien Giang 9-1. The departing infantrymen were replaced by Colonel Steele’s three companies; Colonel Zastrow’s 2d 

Battalion, 60th Infantry, regrouped at Mace for the night.

Firebase Cudgel

The 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry, gathered that evening at Firebase 

Cudgel, which was not much more than a soggy piece of farmland measuring some 300 meters by 250 meters. The So Bay Canal, which delineated the 

western side of the base, was too wide for enemy troops to cross, but the Ong 

Tai Creek at the southern end of Cudgel was only three meters wide and two 

meters deep—an obstacle capable of slowing down but not stopping a determined foe. The wet rice fields that lay to the north and west were crisscrossed 

with shallow irrigation ditches, offering attackers some measure of cover and 

concealment (Map 12).13

The new occupants of Cudgel did their best to improve its defenses with 

the limited time and resources at their disposal. The troops had plenty of 

sandbags and wood beams but only a handful of entrenching tools. With 

the water table only a meter below ground, Steele’s men scraped out shallow fighting positions and ringed them with earth-filled sandbags. Cudgel

contained a detachment of engineers from the 3d Brigade but none of their 

heavy equipment, because vehicles would have gotten hopelessly mired in the 

mud. As a result, the artillerymen of Batteries C and D remained exposed 

on their stilted platforms, which were only large enough to accommodate 

the howitzers, their crews, and some ammunition. The engineers also lacked 

machetes or chainsaws to clear away the scrub bushes that encroached on 

the eastern edge of the firebase, making that sector especially vulnerable to 

infiltration.14

When darkness set in, Colonel Steele placed two of his companies in the 

farmlands to the north and east of Cudgel to intercept enemy forces coming 

from those directions. He kept Company C at the firebase to protect Batteries 

C and D, and placed his reconnaissance platoon on the southern side of Ong 

Tai Creek. The only way to get across the creek was a narrow and rickety footbridge; coming back that way in the middle of a firefight would not be easy, 

but Steele saw no other way to protect his southern flank.15

Explosions from enemy mortar rounds broke the night silence at 0150, 18 

November. On the southern side of the Ong Tai Creek, a company from the 263d 

Battalion advanced toward the reconnaissance platoon holding that sector. The 

13 Rpt, 9th Div, n.d., sub: Battle of Fire Support Base Cudgel, 18 Nov 67, pp. 1–2, box 7, 

AARs, 1965–1971, Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 14 Ibid., p. 3.

15 Ibid., p. 2.
133

Operations in the Mekong Delta

American soldiers detonated claymore mines and threw grenades before opening 

up with their M16 rifles and M60 machine guns. Some Viet Cong troops went 

down but the majority pressed forward, firing their weapons, and forcing the reconnaissance platoon to retreat to the edge of the canal. Some of the soldiers reached 

Cudgel via the footbridge, while others plunged into the canal and waded across 

with their weapons held above their heads. Several badly wounded men, left behind 

in the confusion, hid themselves in the tall grass near the creek.

The advancing enemy stopped a few dozen meters from the canal to set up 

several recoilless rifles and machine guns. As the reconnaissance platoon opened 

fire on them from the opposite bank, the artillerymen from Battery C leveled their 

howitzers and started blasting the enemy with beehive and high-explosive rounds. 

Viet Cong gunners returned fire, hitting the No. 2 howitzer from Battery C with a 

recoilless rifle shell that ignited the powder charges stored near the weapon. Metal 

fragments and burning sparks wounded the entire crew, knocking them all to the 

ground and rendering most of them unconscious. 

The ear-splitting roar of the firefight brought one of the wounded gunners, 

Pfc. Sammy L. Davis, back to his senses. Struggling to his feet, he inspected his 

263(-)

PLAF

III

263(-)

PLAF

III

C(-) 2-4

I

D(-) 2-4

I

1 C/5–60(-)

Recon C/5–60(-)

3 C/5–60(-)

4 C/5–60(-)

2 C/5–60(-)

5 60(-)

I I

300 meters

250 meters

CANAL

C A N A L

sugar cane

low scrub vegetation Firebase Perimeter 

18 November 1967

SKETCH NOT TO SCALE

AT TACK ON FIREBASE CUDGEL

105-mm. Towed Howitzer 

Map 12
Staying the Course

134

howitzer and saw that it was damaged but still operational. Despite a serious 

back wound, he managed to load the weapon and fire it at the enemy. The howitzer skidded back, knocking Davis to the ground, and then an exploding mortar 

shell peppered him with fragments. Undeterred, Private Davis got up again and 

pushed the howitzer back into position. Firing his weapon a second time, he 

managed to knock out the recoilless rifle that had wounded him and his crew.16

After firing the last three howitzer rounds he could find, including one 

designed to hold propaganda leaflets, Davis picked up an M16 rifle and 

continued the fight. Hearing a wounded American calling from the opposite bank, he and another artilleryman, Pfc. William H. Murray, crossed 

the three-meter-wide creek with several air mattresses that soldiers used 

for sleeping. Davis and Murray floated the wounded man and two other 

injured Americans back across the canal, and then carried them to the 

aid station. Refusing treatment for his own wounds, Davis joined another 

howitzer crew for the remainder of the battle. For his actions that night, 

Private Davis received the Medal of Honor.17

As the reconnaissance platoon was fighting for its life south of Cudgel, 

several companies from the 263d Battalion hit the 1st and 3d Platoons of 

Company C on the eastern edge of the firebase. The Viet Cong had avoided 

the American company, screening the eastern approaches to Cudgel by 

coming up from the south, crossing the creek behind that unit, and then 

moving west toward the firebase. The thick foliage that grew in that area 

prevented the 1st and 3d Platoons from seeing the attackers until the last 

moment. As the thin line of Company C soldiers fought the enemy at close 

range, Colonel Steele ordered his companies in the field to stay where they 

were so he could hit the attacking Viet Cong with air and artillery strikes.

A team of helicopter gunships appeared at 0215. The commander of 

Company C, Capt. Thomas A. Russell, used a portable strobe light to show 

the helicopter pilots the farthest extent of the American positions. Using 

that light as a guide, the gunships raked the trees and bushes farther east 

where the enemy was massing his forces. An AC–47 fixed-wing gunship 

and several F–100 Super Sabre fighter-bombers that arrived some thirty 

minutes later hit the Viet Cong troops who were attacking from the south.18

Company C held the line for another desperate hour before the enemy 

ended his assault. The Viet Cong withdrew in good order, taking with them 

nearly all of their casualties. Steele’s men found only five enemy corpses 

the next morning, though the colonel believed that upwards of 150 Viet 

Cong soldiers had been killed or seriously wounded. Seven U.S. soldiers 

had died in the attack and another ninety-eight had been wounded. Half of 

the forty-four artillerymen were casualties; two of their howitzers needed 

major repairs.19

16 Ibid., pp. 19–20.

17 Ibid., p. 20.

18 Ibid., pp. 12–15.

19 Ibid., p. 18; AAR, Opn Enterprise, 3d Bde, 9th Inf Div, n.d., p. 24, box 11, AARs, 1965–

1971, Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP.
135

Operations in the Mekong Delta

As Colonel Everett’s battalions had moved into the western part of Base 

Area 470, establishing Firebases Mace and Cudgel, the Mobile Riverine 

Force had swept the eastern and southern part of the enemy zone. That put 

Colonel David in a good position to catch the 263d Battalion when it withdrew 

from Firebase Cudgel on the morning of 18 November. His force, consisting of the South Vietnamese 5th Marine Battalion and elements of the 4th 

Battalion, 47th Infantry, intercepted the enemy. In the furious engagement 

that followed, the enemy lost 178 killed and 33 captured, while the allies lost 26 

killed and 155 wounded. With the 263d Battalion no longer combat effective 

and the 514th Battalion nowhere to be found, General O’Connor instructed 

Colonel Everett to return the 3d Brigade task force back to Long An.20

Coronado IX

During the next phase of Coronado IX, the Mobile Riverine Force turned 

its attention to the districts east of My Tho where the 514th Battalion and 

the 502d Battalion, a local force unit from neighboring Kien Hoa Province, 

often operated. On 4 December, a flotilla of Tango boats carrying the South 

Vietnamese 5th Marine Battalion came under fire approximately a dozen 

kilometers east of My Tho. At the direction of the new Task Force 117 com20 William B. Fulton, Riverine Operations, 1966–1969, Vietnam Studies (Washington, D.C.: 

Department of the Army, 1973), p. 137.

Airmobile artillery platforms were designed to overcome the swampy 

conditions in the Mekong Delta.
Staying the Course

136

mander, Capt. Robert S. Salzer, the landing craft turned into the hail of fire 

and headed for the riverbank. Several LCM gunboats, or monitors, including 

one equipped with a flamethrower, helped suppress the Viet Cong from the 

502d Battalion as the marines stormed ashore.21

The marines took the camp in a headlong assault, killing around a 

hundred Viet Cong soldiers and putting the rest to flight. Colonel David 

landed his 3d Battalion, 47th Infantry, onto a nearby beach and flew in the 

4th Battalion, 47th Infantry, to trap the retreating foe. Breaking into small 

groups as it retreated, the 502d Battalion lost a total of 243 soldiers killed 

and 24 captured that day. The Viet Cong unit had put up a stiff fight, however, killing 40 South Vietnamese marines, 12 Americans, and wounding 225 

allied personnel.22

When the allies failed to locate any more Viet Cong units in the days that 

followed, Colonel David decided to head back to Dong Tam for resupply and 

to rotate his units so at least half of his soldiers would be fresh. After spending weeks in the field, many of his men invariably developed ailments that 

required treatment. Returning to base on 17 December, he dropped off the 

4th Battalion, 47th Infantry, replacing the unit with the 3d Battalion, 60th 

Infantry. After a short stop, the Mobile Riverine Force headed out onto the 

Mekong River once again for the next phase of Operation Coronado IX.

Supporting the South Vietnamese Government

In late 1967, General Westmoreland reminded his subordinates that U.S. 

forces had two coequal missions in Vietnam. The first was the destruction 

of the enemy “across the entire spectrum of his organization; including the 

shadow government, the local force units; the Viet Cong main force units and 

the North Vietnamese Army.” The second was “to strengthen the government 

of Vietnam and specifically the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces,” from 

the largest regular army formation down to the smallest Popular Forces element, through training, collaboration, equipment modernization, and logistical support. Although the advisory structure bore primary responsibility for 

supporting Vietnamese civil and security endeavors, both Westmoreland and 

his two deputies, General Abrams and Ambassador Komer, were united in 

emphasizing that all U.S. military organizations needed to take an interest in 

building up the Vietnamese apparatus, for only when this had been done could 

the United States truly accomplish its objective in Vietnam.23

The commander of II Field Force, General Weyand, and of the 9th 

Infantry Division, General O’Connor, fully embraced MACV’s emphasis on 

21 Ibid., p. 139.

22 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, II FFV, n.d., p. 30; ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 9th Inf Div, 

15 Feb 68, p. 3, Encl 13, box 40. Both in ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 

472, NACP. 23 MFR, MACV, n.d., sub: MACV Commanders Conference, 3 December 1967, pp. 7 

(quotes), 8–11, Historians files, CMH.
137

Operations in the Mekong Delta

supporting the Vietnamese. O’Connor believed that this was his most important mission, and he gave his unit commanders points to remember when 

working with the Vietnamese military:

1. The Vietnamese are as courageous as anyone else, given the same odds 

for success or survival.

2. Their leadership is adequate except where proven otherwise on an individual basis.

3. If they are expected to fight as well as U.S. units, they should be supported as well as U.S. units.

4. They possess invaluable know-how concerning the enemy and the 

environment. They need moral support as well as physical support.

5. They must be treated as equals and at times with the deference due any 

man who is at the mercy of circumstances beyond his control.

6. The objectives assigned Vietnamese units must be commensurate with 

the unit’s actual capabilities.

7. Example is the best teacher.

8. Patience is required.24

In the delta, General Fulton and Colonel David followed O’Connor’s 

admonitions. They conducted many combined operations with Vietnamese 

regular and territorial forces. They would have liked to have done more, 

but met resistance from the South Vietnamese 7th Division’s commander. 

The 9th Infantry Division also provided refresher training to Vietnamese 

Army battalions. O’Connor experimented with two approaches. The first 

was a sister battalion system, in which a U.S. and South Vietnamese Army 

battalion trained together, usually on the basis of paired companies. 

O’Connor soon discovered that the quality of the training performed 

in this fashion varied widely depending on the commanders involved. 

A shortage of interpreters also seriously hampered this method, so 

the division soon abandoned it in favor of a committee system. Each 

brigade, including Colonel David’s, organized a group of U.S. and South 

Vietnamese officers and noncommissioned officers who together trained 

a Vietnamese battalion. Usually the Americans provided short initial 

lectures and demonstrations, with the Vietnamese instructors performing 

all the practical work. After several weeks of training, soldiers would 

be tested. This was a real-life, three-day combat operation, graded by a 

senior Vietnamese officer assisted by his U.S. adviser. O’Connor reported 

that the method worked well, with particularly good results occurring 

with Vietnamese armor, engineer, and artillery battalions. 

Soldiers from the 9th Infantry Division also helped man some of the 

nineteen mobile assistance teams that worked with the Regional and 

Popular Forces in the IV Corps zone. These men were all volunteers, with 

a large percentage choosing to extend their tour. General O’Connor stated 

24 Memo, 9th Inf Div for CG, USARV, 22 Feb 68, sub: Senior Officer’s Debriefing Report, 

pp. 6, 9 (quote), 10, Historians files, CMH.
Staying the Course

138

that the Vietnamese enthusiastically embraced the assistance provided by 

the Mobile Advisory Team and Improvement Action Team.25

Supporting the South Vietnamese government involved more than 

just working with indigenous soldiers. Equally important were measures 

to win the favor of the population. Acclimatization to the special requirements posed by operating among a civilian population in an insurgency 

environment began in officer education and soldier basic training in the 

United States and continued when troops arrived in Vietnam.26 General 

Westmoreland frequently emphasized the importance of good conduct, 

pacification, and winning popular support. In addition to issuing many 

rules of engagement designed to minimize injury to civilian lives and property, in 1966 he had begun issuing pocket-size cards titled “Guidance for 

Commanders in Viet Nam” and the “Nine Rules of Conduct” to every 

officer and soldier in Vietnam so that they would have a ready reference 

pertaining to these issues. The nine rules, based on Maoist principles, were: 

1. Remember we are guests here. We make no demands and seek no special treatment. 

2. Join with the people! Understand their life, use phrases from their language and honor their customs and laws. 

3. Treat women with politeness and respect.

4. Make personal friends among the soldiers and common people.

5. Always give the Vietnamese the right of way. 

6. Be alert to security and ready to react with your military skill.

7. Don’t attract attention by loud, rude or unusual behavior.

8. Avoid separating yourself from the people by a display of wealth or 

privilege.

9. Above all else you are members of the U.S. Military Forces on a difficult mission, responsible for all your official and personal actions. 

Reflect honor upon yourself and the United States of America.27

The guidance for commanders consisted of fifteen principles covering a 

range of military topics, including the following items:

1. Use your firepower with care and discrimination, particularly in populated areas. 

2. Capitalize on psychological warfare opportunities.

3. Assist in ‘revolutionary development’ with emphasis on priority areas 

and on civic action wherever feasible.

25 Ibid., pp. 11–12.

26 For background on rules of conduct, see Birtle, U.S. Army Counterinsurgency and 

Contingency Operations Doctrine, 1942–1976, pp. 401–05. See also Study, Ofc of Deputy Ch 

of Staff, Opns, Dec 70, sub: An Analysis of the Evolution of MACV Rules of Engagement 

Pertaining to Ground Operations, 1965–1969, Geo V Vietnam, 350 Travel Pack, Archives, 

CMH. 27 Nine Rules, May 66, Geo V Vietnam, 350 Travel Pack, Historians files, CMH.
139

Operations in the Mekong Delta

4. Encourage and help Vietnamese military and paramilitary units; 

involve them in your operations at every opportunity.

5. Keep your officers and men well informed, aware of the nine rules 

for personnel of MACV and mindful of the techniques of communist 

insurgency and the role of free world forces in Vietnam.28

Westmoreland supplemented these guidelines in September 1967 with 

a third pocket card, “The Enemy in Your Hands.” It reminded soldiers that 

the torture and abuse of prisoners were both counterproductive and illegal. 

Disturbed by reports that some soldiers were engaging in inappropriate behavior, in December 1967 he again reminded his senior officers of the importance 

of proper conduct, because “if we antagonize the local inhabitants our cause 

will be seriously set back.” He further instructed them that when violations 

occurred, they should “move in aggressively and punish both the offender and 

his commander, who should have taught him better.”29

The 9th Infantry Division was particularly sensitive to the political 

ramifications of working in the heavily populated Mekong Delta. Here the 

2d Brigade had an advantage over other U.S. units, for the fact that it was a 

waterborne force minimized its impact on the population. Operating in an 

area in which every bit of dry land was at a premium, the brigade had few 

land facilities, thereby keeping to a minimum the number of civilians who had 

to be displaced to accommodate American bases. Similarly, using boats for 

operations and logistical movements reduced the wear and tear on roads and 

cropland from heavy vehicles. 

General O’Connor supplemented MACV’s rules of engagement with 

ones of his own, and in some cases he and his brigade commanders negotiated special supplementary rules with province chiefs. However, the general 

recognized that “what looked good on paper is sometimes hard to apply in 

the heat of battle.” Judgment and flexibility were required, with the commander on the scene being the only person who could properly interpret the 

rules based on the circumstances. He also admitted that when soldiers took 

casualties from a building, “the instant reaction of troops is to burn the 

whole hamlet down” rather than just the structure from which the fire emanated. Overcoming inappropriate behavior, whether borne of stress, instinct, 

anger, disillusionment, high jinks, or maliciousness, was, O’Connor noted, 

“a never-ending task.”30

The 9th Infantry Division required all incoming personnel to attend what 

was called the “Reliable Academy.” Here soldiers received an orientation to 

the war in Vietnam and how it was being fought. Included in the course were 

“classes on the Vietnamese people, their feelings, loyalties, convictions and 

28 Guidance for Commanders in Vietnam, May 66, Geo V Vietnam, 350 Travel Pack, 

Historians files, CMH. 29 MFR, MACV, n.d., sub: MACV Commanders Conference, 3 December 1967, pp. 12–13 

(quotes); The Enemy in Your Hands, USARV, GTA 21-1, Sep 67, Geo V Vietnam, 350 Travel 

Pack, Historians files, CMH. 30 Memo, 9th Inf Div for CG, 22 Feb 68, pp. 3–5, 6 (first two quotes), 8 (last quote). 
Staying the Course

140

aspirations” that were designed to promote “respect through understanding” and to “reduce actions or incidents caused by ignorance which have an 

adverse effect on free world military assistance forces/Vietnamese relations.” 

General O’Connor further insisted that troops review the code of conduct 

before every operation. The fact that the division placed villages off-limits 

to soldiers helped reduce opportunities for mischief, and generally speaking O’Connor was pleased with the conduct of his men. Cases of violating 

shrines were rare and incidents involving local women were “surprisingly 

few.” Nevertheless, he admitted that “we are only partially successful in this 

indoctrination task,” with soldiers “teasing or whistling at school girls” and 

operating vehicles without regard to civilian safety.31

Last but not least, the 9th Infantry Division executed propaganda and 

civic action missions to smooth the rough edges of America’s presence. 

Many of the 2d Brigade’s civic actions occurred near the Dong Tam base, 

where U.S. troops provided direct pacification support as part of Operation 

Hop Tac. Soldiers executed area saturation patrols, trained paramilitary 

soldiers, and performed extensive civic actions. Whether in the Dong Tam 

area or farther afield, medical visits were the Mobile Riverine Force’s 

most popular outreach program, with a Medical Civic Action Program 

(MEDCAP) team typically appearing on a landing craft at the end of a 

combat operation to dispense care. Still, the 3d Battalion, 47th Infantry, 

reported: “Fear is one of the major drawbacks to any form of civic action 

that could be undertaken. The fear is that Viet Cong forces may initiate 

reprisals against those who cooperate with government of Vietnam and/or 

MACV advisers in civic action projects.” Until the allies drove off the main 

31 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 9th Inf Div, 13 Feb 68, p. 27. 

Soldiers from the 9th Infantry Division walk along a dry path during a foot 

patrol in the Mekong Delta.
141

Operations in the Mekong Delta

force units and provided better security from enemy agents and guerrillas, 

there were limits to what benevolent actions could achieve.32

The Delta at Year’s End

During the final two months of 1967, the 9th Infantry Division soldiers and 

its attached battalion of Vietnamese marines had inflicted sharp losses on some 

of the principal Viet Cong units in northern IV Corps, rendering the 261st and 

502d Battalions combat ineffective for the time being. Allied forces conducting 

Operations Coronado IX and Kien Giang 9-1 had killed and found the bodies 

of over 500 Viet Cong, with hundreds more probably killed or wounded. They 

had taken about a dozen Viet Cong prisoners and detained over 600 suspects. 

They had also destroyed about 600 bunkers, removed a half-dozen barriers 

blocking canals, and captured 170 weapons and nearly 22 tons of food and supplies. Thanks in part to these efforts, Highway 4 remained open in northern IV 

Corps as did the commercial waterways that led to and from Saigon. Meanwhile 

Communist officials reported that U.S. activity had greatly complicated their 

efforts to move supplies forward to support their planned offensive for 1968. The 

Mobile Riverine Force had achieved important results.33

There were also some positive developments not directly associated with 

the Mobile Riverine Force. Evidence was beginning to accumulate that the 

appeal that the enemy had enjoyed earlier in the conflict was fading. Wartime 

demand had led the Viet Cong to increase the taxes they levied on the delta 

population by 30 percent or more. Forced drafts of civilians into Viet Cong 

labor and military units were exceedingly unpopular. The disparity in wealth 

between government- and Communist-controlled areas was also becoming 

more apparent. Changes in government policy had recently allowed the price 

of rice to rise dramatically, doubling farm revenue in the delta. Flush with 

disposable income, residents eagerly expanded their businesses, improved their 

homes, motorized their sampans, and bought luxury goods. And, if the benefits of living under government control were not enough to win greater support for the government, the costs of living with the Viet Cong were becoming 

increasingly high, for as the senior CORDS representative in the delta, Sterling 

J. Cottrell, reported, “the belief that [government] firepower is brought to bear 

on Viet Cong localities has alienated the people from Viet Cong influence and 

encouraged them to seek [government] control.” Whether it be out of patriotism, self-interest, or fear, people continued to vote with their stomachs and 

feet to the detriment of the Viet Cong movement.34

32 Ibid., p. 6; tab D, pp. 2 (quote), 16, 27.

33 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, II FFV, pp. 29–31; ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 2d Bde, 9th 

Inf Div, 29 Jan 68, pp. 1–7, Historians files, CMH; ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 3d Bde, 9th Inf 

Div, 30 Jan 68, p. 10, Historians files, CMH; Minh et al., Military Region 8, p. 615. 34 Memo, Sterling J. Cottrell, Deputy, CORDS, IV Corps, for COMUSMACV, 3 Jan 68, sub: 

CORDS Field Overview for 1967, pp. 3 (quote), 5; Rpt, CORDS, Kien Hoa Province, Dec 67, 

30 Dec 67, p. 3. Both in Historians files, CMH.
Staying the Course

142

Progress, however, remained painfully slow. According to the statistical 

measurements of the Hamlet Evaluation System (HES) by which U.S. officials 

judged progress, the number of people living in relative security (hamlets rated 

categories A, B, and C) in IV Corps had increased over the course of 1967 by 

just 4.7 percent. This brought the percentage of people living under government “control” in the delta up to 55.6 percent compared with the national 

average of 67 percent. With much of IV Corps still under Viet Cong influence 

and with the government assigning most of the region a low priority for the 

receipt of Revolutionary Development resources, this was perhaps the best 

that could be hoped for. Indeed, despite setbacks, such as the Viet Cong offensive that had disrupted communications routes, undermined public confidence, 

and produced setbacks for the Revolutionary Development program, Cottrell, 

O’Connor, and their subordinates believed that the allies would eventually 

prevail in the long, grinding struggle for supremacy. Westmoreland’s appraisal 

of the situation across South Vietnam at the end of 1967 was certainly applicable to the Mekong Delta: “much has been accomplished, though less than 

we would have hoped.”35

The question was, why were the allies still falling short of their goals in the 

upper delta? Several factors were at play, none of which were unique. The first 

was a lack of security borne from the enemy’s martial strength. In a comment 

that could apply equally to many other provinces, MACV inspectors in Dinh 

Tuong noted in late 1967 that “one of the main preconditions for pacification—destruction or neutralization of enemy main forces—does not exist in 

Dinh Tuong.” Until this was achieved, pacification would be held hostage.36

Closely allied with the first issue was slow progress in eliminating the 

guerrillas and political cadre that lived among the population. Here the 

allies had hope that MACV’s renewed emphasis on rural security through 

Regional and Popular Forces improvement and the Phoenix counterinfrastructure campaign would eventually bear fruit, but as yet the progress 

had been limited.

Tied to both shortcomings was the age-old question of leadership. 

Several U.S. officials believed that the commander of the South Vietnamese 

7th Infantry Division was too passive and could have used his men much 

more aggressively to help maintain security. As for the province chiefs of 

the upper delta, they ranged from outstanding to abysmal. Even when a 

governor was excellent, as in Kien Tuong Province, he was often hamstrung 

by an indolent governmental apparatus. All too often, Vietnamese offi35 Rpt, CORDS, Research and Analysis Div, 19 Feb 68, sub: Year-End Synopsis of 1967 HE 

Data Changes, p. 6; Msgs, COMUSMACV 03518 to Admiral Ulysses J. Sharp et al., 3 Feb 68, 

sub: Pacification in South Vietnam during 1967, pp. 3, 10–11, 21–24; COMUSMACV 03518 to 

Sharp et al., 3 Feb 68, p. 2 (quote); Memo, 9th Inf Div for CG, 22 Feb 68, pp. 4–5, 13; Memo, 

Cottrell for COMUSMACV, 3 Jan 68, p. 5; Rpt, MACV, Ofc of Asst Ch of Staff, CORDS, 27 

Dec 67, sub: Project TAKEOFF Status Report, November 1967, tab E, p. 1. All in Historians 

files, CMH. 36 MFR, MACJ01R, 15 Nov 67, sub: Trip to Dinh Tuong Province, 8–9 November 1967, Maj 

Gen George I. Forsythe, Lt Col Paul E. Suplizio and Phillip Worchel, Historians files, CMH.
143

Operations in the Mekong Delta

cialdom—whether in Saigon or the provinces—moved at a languid pace, 

missing opportunities, exacerbating conditions, wasting resources, and 

tolerating corruption.37

Finally, the government’s methodology with regard to Revolutionary 

Development was often flawed. The praise U.S. commentators heaped on 

the commander of the South Vietnamese 1st Battalion, 11th Infantry, for his 

outstanding work in supporting Revolutionary Development in Dinh Tuong 

Province was exceptional. Although CORDS reported gradual improvement, 

many Vietnamese soldiers showed little interest in Revolutionary Development, 

and too many South Vietnamese civil officials were equally disinterested. 

Labeling pacification “Revolutionary Development,” as the Americans had 

done to inspire the Vietnamese to greater action, did not make it so. As the 

U.S. adviser to Go Cong Province observed, many Vietnamese officials exhibited “a desire to place blue dots on the map, rather than genuinely pacify the 

hamlets. After a hamlet has been pacified, the tendency on the part of the government of South Vietnam has been to ignore it, with little follow up activity 

in continuing to root out Viet Cong infrastructure and in continuing economic 

development projects. The lack of attention given these areas has resulted in a 

situation where it is now necessary to ‘re-pacify,’ a rather expensive means of 

retaining control over an area.”38

One possible conclusion for the United States was that it should intrude 

even deeper into the Vietnamese governmental process to make it work. This 

was not the task of U.S. combat units, but some officers looked for ways to 

help. Noting that the “destruction of the insurgent military strength is vital 

but is only the first phase in the required overall program,” Task Force 117 

commander, Captain Wells, suggested that his force could do a better job coordinating its operations with provincial pacification plans. General O’Connor, 

who had already promoted a system of coordinating bodies at the provincial 

and district levels wherever the 9th Infantry Division operated, agreed, and 

he endorsed a more holistic approach to military planning in the delta. Yet 

beyond this they, like most U.S. civil and military officials, were unwilling to 

go. Tying U.S. military operations more closely to pacification was important, wrote Wells, but “of greater significance,” was the need for the South 

Vietnamese themselves to implement Revolutionary Development more vigorously, for until this was done, nothing the Mobile Riverine Force or the 9th 

Infantry Division could do would be able to “return the area and people to the 

control and support of the government of Vietnam.”39

37 Rpts, CORDS, Go Cong Province, period ending 30 Nov 67, n.d., p. 3; CORDS, Dinh 

Tuong Province, period ending 31 Dec 67, n.d., p. 11; CORDS, Kien Hoa Province, period 

ending 31 Dec 67, n.d., pp. 1–2; CORDS, Kien Tuong Province, period ending 31 Dec 67, n.d., 

p. 1. All in Historians files, CMH. 38 Rpt, CORDS, Go Cong Province, period ending 30 Nov 67, n.d., p. 9, Historians files, CMH. 

39 Wells quote from Mintz, “Game Warden, Mobile Riverine Force, and Revolutionary 

Development Operations in the Delta,” p. 14, and see also pp. 17, 19, 21. Memo, 9th Inf Div for 

CG, USARV, 22 Feb 68, sub: Senior Officer’s Debriefing Report, pp. 8, 10.

5

Across the Central Highlands

The Central Highlands presented the U.S. Army in Vietnam with 

operational challenges far different than those found in the Mekong 

Delta. The border provinces of II Corps—Kontum, Pleiku, and Darlac—

spanned an undeveloped backcountry of forests and mountains over 300 

kilometers long and more than 100 kilometers wide, but with a population 

of only 500,000 people. Steep, tree-covered ridgelines dominated Kontum 

Province and the upper half of Pleiku Province, giving way to a broad plateau covered by evergreen forests and fringed by low, rolling hills in Darlac 

Province. The streams that coursed through the region were too shallow and 

winding to allow boat travel (Map 13). 

In late October, the officer responsible for managing the American war 

effort in II Corps was Lt. Gen. William 

B. Rosson, a Westmoreland protégé 

who had taken charge of I Field Force 

in July. Rosson directed the operations of around 55,000 U.S. troops and 

38,000 South Korean soldiers from 

his headquarters in the coastal city of 

Nha Trang. Rosson deployed twentyeight of his maneuver battalions, ten 

American and eighteen South Korean, 

in the resource-rich coastal lowlands to 

assist sixteen South Vietnamese Army 

infantry battalions in protecting the 

heavily populated lowlands. That left 

nine U.S. maneuver battalions, working in cooperation with twelve South 

Vietnamese Army battalions, to hold 

the line in the sparsely settled Central 

Highlands. 

Maj. Gen. William R. Peers led 

Rosson’s primary maneuver force in 

western II Corps, the 4th Infantry 

Division. Peers was experienced in 

irregular warfare. He had commanded an OSS (Office of Strategic Services) 

unit in Burma during World War II and managed covert operations in southern 

China for the Central Intelligence Agency during the Korean War. He made 

his base at Camp Enari, situated on a flat, open plain ten kilometers south of 

General Rosson
CAP ROK

X X

4(-)

X X

9 ROK

X X

XXX

I FF

XXX

ROK

173

X

1 Cav

X X

2 7 Cav

I I

XXX

II

ARVN

ARVN

22

X X

ARVN

23

X X

NHA TRANG

NINH HOA

TUY HOA

BAN ME THUOT

CAMP ENARI

AN KHE

QUI NHON

PLEIKU

DAK TO 2

KONTUM

CAM RANH BAY

PHAN RANG

PHAN THIET

121

226

228

230

202

229 702

701

236

237

238

740

203

241

251

609

613

III CTZ

I CTZ SOUTH CHINA SEA 14

14

20

21

19

1

1

1

1

11

14

Dao Phu Qui

QUANG TIN

QUANG NGAI

KONTUM

BINH DINH

PLEIKU

PHU BON

PHU YEN

DARLAC

KHANH HOA

QUANG DUC

TUYEN DUC

Da Lat

Cam Ranh

BINH THUAN

PHUOC

LONG

LAM DONG

BINH TUY

LONG

KHANH

PHUOC TUY

NINH

THUAN

CAMBODIA

LAOS

Corps Tactical Zone Boundary

Military Installation

Enemy Base Area

November 1967

II CORPS TACTICAL ZONE

0 50 Miles

0 50 Kilometers

Map 13
147

Across the Central Highlands

Pleiku City in the shadow of a hill known as Dragon Mountain. Camp Enari 

also served as the headquarters of the 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division. The 

division’s 2d Brigade operated from Camp Oasis, located twenty kilometers 

southwest of Pleiku City via Highway 19. To make up for the absence of the 

3d Brigade, currently on loan to a provisional Army division in southern I 

Corps, Westmoreland had reinforced General Peers with three highly mobile 

units. The 2d Squadron, 1st Cavalry, and the 1st Battalion, 69th Armor, 

worked alongside the division’s 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry, to defend the 

4th Infantry Division’s lines of communications in the Central Highlands. 

A third unit, the 7th Squadron, 17th Cavalry, with two helicopter gunship 

troops and one mechanized troop, gave Peers another force that could range 

across the vast distances of western II Corps. The 4th Infantry Division also 

received support from the 52d Artillery Group, equipped with one light and 

three heavy artillery battalions, and the 52d Aviation Group composed of six 

UH–1 helicopter companies.1

Describing the operational conditions and imperatives he faced in western II Corps, General Peers remarked 

that “the war in the Highlands could 

be considered a somewhat conventional jungle war” where the “tactics 

used by the North Vietnamese Army 

forces were closely akin to those 

used by Japanese forces in WWII.” 

His main responsibility was to shield 

provincial and district capitals that 

lay along Highway 14, a paved road 

that ran from north to south through 

the middle of the Central Highlands. 

Fortunately, most of those towns lay 

between 30 to 50 kilometers from the 

border, giving Peers a sizable buffer 

zone. The 4th Infantry Division 

commander counted on the fact that 

enemy offensives never happened 

quickly. Trails had to be hacked out of 

the jungle and forward staging areas 

built. With few civilians in the area, 

enemy soldiers had to carry nearly all 

of their own supplies on foot. Food 

was scarce, and U.S. aircraft sprayed chemical defoliants over abandoned 

or suspected farming sites to prevent enemy soldiers from growing their 

own. As a result, the North Vietnamese soldiers in western II Corps could 

not live off the land as their Viet Cong counterparts did in IV Corps. Enemy 

1

 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, I FFV, 15 Feb 1968, pp. 19–22, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd 

Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 

General Peers
Staying the Course

148

troops would often labor for weeks or even months to pre-position enough 

supplies for a major battle, giving U.S. reconnaissance elements time to 

detect those preparations. As the assistant chief of staff for intelligence in 

the 4th Infantry Division, Lt. Col. John A. Smith, explained, “It takes [the 

enemy], maybe half a month to move from one province to another. We can 

move a brigade in a day and a half. We can wait and watch them move, and 

then at the last moment, move in.”2

General Peers was mainly concerned about the 15,000 North Vietnamese 

combat troops who operated under General Hoang Minh Thao’s B3 Front, a 

headquarters that controlled all the main force units in the South Vietnamese 

provinces of Kontum, Pleiku, and Darlac, as well as the western portions of 

Binh Dinh and Phu Bon Provinces. Thao’s main combat force, the 1st PAVN 

Division, contained three strong regiments, the 32d, the 66th, and the 174th, and 

was commanded by a veteran officer, Col. Nguyen Huu An. The B3 Front commander also controlled three independent regiments, the 24th PAVN Regiment

based in Kontum Province, the 95B PAVN Regiment in Pleiku Province, and 

the 33d PAVN Regiment in Darlac Province. Thao’s long-range striking power 

came from the 40th PAVN Artillery Regiment, armed with 122-mm. rockets, 

120-mm. mortars, and 75-mm. recoilless rifles. The enemy received his supplies and replacements from several large bases on the Cambodian border, 

which lay at the southern end of the Ho Chi Minh Trail.3

New Threats in the Highlands

As October 1967 drew to a close, General Rosson’s most pressing concern 

in the Central Highlands was the ominous sign of an offensive buildup by elements of the B3 Front. The news was not unexpected. Every year since 1965, 

the B3 Front had launched a major attack at the beginning of the dry season 

somewhere in western II Corps. The questions in Rosson’s mind were not if, 

but where and when.4

The I Field Force commander believed that the most likely targets were the 

CIDG camps and other installations in western Kontum and Pleiku Provinces 

that were within easy reach of the enemy’s Cambodian base. Dak To stood 

at the top of the list. Long-range patrols from the 4th Infantry Division and I 

Field Force had detected enemy troops camped near the border. Helicopter2

 First quote from Senior Ofcr Debriefing Rpt, Lt Gen William R. Peers, 23 Jun 69, p. 3. 

Second quote from Interv, 4th Inf Div Historian with Lt Col John A. Smith, 16 Sep 68, p. 7. 

MFR, MACV, 3 Dec 67, sub: MACV Commanders’ Conference, p. 4, Encl 4. All in Historians 

files, CMH. 3

 Military History Institute of Vietnam, Victory in Vietnam, vol. 2, pp. 376–77, 380–81; Luc 

Loung Vu Nang Nhan Dan Tay Nguyen Nong Kong Chien Chong My Cuu Nouc [The People’s 

Armed Forces of the Western Highlands During the War of National Salvation Against the 

Americans] (Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1980), pp. 67–109 (hereafter cited as 

People’s Armed Forces of the Western Highlands); Periodic Intel Rpt no. 32, I FFV, 6–12 Aug 

67, 12 Aug 67, Historians files, CMH. 4

 MacGarrigle, Taking the Offensive, October 1966 to October 1967, pp. 67–76.
149

Across the Central Highlands

mounted sniffer devices had detected signs of smoke released by campfires, 

and OV–1 Mohawk aircraft from the 225th Surveillance Airplane Company 

had also picked up those unseen fires using their infrared sensors.

More evidence came from I Field Force radio research units, which intercepted a series of transmissions coming from the 1st Division headquarters. 

Using sophisticated decoding and triangulation techniques, and employing 

aircraft crammed with detection gear, U.S. intelligence determined that the 

messages had gone to the 24th Regiment, somewhere north of Dak To, and to 

the 32d and 66th Regiments, somewhere to its west. There were also reports 

that the 174th Regiment had taken up station in Laos no more than a day’s 

march away.5

Rosson examined other possibilities, too. Recent information indicated 

that the 33d Regiment was “planning an adventure in northwestern and 

central Darlac,” news that had led General Peers to shift his 2d Brigade 

down to Ban Me Thuot for the time being. He also had to consider a new 

thrust toward Pleiku City. On 28 October, North Vietnamese gunners had 

bombarded the city with forty-six 122-mm. rockets, the first time such 

weapons had been used against the provincial capital. For Rosson, however, the weight of evidence pointed toward Dak To. Back in June, elements 

of the 1st PAVN Division had fought a series of bloody battles with the 

173d Airborne Brigade in the hills south of Dak To, nearly overrunning a 

U.S. paratrooper company at one point. Now with dry weather settling in, 

5

 AAR, Battle of Dak To, 4th Inf Div, 3 Jan 68, pp. 1–2, Historians files, CMH; Cdr’s 

Analysis, Battle of Dak To, Maj Gen William R. Peers, 10 Nov 67, pp. 1–2, Historians files, 

CMH; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 42, I FFV, 15–21 Oct 67, 21 Oct 67, p. 14, box 1, Periodic Intel 

Rpts, Asst Ch of Staff, G–2, I FFV, USARV, RG 472, NACP.

An OV–1B Mohawk surveillance aircraft equipped with a side-looking 

airborne radar pod
Staying the Course

150

General Thao might be planning a similar operation but on a larger scale. 

“More than ever,” Rosson wrote, the enemy “needs a dramatic tactical victory to buoy the morale of his troops and to convince the man in the village 

of Communist invincibility.”6

The enemy had long regarded the northwestern part of Kontum 

Province as a key strategic area in his plans for winning the war. The Dak 

To Valley, which ran west-east from Laos into Kontum Province, offered 

a natural invasion route for enemy forces. Featuring an old colonial road 

named Route 512 that ran the length of the valley, the Dak To corridor 

was one of the few places in western I Corps or II Corps that offered easy 

cross-border movement. If the enemy won control of the Dak To Valley, 

he would have a high-speed invasion route that could feed troops, supplies, and vehicles into the Central Highlands from depots on the Ho Chi 

Minh Trail. On a more defensive note, North Vietnamese leaders wanted 

to prevent the allies from stockpiling enough supplies in the Dak To area 

to support a cross-border incursion, should General Westmoreland get 

the approval for such an operation. Finally, General Thao had specific 

orders from the North Vietnamese Ministry of Defense to wage a major 

battle in the Dak To area in the autumn of 1967 in order to wipe out one 

or more U.S. battalions, giving Hanoi a powerful propaganda victory that 

6

 Both quotes from Msg, Rosson NHT 1391 to Westmoreland, 9 Nov 1967, sub: Evaluation 

and Assessment of Situation in II CTZ October 1967, p. 1, Historians files, CMH.

A map from a 4th Infantry Division after action report showing the layout of 

the Dak To II base in early November 1967
151

Across the Central Highlands

could challenge Westmoreland’s claims of progress and strike a blow at 

American morale (see Map 14).7

Allied defenses in the Dak To area consisted of three military camps and 

half a dozen firebases that lined Route 512 on the northern side of the valley. 

The first of those military camps, Dak To I, was a battalion-size facility 

located just west of Tan Canh, itself garrisoned by a South Vietnamese battalion from the 42d Regiment. Dating back to the early 1960s, Dak To I had a 

small airstrip that could accommodate helicopters and observation aircraft. 

Three kilometers farther to the west was a newer and larger facility called 

Dak To II whose airfield could handle C–130 aircraft. Fourteen kilometers 

to the west was the Ben Het Special Forces camp, where U.S. engineers were 

building a new firebase that would soon house 175-mm. batteries from the 

52d Artillery Group capable of hitting targets across the border. South of 

Route 512, a narrow horizontal plain led to a series of high mountain ridges 

and narrow valleys that generally ran from north to south. Some of those 

valleys wound their way to the Cambodian border, giving the enemy several 

routes to the Dak To battlefield.8

General Peers began strengthening the Dak To bases on 28 October 1967. 

He replaced the 2d Battalion, 8th Infantry (Mechanized), currently defending 

the valley, while troops from the 299th Engineer Battalion improved Route 

512 between Tan Canh and Ben Het, with straight-leg infantry units from the 

1st Brigade that were more capable of fighting in the hills. Lt. Col. John P. 

Vollmer’s 3d Battalion, 12th Infantry, arrived at Dak To airfield on a flight of 

C–130s. Another flight delivered the 3d Battalion, 8th Infantry, commanded 

by Lt. Col. Glen D. Belnap, the next day. The brigade commander, Col. 

Richard H. Johnson, likewise established a forward headquarters at Dak To. 

General Rosson further reinforced him with the 4th Battalion, 503d Infantry, 

from the 173d Airborne Brigade, airlifted from the Tuy Hoa airfield in Phu 

Yen Province. Johnson settled the paratroopers into Ben Het. A trio of batteries from the 6th Battalion, 29th Artillery, rounded out Johnson’s force.9

The Battle Begins, 2–6 November

The allies gained an unexpected windfall on 2 November when Sgt. Vu 

Huong from the 66th Regiment turned himself in to a small government out7

 Senior Gen Chu Huy Man, Thoi Soi Dong [Time of Upheaval] (Hanoi: People’s Army 

Publishing House, 2004), p. 464 (hereafter cited as Time of Upheaval). 8

 AAR, Battle of Dak To, 4th Inf Div, pp. 4, 56, 65–67, Encl 2. The information on Ben Het 

is in Interv, George L. MacGarrigle with Lt Gen William B. Rosson, 13 Sep 77, Historians files, 

CMH. 9

 AAR, Battle of Dak To, 4th Inf Div, p. 1, Encl 2; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 51, I FFV, 17–23 

Dec 67, 23 Dec 67, an. C-3, box 1, Periodic Intel Rpts, Asst Ch of Staff , G–2, I FFV, USARV, 

RG 472, NACP; Interv, MacGarrigle with Rosson, 13 Sep 1977; Msg, Rosson NHT 1334 to 

Westmoreland, 28 Oct 67, Historians files, CMH; Hay, Tactical and Material Innovations, pp. 

78–96; John A. Cash et al., Seven Firefights in Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief 

of Military History, 1989), pp. 85–108.
Staying the Course

152

post north of Dak To. Huong, a member of a reconnaissance team that had 

been scouting the terrain around Dak To, had overheard one of his officers 

saying that the 66th and 32d Regiments were spread out south and west of 

Dak To along with a battalion from the 40th Artillery Regiment. The remainder of the artillery unit and the 24th Regiment were apparently north of Dak 

To, as was the 174th Regiment. According to Huong, the attack was to have 

taken place on 28 October, timed to coincide with the rocket attack on Pleiku 

City, but the commander of the 1st Division, General An, had pushed back 

the date because his artillerymen at Dak To were not ready.10

Allied interrogators questioned his story. How, they wondered, could a 

mere sergeant know so much about the plans of the 1st Division? Was he part 

of a ploy to mislead the allies? However, the details he provided fit well with 

what the Americans already knew or suspected. Peers and Rosson decided 

that Huong was telling the truth: the B3 Front was preparing a division-size 

attack on Dak To, hoping to engage U.S. forces on rugged, forest-covered 

terrain that negated some of the Americans’ advantages in firepower and 

helicopter mobility.11

Hoping to preempt the artillery barrage that Huong had predicted, Peers 

ordered Colonel Johnson to send his infantry into action. The 1st Brigade 

commander directed Colonel Belnap and his 3d Battalion, 8th Infantry, to 

investigate the long series of peaks known as “Rocket Ridge,” a favorite 

North Vietnamese launching site, that lay to the south of Dak To I. Johnson 

instructed Colonel Vollmer and his 3d Battalion, 12th Infantry, to search a 

smaller cluster of peaks to the west of Rocket Ridge known as Ngok Dorlang. 

At I Field Force headquarters, General Rosson alerted the 173d Airborne 

Brigade headquarters in Phu Yen Province to be ready to join its 4th 

Battalion, 503d Infantry, at Ben Het. When those reinforcements arrived, 

the 173d Airborne Brigade would move into the Dak Klong Valley, south of 

Ben Het, where Sergeant Huong said that his own unit, the 66th Regiment, 

was located. General Vinh Loc agreed to place South Vietnamese troops to 

the north of Dak To in case the 24th Regiment made its appearance. U.S. 

Special Forces units and long-range reconnaissance patrols from I Field 

Force would screen the area west of Ben Het. Four squadrons of F–100 Super 

Sabre fighter-bombers, flying from Phu Cat airfield in the lowlands west of 

Qui Nhon, remained on call for tactical air support.12

Colonel Johnson’s infantry soon confirmed that enemy soldiers were 

on both principal ridgelines to the south of Dak To. On the morning of 3 

November, helicopters flew two companies from the 3d Battalion, 12th 

Infantry, seven kilometers south to Rocket Ridge, landing them about 1,500 

meters to the south of Hill 1338, an observation point that offered sweeping 

views of the Dak To Valley. As Colonel Vollmer’s men set out for the peak, 

10 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 44, I FFV, 29 Oct–4 Nov 67, 4 Nov 67, an. C-1, pp. 1–2, box 1, 

Periodic Intel Rpts, Asst Ch of Staff, G–2, I FFV, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 11 Ibid.; Interv, MacGarrigle with Rosson, 20 Sep 77, Historians files, CMH.

12 This section is based on AAR, Battle of Dak To, 1st Bde, 4th Inf Div, 9 Dec 67, pp. 5, 7–8, 

10, Encl 6 to AAR, Battle of Dak To, 4th Inf Div.
1

PAVN

X X

66

PAVN

III

32

PAVN

III

174(-)

PAVN

III

24

PAVN

III

PAVN

40 31

I I

3 8

I I 3 12

I I

4 503

I I

1 4

X

Dak Poko

Dak

Poko

Dak Psi

a D

H

k

do

ar

i

BEN HET

DAK TO 2

DAK TO 1

TAN CANH

Hill 1049

Hill 1338

Hill 823

Hill 875

512

512

512

511

511

613

613

14

14

Dak Ri Peng

Polei Lang Lo Kram

Dak Wang Kram

Dien Binh

Kon Hojao

S O U T H V I E T N A M L A O S

S O U T H V I E T N A M C A M B O D I A

L A O S C A M B O D I A

BAT TLE FOR DAK TO

PHASE ONE 

2–6 November 1967

FireghtEnemy Axis of AttackGround AssaultAir AssaultMilitary Installation

0

0 5 Kilometers

Miles 5

0 300 800 1400 and Above

ELEVATION IN METERS

Map 14
Staying the Course

154

scanning the area for rocket or mortar positions as they climbed, heavy fire 

erupted from camouflaged bunkers farther up the slope. The soldiers from 

the 3d Battalion had no way of maneuvering around the bunkers that blocked 

the trail ahead, and found them impossible to knock out with grenades. After 

losing four killed, Colonel Vollmer pulled his companies back so air and 

artillery strikes could go to work. The North Vietnamese defenders endured 

several hours of punishment, including a bombing sortie that hit them with 

twenty-four 1,000-pound bombs equipped with delayed-action fuses, before 

they finally withdrew from their bunkers. 

An examination of the partially destroyed bunkers showed Vollmer and 

his men why they had been so hard to knock out. Each fighting position was 

crowned on the top and sides by thick mahogany logs harvested from the 

surrounding forest, making them impervious to anything less than a direct 

hit from a bomb or artillery shell. It would have taken the North Vietnamese 

several days to build such bunkers, using only handsaws to carve through the 

iron-hard wood. The enemy had clearly come for a long fight.

At the same time that Colonel Vollmer’s troops landed on Rocket Ridge, 

Colonel Belnap touched down on the eastern end of Ngok Dorlang with two 

companies from his 3d Battalion, 8th Infantry. Belnap’s plan was to sweep 

west across Hills 882, 843, and 785, before reaching his final objective, Hill 

724, some three kilometers away. Meanwhile, a third company from his battalion traveled by helicopter from Dak To to a spur of Rocket Ridge, Hill 

1001, four kilometers to the north of where Belnap was positioned. The site 

Men of the 3d Battalion, 12th Infantry, 4th Infantry Division, establish an 

outpost on Rocket Ridge.
155

Across the Central Highlands

known as Firebase 6 became operational later that day when the howitzer 

battery attached to the 3d Battalion, 8th Infantry, flew to the site and readied 

its weapons to support the two infantry companies across the valley.

As evening approached, Belnap’s men received intermittent sniper fire 

from the surrounding woods. Pushing west, the two companies flushed 

out and killed eight North Vietnamese soldiers. Four soldiers from the 3d 

Battalion, 8th Infantry, also lost their lives that day. The two companies 

made their night encampment on Hill 882, the tallest point on Ngok Dorlang, 

and some two kilometers west of Hill 724.13

The fighting on Rocket Ridge and Ngok Dorlang appeared to confirm 

Sergeant Huong’s story. On 4 November, Peers informed Rosson that the 

threat was credible enough to justify the deployment of additional troops 

from the 173d Airborne Brigade. The I Field Force commander agreed. The 

next day, Rosson made arrangements to fly the 1st and 2d Battalions from 

the 173d Airborne Brigade, most of its artillery and its brigade staff, from 

Phu Yen to Dak To. The brigade’s 3d Battalion, 503d Infantry, which had 

just arrived in South Vietnam, stayed behind to protect Phu Yen’s rice harvest. Rosson provided additional support through a steady apportionment of 

B–52 strikes. Soon the high-altitude bombers were hitting areas to the south 

and west of Dak To that Sergeant Huong said might contain staging areas for 

the 1st PAVN Division. 

Two days later, Brig. Gen. Leo H. Schweiter established his 173d Airborne 

Brigade command post at Ben Het, reporting to General Peers. Schweiter, who 

had seen action at Normandy and Bastogne during World War II and who had 

later fought in Korea, had gone on to command the 5th Special Forces Group 

before coming to Vietnam in August 1967 to lead the 173d Airborne Brigade. 

At the direction of General Peers, Schweiter ordered the commander of his 1st 

Battalion, 503d Infantry, Lt. Col. David J. Schumacher, to secure Ben Het, and 

the commander of the 2d Battalion, 503d Infantry, Maj. James R. Steverson, to 

take over the defenses at Dak To I and II. That allowed Colonel Johnson’s 1st 

Brigade to focus on Rocket Ridge and Ngok Dorlang, and permitted General 

Schweiter to use his remaining unit, the 4th Battalion, 503d Infantry, for a 

sweep of the Dak Klong Valley, which lay due south of Ben Het.

Schweiter directed the commander of the 4th Battalion, 503d Infantry, 

Lt. Col. James H. Johnson, to march three of his companies south about 

seven kilometers to secure Hill 823 at the mouth of the Dak Klong Valley. 

There, near the outer range of the artillery batteries firing from Ben Het, 

helicopters would deliver Company B with tools and materials to build a 

new firebase, followed by a battery of 105-mm. howitzers, to support further 

advances into the valley.

Colonel Johnson’s three companies set out that morning, marching along 

parallel routes to sweep the area between Ben Het and Hill 823. The colonel 

monitored his troops from a helicopter. Company D, consisting of three platoons plus a platoon of Montagnards from Ben Het, reached an intermediary 

hill called Ngok Kom Leat just before noon. When one of the soldiers spotted 

13 AAR, Battle of Dak To, 4th Inf Div, p. 9.
Staying the Course

156

communications wire snaking up the 

slope, Johnson instructed Company D 

to investigate. Cautiously, the soldiers 

and the accompanying platoon of 

Montagnards headed up Hill 823.

Finding fresh footprints and 

human waste halfway up the hill, 

Company D formed a defensive circle 

in a small clearing. The squad of 

Americans who crept out to search 

the neighboring area ran into North 

Vietnamese soldiers almost immediately. Both sides opened fire; the 

patrol returned to the perimeter with 

the enemy hot on their heels. The skirmish turned into a full-blown firefight 

with North Vietnamese soldiers closing on the U.S. position from several 

directions. Colonel Johnson ordered 

Companies A and C to join the fight 

as soon as possible, while he called in 

air and artillery strikes to defend the 

beleaguered unit.

With those supporting fires, 

Company D held the enemy at bay until 

Company A arrived several hours later. As it arrived, the North Vietnamese 

attackers melted away. The casualty roll in Company D totaled four killed 

and more than a dozen wounded. Company C, which had been delayed by 

enemy snipers, reached the hill the next morning. After searching the hill, 

finding twenty-eight enemy dead, the three companies from the 4th Battalion, 

503d Infantry, resumed their march toward Hill 823 where Company B was 

fighting its own battle.14

The previous afternoon, Colonel Johnson had decided to land Company 

B on Hill 823 to establish a firebase that could help his other men on Ngok 

Kom Leat. Company B touched down on Hill 823 at around 1430, following 

a day-long bombardment that cleared away the dense foliage on its summit 

and killed any North Vietnamese hiding there. The soldiers from Company 

B found discarded rucksacks and newly smashed rifle stocks on the summit, 

but no bodies. After posting several two-man listening teams farther down 

the hill, the remaining soldiers began digging foxholes and hacking at undergrowth to improve their fields of fire.15

14 AAR, Battle of Dak To, 6 Nov 67, 173d Abn Bde, n.d., pp. 1–4, Historians files, CMH. 

For more on the 6 November battles, see Cash et al., Seven Firefights in Vietnam, pp. 85–108. 15 AAR, Battle of Dak To, 6 Nov 67, 173d Abn Bde, pp. 15–16; and AAR, Battle of Dak To, 

Inf action on 6–8 Nov 67, Co B, 4th Bn, 503d Inf, Encl 2; AAR, Battle of Dak To, 1st Bde, 4th 

Inf Div, pp. 8–10.

General Schweiter

(shown as a major general)
157

Across the Central Highlands

The enemy appeared thirty minutes later, moving up the slope along a 

broad front while spraying the U.S. positions with AK47 assault rifles and 

RPD light machine guns. The initial burst of fire killed two Americans manning a listening post; five more of their comrades also died when they rushed 

down the hill to help their buddies. The remainder of Company B dove into 

foxholes and bomb craters around the summit and returned fire. Within minutes, howitzers from Ben Het began to pound the lower slopes, while a flight 

of fighter-bombers circled above, waiting for a chance to drop their ordnance. 

Colonel Johnson had no good way of reinforcing his soldiers before nightfall. The other companies from his 4th Battalion, 503d Infantry, were already 

committed to the fight at Ngok Kom Leat several kilometers to the north. 

Even if he had other troops, hostile fire would surely damage or destroy any 

helicopters that tried to land on the summit of Hill 823. Likewise, it was 

too risky to land troops onto the valley floor at the base of the hill without 

knowing the strength and disposition of the enemy. Company B had to hold 

the hill until morning.

The fight raged throughout the afternoon and continued into the night. 

Enemy soldiers crawled close enough to the American foxholes to hurl grenades; the men from Company B threw some back before they exploded, as 

well as some of their own grenades. The single U.S. mortar crew on Hill 823 

lobbed shells at the enemy from the bottom of a large crater, their 81-mm. 

tube pointing nearly straight up as they brought fire to within one hundred 

meters of the U.S. perimeter. An AC–47 fixed-wing gunship circled the hill 

Soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 503d Infantry, 173d Airborne Brigade, check 

their bearings during a search for enemy positions.
Staying the Course

158

throughout the night, dropping illumination flares and firing its six-barreled 

machine guns at the enemy-held woods on the lower slope. North Vietnamese 

fire slackened and then ceased shortly before dawn on the seventh. The 

morning roll call for Company B revealed that sixteen of its soldiers had been 

killed and more than twice that number wounded.

The enemy’s retreat from Hill 823 permitted Colonel Johnson to finally 

bring in more troops. Helicopters delivered a company from the 1st Battalion, 

503d Infantry, which joined Company B from Johnson’s own 4th Battalion 

as it searched the bomb-scarred slopes. Patrols located eighty-nine enemy 

corpses and a large abandoned camp at the base of the hill. Documents recovered from the scene revealed that the dead belonged to the 66th Regiment, 

confirming the presence of 1st Division units in the Dak Klong Valley. With 

sizable North Vietnamese units also on Ngok Dorlang and Rocket Ridge to 

the east, the unfolding battle was shaping up to be the biggest clash in the 

highlands since the enemy had tried to overrun the Duc Co Special Forces 

camp in western Pleiku Province six months earlier.16

The Allied Counteroffensive, 7–15 November

The quiet that returned in the Dak Klong Valley on the seventh gave 

General Peers an opportunity to move the headquarters and support elements of the 173d Airborne Brigade from Ben Het to the older Dak To 

airfield just west of Tan Canh. Despite being farther from the Dak Klong 

Valley, Dak To I was more spacious, had a larger stock of supplies, and 

was less vulnerable to attack or temporary road closures on Route 512 

(Map 15).17

Using the intelligence his men had gathered during the last few days, 

Peers formally divided the battlefield south of Route 512 into two operational 

zones. The eastern zone belonging to Colonel Johnson’s 1st Brigade stretched 

from Highway 14 and the Dak Hodrai River, encompassing both Rocket 

Ridge and Ngok Dorlang, where the 3d Battalion, 8th Infantry, and the 3d 

Battalion, 12th Infantry, were currently looking for the 32d Regiment and the 

31st Battalion of the 40th Artillery Regiment. The western zone between the 

Dak Hodrai River and the Cambodian border went to General Schweiter’s 

173d Airborne Brigade, which continued its search for the 66th Regiment in 

the Dak Klong Valley. The 174th Regiment from General An’s 1st Division

had yet to make an appearance.18

General Peers also had to consider the independent 24th Regiment, 

last reported somewhere to the north of Dak To. To prevent the North 

Vietnamese unit from disrupting the allied supply channel on Highway 1, 

16 AAR, Battle of Dak To, 1st Bde, 4th Inf Div, 9 Dec 67, pp. 2, 7; AAR, Battle of Dak To, 

4th Inf Div, p. 16; AAR, Battle of Dak To, 6 Nov 67, 173d Abn Bde, 10 Dec 67, p. 12. 17 AAR, Battle of Dak To, 4th Inf Div, pp. 9–10. 

18 Cover Ltr, Maj Gen William R. Peers to AAR, Battle of Dak To, 4th Inf Div, and pp. 9–10; 

and Cdr’s Analysis, Battle of Dak To, Peers, 10 Nov 67, pp. 66–68. 
1

PAVN

X X

66

PAVN

III 32

PAVN

III

174(-)

PAVN

III

24

PAVN

III

PAVN

40 31

I I

3 8

I I

1 4

X

3 12

I I

4 503

I I

173

X

2 503

I I

1 503

I I

ARVN

9

I I

1 8

I I

Dak Poko

Dak Poko

Dak Psi

a D k Hod ar i

BEN HET

DAK TO 2

DAK TO 1

TAN CANH

Hill 1049

Hill 1338

Hill 823

Hill 875

512

512

512

511

511

613

613

14

14

Dak Ri Peng

Polei Lang Lo Kram

Dak Wang Kram

Dien Binh

Kon Hojao

S O U T H V I E T N A M L A O S

S O U T H V I E T N A M C A M B O D I A

L A O S C A M B O D I A

BAT TLE FOR DAK TO

PHASE TWO

7–12 November 1967

FireghtGround AssaultAir AssaultMilitary Installation

0 300 800 1400 and Above

ELEVATION IN METERS

0

0 5 Kilometers

Miles 5

Map 15
Staying the Course

160

General Loc borrowed the South Vietnamese 9th Airborne Battalion from 

the Joint General Reserve. U.S. aircraft flew the paratroopers from Saigon 

to Dak To, where they passed to the command of the South Vietnamese 24th 

Tactical Zone headquarters based at Kontum City. Arriving on the seventh, 

the paratroopers joined the South Vietnamese 1st Battalion, 42d Regiment, 

at Tan Canh for Operation Le Loi 45 in the hills northeast of Dak To.19

While the 173d Airborne Brigade and South Vietnamese forces completed 

their movements on 7 November, Col. Richard Johnson’s 1st Brigade continued to search the hills south of Dak To. On the ninth, Colonel Vollmer’s 3d 

Battalion, 12th Infantry, discovered an enemy bunker complex on the lower 

slopes of Hill 1338. Mindful of the costly battle his men had fought three 

days earlier, Vollmer waited several hours, while air and artillery softened 

the target. His men took the position as well as a second bunker line farther 

up the hill the next day. The engagements cost the North Vietnamese at least 

twenty-five dead and the Americans seven killed. Behind the second line 

of bunkers, Vollmer’s men found an abandoned mortar pit that was large 

enough to accommodate a 120-mm. mortar, a weapon with sufficient range 

to hit the Dak To bases.20

As three companies from the 3d Battalion, 12th Infantry, fought their way 

toward Hill 1338, Companies A and D from the 3d Battalion, 8th Infantry, 

continued their westward progress across Ngok Dorlang. As they headed 

toward Hill 724, Company B remained at Firebase 6 on Hill 1001, five kilometers to the northeast, to defend the battalion’s howitzer battery. 

Colonel Belnap’s two companies received intermittent sniper fire from 

the front and either side as they descended the western spur of Hill 843, a low 

ridge that pointed toward Hill 724 about 1,500 meters away. The column of 

platoons moved cautiously as squads to the front and the flanks searched the 

adjoining woods. Companies A and D stopped that afternoon at the base of 

the spur, 700 meters away from their objective.

The Americans had just started to scratch out foxholes and fill sandbags when the enemy attacked. Mortar shells and rocket-propelled grenades 

exploded in the trees and on the ground as several hundred North Vietnamese 

attacked down the slope that led to Hill 843. Belnap’s men held their line, killing two flamethrower-equipped North Vietnamese soldiers before they could 

employ their weapons. Colonel Belnap called in artillery and air strikes, which 

relieved some of the pressure. After several hours of combat, the enemy withdrew at 2030. Eleven American soldiers had been killed and another thirty-eight 

wounded in the vicious assault. The enemy had also sustained heavy casualties, 

leaving behind 230 dead, 37 rifles, and 38 crew-served weapons. A wounded 

North Vietnamese soldier captured the next morning said that the attackers 

belonged to the 7th Battalion, 66th Regiment, which had been marching to a 

new location when it had spotted the Americans and decided to give battle.21

19 AAR, Battle of Dak To, 4th Inf Div, pp. 9–10.

20 AAR, Battle of Dak To, 1st Bde, 4th Inf Div, p. 10.

21 Ibid., p. 9; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 45, I FFV, 5–11 Nov 67, 11 Nov 67, p. 3, box 1, Periodic 

Intel Rpts, Asst Ch of Staff, G–2, I FFV, USARV, RG 472, NACP.
161

Across the Central Highlands

Colonel Belnap kept his battered units in place the next day as helicopters flew 

out their casualties and delivered supplies. The following morning, 9 November, 

he moved Company A back to Firebase 6, and flew in Companies B and C from 

the 3d Battalion, 8th Infantry. The pair of companies stayed there on the western 

spur of Hill 843 with Company D, while air and artillery strikes pounded Hill 

724, a bombardment that continued for the next two days. Meanwhile, General 

Peers airlifted the 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry, from Darlac Province to the Dak 

To II base where it could reinforce Belnap’s battalion, if necessary.

On the morning of 11 November, Colonel Belnap sent his soldiers up the 

hill. The Americans encountered no resistance, finding only bomb craters 

and smashed trees at the top. Just as the final group of soldiers reached the 

summit, however, a mass of North Vietnamese troops emerged from the 

trees on the northern and western slopes of Hill 724. The enemy unleashed 

a torrent of bullets, killing several Americans who manned the outer listening screen. The surviving scouts ran up the hill, while their comrades at the 

summit laid down covering fire. North Vietnamese troops climbed to within 

twenty meters of the perimeter, a ragged arc of bomb craters, fallen logs, and 

broken stumps, before Belnap’s men stopped their advance.

The fighting raged for the next eight hours as the North Vietnamese 

attempted to breach the U.S. line on the northwest slope. As the day wore 

on, however, the torrent of bombs, napalm canisters, and artillery shells that 

hit the enemy’s staging areas began to tell. The assaults became less frequent 

and intense, and finally stopped as darkness gathered. The men from the 3d 

Troops from the 3d Battalion, 8th Infantry, 4th Infantry Division, pause 

during a sweep of the hills southwest of Dak To.
Staying the Course

162

Battalion, 8th Infantry, remained vigilant through the night, but the enemy 

did not return. When morning came, Belnap’s companies located ninety-two 

North Vietnamese dead on the hill. Considering the weight of U.S. firepower 

the enemy had endured, his true losses may have been two or three times 

that number. The Americans had also sustained heavy losses; some twentyfive soldiers were killed, more than twice that number with serious or lifethreatening wounds, and a host of other men with lesser injuries. For the 

moment, the 3d Battalion, 8th Infantry, was close to being combat ineffective.22

“As far as brutal fighting goes,” General Peers told a group of reporters 

after the fight on Hill 724, “I would say this is the worst we’ve had.” Even 

so, the division commander agreed to keep the 3d Battalion, 8th Infantry, 

in the field after Colonel Belnap reorganized his unit, replacing some of his 

losses with headquarters and rear-echelon personnel. Morale remained high, 

Belnap reported, and his men were eager to deliver some payback. The battalion spent the next few days searching the valley to the west of Hill 724, a 

known infiltration corridor. They found empty supply dumps and bunker 

complexes, including one large enough to support an entire battalion, but 

no sign of the enemy. Peers also moved the 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry, commanded by Lt. Col. John H. Madison, into the Dak Hodrai Valley south of 

Hill 724, in case the 66th Regiment attempted to retreat in that direction.23

Into the Dak Klong Valley

As General Schweiter spent the seventh of November moving his headquarters and support elements from Ben Het to Dak To I, his 1st and 4th 

Battalions of the 503d Infantry manning Hill 823 at the mouth of the Dak 

Klong Valley constructed a new artillery outpost known as Firebase 15. 

The base became fully operational on 9 November when helicopters delivered a battery of 105-mm. howitzers from the brigade’s 3d Battalion, 319th 

Artillery. General Schweiter kept his two remaining batteries at Ben Het for 

the time being.24

When he spoke to General Peers on the ninth, Schweiter raised several 

concerns about pursuing the enemy down the Dak Klong Valley. Ten kilometers long and averaging a kilometer wide, the scrub-covered valley ran 

in a southwestern direction toward Cambodia, ending a mere six kilometers 

from the border where enemy reserves might be waiting. Staying to the high 

ground, his paratroopers would be marching up and down a succession of 

rugged hills across a densely forested and unexplored ridgeline. Schweiter 

had yet to locate the 174th Regiment, which might hit his flank or rear as he 

22 AAR, Battle of Dak To, 1st Bde, 4th Inf Div, p. 9.

23 AAR, Battle of Dak To, 4th Inf Div, pp. 11, 25; AAR, Battle of Dak To, 1st Bde, 4th Inf 

Div, pp. 8–10, 13; Peers quote from Edward Hymoff, Fourth Infantry Division, Vietnam (New 

York: M. W. Ladds Publishing, 1968), p. 133. 24 AAR, Battle of Dak To, 6 Nov 1967, 173d Abn Bde, pp. 3–4; Edward F. Murphy, Dak 

To: The 173d Airborne Brigade in South Vietnam’s Central Highlands, June–November 1967

(Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1993), p. 115.
163

Across the Central Highlands

moved down the valley. His three paratrooper companies had to rely on air 

strikes for most of their supporting fire, as the shells fired by the 105-mm. 

howitzers at Firebase 15 had trouble penetrating the forest canopy, causing 

deadly tree bursts that endangered the Americans on the ground. Considering 

the quality of the North Vietnamese bunker systems found on Rocket Ridge, 

the enemy had enjoyed ample time to build similar strong points in the Dak 

Klong Valley.25

General Peers acknowledged those risks but decided they were worth 

taking. The present situation offered I Field Force with its best chance of 

trapping and destroying a major part of the 1st Division since the Ia Drang 

campaign two years earlier, a fight that had knocked the enemy division 

out of action for a good six months. If the 173d Airborne Brigade moved 

swiftly enough, it could block the westward escape routes of the 32d and 66th 

Regiments still on Ngok Dorlang and Rocket Ridge. With that in mind, the 

4th Division commander instructed General Schweiter to proceed down the 

western ridge of the Dak Klong Valley. Peers also promised to bring in more 

troops as soon as possible. He notified his 2d Brigade at Ban Me Thuot to 

prepare for an airlift to Dak To, and asked General Rosson for permission to 

use part of the 1st Cavalry Division, now operating in the lowlands of Binh 

Dinh Province, if the necessity arose. 

25 Interv, MacGarrigle with Rosson, 20 Sep 77.

A CH–47A Chinook helicopter delivers supplies to soldiers of the 1st 

Battalion, 8th Infantry, 4th Infantry Division, in the hills south of Dak To.
Staying the Course

164

After getting his orders from General Peers on the morning of the ninth, 

General Schweiter prepared the 173d Airborne Brigade for its southward march 

into the Dak Klong Valley. He flew Colonel Johnson’s worn-out 4th Battalion 

back to Dak To for a rest, replacing it with Colonel Schumacher’s 1st Battalion, 

503d Infantry. Schweiter’s 1st, 2d, and 3d Battalions spent the next two days at 

Firebase 15 as helicopters delivered supplies, creating a forward logistical base 

that could support the paratrooper companies for up to a week. 

Needing to secure his right flank before proceeding south, Schweiter 

instructed Schumacher to explore a saddle-shaped ridge called Ngok Kring, 

two kilometers west of Firebase 15. Before heading out with Companies A, C, 

and D, he divided his force into two groups so he could search the ridge more 

quickly. Company B remained behind to defend the post.

Schumacher ordered Task Force Blue, made up of Company A and a 

platoon of Company D, to reconnoiter Ngok Kring’s southern peak, called 

Hill 889, and Task Force Black, made up of Company C and the remainder 

of Company D, to search the northern peak. The two groups would remain 

within 1,000 meters of one another, though the dense vegetation that covered 

Ngok Kring would make it difficult for them to see each other. 

The two groups split apart when they reached the bowl of the valley. Task 

Force Blue had just started to climb Hill 889 when an enemy platoon opened 

fire on it from concealed bunkers higher on the slope. The Americans pulled 

back so artillery and aircraft could soften the position. After waiting several 

hours, Task Force Blue captured the line, a network of squad-size bunkers 

connected by an elaborate system of trenches. Later that afternoon and 

higher up the slope, Task Force Blue encountered another bunker complex 

that it demolished with air strikes and artillery.26

On the northern side of the ridge, Task Force Black ran into even 

stronger resistance as it ascended the opposite peak of Ngok Kring. North 

Vietnamese bullets killed or wounded several paratroopers as the Company 

C commander, Capt. Thomas McElwain, led his men up the thickly wooded 

slope. U.S. casualties continued to mount, and after a time the paratroopers heard AK47 fire coming from their flanks and rear. Captain McElwain 

organized his men into a perimeter halfway up the slope and then radioed 

his battalion commander to describe his situation. Task Force Black’s 

predicament was serious but not dire. Since Task Force Blue had not completed its mission across the valley, Colonel Johnson decided to fly in reinforcements to relieve Captain McElwain. Shortly thereafter, Company C of 

the 4th Battalion, 503d Infantry, boarded helicopters at Dak To and headed 

for Ngok Kring.27

Landing on the open saddle between the two hills, the company from 

the 4th Battalion fought its way up the northern peak. Meanwhile, the situ26 AAR, Battle of Dak To, 6 Nov 67, 173d Abn Bde, pp. 18–19.

27 Ibid., pp. 15–16; AAR, Battle of Dak To, 4th Inf Div; Intervs, MacGarrigle with Col 

Gerald T. Cecil, 7 Nov 89, Historians files, CMH; Capt Frank C. Foster Jr., 24th Mil Hist Det, 

with Co A, 4th Bn, 503d Inf, Encl 4 to Dak To Combat After Action Intervs, Nov 67, 173d Abn 

Bde, Historians files, CMH.
165

Across the Central Highlands

ation for Task Force Black continued to worsen. With enemy soldiers hugging his perimeter from all directions, Captain McElwain could not bring 

down effective air and artillery support without endangering his own men. 

Desperately, they hung on for several more hours until the relief column 

from the 4th Battalion finally broke through their perimeter. A ragged cheer 

rang out from the survivors of Task Force Black, many of whom were too 

wounded or exhausted to even stand up. The North Vietnamese soon melted 

away, allowing the Americans to tally their losses and police the battlefield. 

Only a handful of men in Task Force Black had escaped injury; Captain 

McElwain’s command had lost a total of 26 soldiers killed and 154 wounded. 

The Americans counted 184 dead North Vietnamese on the hill and captured 

2 enemy soldiers.28

Having secured his right flank at Ngok Kring, Schweiter pressed ahead 

with the southward advance into the Dak Klong Valley. On the afternoon of 

11 November, helicopters delivered three companies from Major Steverson’s 

2d Battalion, 503d Infantry, onto a hill three kilometers south of Firebase 15 

that had previously housed a firebase. Their landing on Hill 845 was unop28 AAR, Battle of Dak To, 6 Nov 67, 173d Abn Bde, pp. 19–21; Interv, Foster with Co C. 

4th Bn, 503d Inf, n.d., Encl 4 to Dak To Combat After Action Intervs, Nov 67, 173d Abn Bde, 

Historians files, CMH.

Paratroopers from the 173d Airborne Brigade advance through woods in the 

Dak Klong Valley.
Staying the Course

166

posed. The next morning, two of Steverson’s companies began rebuilding 

Firebase 16 as Company A went looking for the enemy. 

Descending the hill’s southwestern slope, Company A had gone only 500 

meters when it came under fire from the peak ahead. Major Steverson fed 

another company into the battle but his troops were unable to take the enemyheld summit. The 2d Battalion, 503d Infantry, lost six killed and forty-four 

wounded in the unsuccessful assault. A captured North Vietnamese soldier 

claimed that two companies of the 3d Battalion, 174th Regiment, were on that 

ridge, the first indication that all three regiments from the 1st PAVN Division

were committed to the fight.29

Learning that news, General Rosson decided to strengthen Peers’ hand. 

On 12 November, the I Field Force commander ordered the commander 

of the 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Col. Donald V. Rattan, to move 

two of his airmobile battalions and supporting artillery batteries from Binh 

Dinh Province to Dak To. Given recent reports that the 95B PAVN Regiment

planned to attack Special Forces camps in southern Kontum and northern 

Pleiku Provinces, Rattan moved his 2d Battalion, 8th Cavalry, to Kontum 

City to serve as a ready reaction force. He put his other unit, the 1st Battalion, 

12th Cavalry, into the lower Dak Hodrai Valley southeast of the 173d Airborne 

Brigade’s area of operations to block a major withdrawal route to Cambodia. 

General Rosson also gave his 4th Division commander permission to 

redeploy elements from his 2d Brigade currently operating near Ban Me 

Thuot. General Peers flew in the 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry, which Colonel 

Johnson landed on a ridge three kilometers southeast of Hill 724 to prevent 

the enemy from withdrawing through the Dak Sir Valley. North of Tan Canh, 

General Loc reinforced the 9th Airborne Battalion with the 3d Battalion, 

42d Infantry, which continued the hunt for the 24th Regiment under the new 

operational name Le Loi 46.

30

Back in the Dak Klong Valley, Major Steverson made another effort on 

13 November to seize the enemy-held ridge south of Firebase 16. Companies 

A and B from the 2d Battalion, 503d Infantry, brought along several 90-mm. 

recoilless rifles, weapons they normally kept in the rear because of their 

weight, in order to knock out North Vietnamese bunkers. Leading the way, 

the 2d Platoon from Company B used the weapons to destroy the first bunker 

they spotted. The blast produced a torrent of hostile fire from the woods 

ahead, forcing the recoilless rifle crews to seek cover. Enemy pressure intensified, isolating the 2d Platoon from the main body. When the remainder of 

Company B finally reached the embattled platoon, most of its members had 

already been killed or wounded. 

The two companies held the attackers at bay until they withdrew that 

evening. Losses for the 2d Battalion came to twenty-one killed and twenty 

wounded. When Steverson’s men moved up the slope the next morning, they 

discovered forty-eight enemy bodies plus several wounded soldiers from the 

3d Battalion, 174th Regiment. The prisoners said they had been marching 

29 AAR, Battle of Dak To, 6 Nov 67, 173d Abn Bde, p. 15.

30 AAR, Battle of Dak To, 4th Inf Div, p. 11.
167

Across the Central Highlands

north to attack some unspecified target when they encountered Americans 

coming the opposite way. They knew nothing about the whereabouts of the 

regiment’s other two battalions.31

The Pursuit Continues: 15–18 November

As General Peers maneuvered his combined force of three infantry battalions, three airborne battalions, and one airmobile battalion across the 

battlefield south of Dak To in an effort to trap the 1st Division, the enemy 

delivered a punishing blow to his logistical system. On the morning of 15 

November, a North Vietnamese mortar crew concealed in the Dak Sir Valley 

between Rocket Ridge and Ngok Dorlang opened fire on the main Dak To 

base, choosing a moment when four C–130 transport aircraft were either 

parked on the airfield or taxiing on the runway. The opening salvo hit two 

of the big airplanes, setting them afire. Shell fragments damaged the third 

aircraft, but the crew got its engines going and flew the transport to safety. 

So did a fourth C–130 that had just landed; its pilot spun the aircraft around 

at the end of the runway and took off in the opposite direction, unscathed by 

the shells that chased his aircraft. General Peers, who happened to be flying 

overhead in his helicopter when the attack began, marveled at the pilot’s 

skill and good fortune. “It was an outstanding act of gallantry,” Peers later 

remarked. “I sent a note to [the Seventh Air Force’s Commander] General 

[William W.] Momyer about his pilot and crew chief” (see Map 16).32

Artillery fire and helicopter gunships silenced the mortar crew a short 

time later, but not before one of the shells hit a large ammunition dump that 

logisticians had established in a field to handle the overflow from the main 

storage area. The initial explosion set off more explosions that soon ignited 

the entire ammunition dump. The garrison found it could not battle the 

flames because the blast had destroyed Dak To’s main water line. It was not 

until the next day that soldiers got the fire under control.

A damage assessment reported the loss of 1,100 tons of ammunition. The 

blast had destroyed 30,000 artillery shells and several huge bladders, each 

filled with 10,000 gallons of aviation fuel. Unexploded ordnance was strewn 

across half the base. The runway was pockmarked with craters and littered 

with jagged, tire-shredding pieces of metal. It would take several days of frantic work to get the airfield back in action.33

Fortunately for Peers, the enemy launched no further artillery attacks 

on Dak To and his land supply route, Highway 19, remained open. Sufficient 

stores remained on hand to support the units in the field, and by 20 November 

31 Rpt, Prisoner Interrogation (PI), 172d Mil Intel Det, 173d Abn Bde, 172-382-67, 14 Nov 

67; and Rpt, Captured Documents, 172d Mil Intel Det, 173d Abn Bde, no. 10, 15 Nov 67. Both 

in Encl 5 to Dak To Combat After Action Interviews, Nov 67, 173d Abn Bde. 32 Quote from Presentation, MACV Cdrs Conf, Maj Gen William R. Peers, 3 Dec 67, 

Historians files, CMH. AAR, Battle of Dak To, 4th Inf Div, pp. 41–42; AAR, Battle of Dak To, 

1st Bde, 4th Inf Div, p. 17. 33 AAR, Battle of Dak To, 4th Inf Div, pp. 41–44.
Staying the Course

168

the daily truck convoys from Qui Nhon had delivered enough ammunition 

and supplies to replace all of the lost materiel. The airfield also returned to 

action, though Peers insisted that only one C–130 be allowed on the ground 

at any one time.34

As service troops repaired the damage at Dak To, Colonel Vollmer’s 3d 

Battalion, 12th Infantry, continued its search of Rocket Ridge. Pushing north 

toward Hill 1338 and fighting their way through several positions, the three 

U.S. companies finally reached the summit on 17 November. The fifty-nine 

North Vietnamese dead they found during those several days all belonged to 

the 32d Regiment.

Northeast of Dak To, the South Vietnamese task force finally located its 

quarry, the 24th Regiment, the final B3 Front unit believed to be in the area. 

The initial contact happened on 14 November when the South Vietnamese 

3d Battalion, 42d Infantry, ran into a line of fortifications as it ascended 

Hill 1416, ten kilometers northeast of Tan Canh. Coming forward to lead the 

assault, the South Vietnamese 9th Airborne Battalion sustained heavy losses 

as it tried to advance up the steep slope against a well-entrenched opponent. 

The next afternoon, II Corps commander General Vinh Loc flew in the 2d 

34 Ibid., pp. 17–18; ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 8th Transportation Gp (Motor Transport), 

n.d., pp. 3–4, box 39, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP.

An aerial view of the Dak To II airfield on 15 November 1967, showing 

smoke plumes rising from several destroyed C–130s.
1

PAVN

X X

66

PAVN

III

32

PAVN

III

174(-)

PAVN

III

24

PAVN

III

PAVN

40 31

I I

3 8

I I

1 4

X

3 12

I I

4 503

I I

173

X

2 503

I I

1 503

I I

1 12 Cav

I I

1 8

I I

2 8 Cav

I I

ARVN

9

I I

Dak Poko

Dak

Poko

Dak Psi

k

a

D

o H d

ar i

BEN HET

DAK TO 2

DAK TO 1

TAN CANH

Hill 1049

Hill 1338

Hill 823

Hill 875

512

512

512

511

511

613

613

14

14

Dak Ri Peng

Polei Lang Lo Kram

Dak Wang Kram

Dien Binh

Kon Hojao

S O U T H V I E T N A M L A O S

S O U T H V I E T N A M C A M B O D I A

L A O S C A M B O D I A

BAT TLE FOR DAK TO

PHASE THREE

13–25 November 1967

FireghtGround AssaultAir AssaultEnemy RetreatMilitary Installation

0 300 800 1400 and Above

ELEVATION IN METERS

0

0 5 Kilometers

Miles 5

Map 16
Staying the Course

170

and 3d Airborne Battalions from the Joint General Reserve, sending the battered 9th Battalion back to Saigon. It took four days of heavy, uphill fighting before the South Vietnamese paratroopers broke through the enemy’s 

defenses. U.S. advisers counted 247 enemy dead and 70 captured weapons, 

while the South Vietnamese task force had sustained total losses of 47 killed 

and 182 wounded. Underscoring the nearly point-blank range of the battle, 

an estimated thirty-one of the South Vietnamese casualties had come from 

allied supporting fires.35

As the 24th Regiment broke contact and disappeared from Hill 1416, the 

enemy on Rocket Ridge and Ngok Dorlang also began withdrawing. Between 

the fifteenth and twentieth, soldiers from the 3d Battalion, 12th Infantry, and 

the 3d Battalion, 8th Infantry, discovered a network of abandoned fortifications and base camps as they searched their sectors. With the Dak To campaign now entering its third week, General Peers wondered if the 32d and 

66th Regiments had finally reached the limits of their endurance.36

Hill 875: 18–24 November

Seeing signs that the 32d and 66th Regiments were beginning to withdraw toward the border, Peers knew that he would have to move quickly if 

he wanted to intercept them. Relying on units drawn from his 2d Brigade 

and the 1st Cavalry Division to block their southern escape routes, the 4th 

Division commander counted on the 173d Airborne Brigade to block the 

western routes. The resulting cordon would be imperfect—there was simply 

too much ground to cover—but the blocking units still stood a chance of 

inflicting further losses on the enemy.

On the eighteenth, General Schweiter resumed his push down the final 

stretch of the Dak Klong Valley. He ordered his 1st Battalion, 503d Infantry, 

to search Hill 882, two kilometers to the west of Firebase 16, and for the 2d 

Battalion, 503d Infantry, to sweep Hill 875 two kilometers to its south. 

That afternoon, Colonel Schumacher ascended Hill 882 with Companies 

A, C, and D from the 1st Battalion, 503d Infantry. His men were still catching their breath when a lookout spotted an enemy squad approaching from 

the west. Taking cover behind fallen logs, the Americans opened fire. The 

enemy replied in kind, his volume of fire steadily increasing as more North 

Vietnamese troops arrived from the west, and as enemy mortar crews joined 

the action.37

Colonel Schumacher called in air and artillery strikes, which suppressed 

the Communist mortars and eased the pressure on his perimeter. The attacks 

grew less intense and then stopped a few hours later. All told, the 1st Battalion, 

35 AAR, Advisory Det, 24th Special Tactical Zone, 12 Dec 67, p. 5, Encl 9 to AAR, Battle 

of Dak To, 4th Inf Div. 36 AAR, Battle of Dak To, 1st Bde, 4th Inf Div, pp. 11–12.

37 Interv, Foster with Co. A, 1st Bn, 503d Inf, n.d., Encl 6 to Dak To Combat After Action 

Intervs, 6 Nov 67, 173d Abn Bde, Historians files, CMH; Murphy, Dak To, p. 217.
171

Across the Central Highlands

503d Infantry, had sustained a loss of six soldiers killed and another twentynine wounded. The following morning, the Americans discovered fifty-one 

dead enemy soldiers from the 3d Battalion, 174th Regiment.

38

Meanwhile, back on the eighteenth when Colonel Schumacher’s battalion had set out west toward Hill 882, a second task force, composed of 

Companies A, C, and D from the 2d Battalion, 503d Infantry, and a company 

of Montagnard soldiers, had headed south under Major Steverson’s command toward Hill 875.

As the task force approached the hill, the South Vietnamese irregulars split 

away from the main force in order to circle around and investigate the south 

side of Hill 875. The Montagnards came under heavy fire as they ascended 

the slope. The fire appeared to be coming from a line of well-concealed bunkers up ahead. Pulling back for a few hours to let air strikes and artillery go 

to work, the Montagnard troops had no better luck when they advanced a 

second time. Seeing no way to outflank the bunker line—the eastern and 

western slopes of Hill 875 fell away sharply, and appeared nearly impossible 

to climb—the Montagnard unit had formed a perimeter at the base of the hill 

38 AAR, A-1-503d Inf, 17–19 Nov 67, 10 Dec 67, Encl 4 to AAR, Battle of Dak To, 6 Nov 

67, 173d Abn Bde.

Men from the 173d Airborne Brigade watch for enemy soldiers on Hill 875.
Staying the Course

172

and awaited further instructions. It would be up to the 330 paratroopers from 

Major Steverson’s 2d Battalion, 503d Infantry, to take the hill.39

On the morning of 19 November, the battalion started up the northern 

side of the hill with Company C on the right or western flank, Company D 

on the left or eastern side, and Company A following in reserve. Progress 

was slow because the slope was overgrown with bamboo and scrub brush. 

The bombardment the day before had also knocked over many trees that the 

soldiers now had to clamber over.40

At 1030, three shots rang out. The point man from Company D fell dead. 

Moments later, a medic met the same fate when he tried to reach the downed 

soldier. Those first shots soon became a steady roar as dozens of hidden 

enemy soldiers opened fire from positions on the hill above. The hidden fortifications remained almost invisible to the paratroopers, betrayed only by 

the flash of a muzzle burst or a fleeting glimpse of an enemy soldier as he rose 

to hurl a grenade down the slope. 

With the battle now joined in earnest, the soldiers from Companies C 

and D dropped their packs so they could maneuver more easily. Recoilless 

rifle rounds and rocket-propelled grenades rained down the slope, some of 

them skipping off the ground before bursting among the Americans. Unwary 

paratroopers triggered booby-trapped 82-mm. mortar rounds and Chinese 

directional mines that the enemy had hidden in the undergrowth. Faced 

with mounting casualties and growing disorganization, the commander of 

Company C, Captain Harold J. Kaufman, ordered his men to pull back. 

Companies C and D threw smoke grenades to mark their positions and then 

hunkered down, while artillery and air strikes began hitting the Communist 

positions.41

A half hour later, the two companies resumed their advance up the treesplintered slope. Although several more troopers went down to enemy fire, 

the Americans pressed on and overran the first line of bunkers and trenches, 

tossing grenades before moving farther up the hill. To their surprise, a 

North Vietnamese soldier emerged from one of the bunkers and opened fire. 

Although the paratroopers killed the man and then threw more grenades into 

his bunker, a second enemy soldier emerged from the same bunker a short 

time later. It became clear to the paratroopers that the enemy’s fortifications 

included tunnels that connected these bunkers to other positions farther up 

the hill. Later investigations also revealed that many bunkers contained a 

39 AAR, Battle of Dak To, 6 Nov 67, 173d Abn Bde, pp. 23–28; Murray, Dak To, pp. 233–301; 

Interv, Foster with Co. A, 2d Bn, 503d Inf, n.d., Dak To Combat After Action Intervs, Nov 67, 

173d Abn Bde, Historians files, CMH. 40 AAR, Battle of Dak To, 173d Abn Bde, 10 Dec 67, p. 2, Encl 5 to Dak To Combat After 

Action Intervs, 6 Nov 67, 173d Abn Bde, Historians files, CMH; Senior Col Nguyen Quang Dat 

and Tan Hanh, eds., Mot So Tran Danh Trong Khang Chien Chong Phap, Khang Chien Chong 

My, 1945–1975 (Tap 1) [A Number of Battles During the Resistance Wars Against the French and 

the Americans, 1945–1975, vol. I] (Hanoi: Military History Institute of Vietnam, n.d.), p. 112 

(hereafter cited as A Number of Battles During the Resistance Wars). 41 Dat and Hanh, eds., A Number of Battles During the Resistance Wars, pp. 110–12; AAR, 

Battle of Dak To, 173d Abn Bde, p. 4, Encl 5.
173

Across the Central Highlands

U-shaped trench to the rear into which its defenders could crawl to protect 

themselves from exploding grenades.

By noon, the rising number of casualties in Companies C and D and the 

exertion of climbing the steep, log-strewn slope brought the attack to a standstill. Major Steverson pulled his troops back a few hundred meters so fighterbombers and artillery could pound the enemy bunker line. When the colonel 

resumed his attack two hours later, the North Vietnamese seemed unaffected 

by the bombardment. 

While the latest attack got under way, Major Steverson ordered Company 

A, his reserve force, to clear a landing zone that would allow him to evacuate his casualties. A hovering helicopter dropped off axes and chainsaws to 

speed the process, but the work came to a stop when a ripple of gunfire rang 

out from the picket line farther down the hill. It was later revealed that the 

four-man security detail had opened fire on a mass of North Vietnamese soldiers advancing up the slope. Return fire killed one American and wounded 

two more; the survivors headed up the slope, tossing grenades to slow the 

enemy and yelling an alarm to those above.

The commander of Company A, Capt. Michael J. Kiley, formed a defensive line with his 1st Platoon and sent messengers to retrieve his 2d and 3d 

Platoons that were collecting wounded men higher on the hill. Moments 

later, mortar rounds began to detonate across the half-finished landing zone, 

wounding Captain Kiley and most of his command group.42

Despite his injuries, the captain remained in command as his 3d Platoon 

reached his position and joined the defense. His 2d Platoon, meanwhile, was 

still descending the slope when disaster struck. Without warning, a company 

from the 1st Battalion, 174th Regiment, emerged from the trees on the western 

side of the hill and slammed into the platoon. It was later revealed that the 

North Vietnamese soldiers had climbed the precipitous western slope via a 

hidden trail they had made using wooden steps. The attackers drove a wedge 

between the 2d Platoon and the remainder of Company A. They overran 

the command group, killing everyone there, including Captain Kiley. The 

remnants of Company A withdrew up the hill, bringing all the wounded they 

could carry and yelling “Friendly, friendly!” so the soldiers from Companies 

C and D would not fire on them by mistake.43

Linking up at around 1530, the three companies of the 2d Battalion, 503d 

Infantry, established a tight perimeter about one hundred meters in diameter. They took cover behind tree stumps and fallen logs, or used helmets 

and combat knives to scrape out shallow foxholes. The soldiers placed all of 

the dead or seriously wounded men near the center of the perimeter where 

the senior U.S. officer, Captain Kaufman from Company C, stationed his 

command post. They then hunkered down as air and artillery pounded the 

surrounding forest.

42 AAR, 2d Bn, 503d Inf Contact of 19–23 Nov 67, 6 Dec 67, pp. 5–6, Historians files, CMH.

43 Dat and Hanh, eds., A Number of Battles During the Resistance Wars, p. 108; AAR, Battle 

of Dak To, 173d Abn Bde, pp. 5–7, Encl 5.
Staying the Course

174

During pauses in the bombardment, helicopters dropped supplies to the 

trapped soldiers, many of whom were down to their last few magazines. Some 

of the ammunition, medicine, and water landed outside the perimeter, and 

hostile fire damaged six helicopters so badly that they had to be grounded. 

Nevertheless, enough supplies got through to keep the paratroopers alive.

Back at Dak To, General Schweiter received permission from General 

Peers to fly three companies from the 4th Battalion, 503d Infantry, out to 

Firebase 16 where they could join the fight. A flight of CH–47 helicopters 

delivered Company B that evening; Colonel Johnson’s Companies A and D 

were scheduled to arrive the next morning. 

The situation on Hill 875 took a dramatic turn for the worse at 1900 when 

a U.S. Air Force F–4C Phantom dropped a 750-pound bomb that landed 

short, hitting the middle of the U.S. position. The explosion killed forty-two 

paratroopers, including Captain Kaufman, and wounded another forty-five, 

some of them for the second or third time that day.44

Among the dead was the 173d Airborne Brigade’s chaplain, Maj. Charles 

J. Watters. Throughout the day he had moved among the troops, providing 

words of encouragement to the living, attending to the wounded, and administering the last rites to the dying. Early on, when he had spotted a wounded 

paratrooper standing on the front line in a state of shock, the chaplain had 

run into the thick of battle, hoisted the man onto his back, and carried him 

to safety. He then had dashed through enemy fire a second time to retrieve a 

soldier who had collapsed only a few meters from a North Vietnamese trench. 

Later that afternoon when Companies C and D pulled back to form a perimeter with Company A, he had noticed that several injured paratroopers had 

been inadvertently left behind. Shrugging off attempts to restrain him, he 

made three more trips into no-man’s-land to carry wounded men to safety. 

Finally satisfied that every American still alive was inside the perimeter, 

Watters was busy helping the medics and ministering to the dying when the 

errant bomb hit. He would posthumously receive the Medal of Honor for his 

actions that day.45

With Kaufman’s death, the acting commander of Company D, 1st Lt. 

Bartholomew O’Leary, took charge of the battalion. After reorganizing his 

companies, he reported back to headquarters that only three other officers were still fit for duty. He himself was seriously wounded. Nonetheless, 

O’Leary predicted that the battalion would hold out until morning unless 

the enemy launched an all-out attack. To everyone’s relief, the 1st and 2d 

Battalions of the 174th Regiment caused little trouble that night.46

The next morning, 20 November, O’Leary’s men began cutting trees 

and clearing brush, eventually hacking out a landing zone just large 

44 Rpt, CHECO, Pacific Air Forces (PACAF), 21 Jun 68, sub: Battle of Dak To, p. 13, copy 

in Historians files, CMH. 45 Interv, Foster with Co A, 2d Bn, 503d Inf, n.d.; Daily Staff Journal, 2d Bn, 503d Inf, 19 

Nov 1967, Historians files, CMH; AAR, Battle of Dak To, 173d Abn Bde, p. 27. 46 Daily Staff Journal, 2d Bn, 503d Inf, 19 Nov 67; AAR, Battle of Dak To, 173d Abn Bde, 

p. 24.
Troops from the 173d Airborne Brigade take cover on the northern face of 

Hill 875.

Members of the 4th Battalion, 173d Airborne Brigade, load wounded aboard 

a UH–1D helicopter following the battle for Hill 875.
Staying the Course

176

enough to accommodate a helicopter. Enemy soldiers remained close 

by, and as one paratrooper would later remark, “We secured half the LZ 

[landing zone] and the North Vietnamese Army the other half.” Enemy 

fire drove off the first several helicopters that tried to land. At 1600, one 

finally got through, delivering medical supplies and several officers from 

Company B of the 2d Battalion, 503d Infantry. Bullets struck the aircraft 

as it departed, but the Huey made it back to base carrying five critically 

wounded soldiers.

47

Shouts of relief rang out from O’Leary’s paratroopers an hour later when 

they spotted Company B from the 4th Battalion, 503d Infantry, making its 

way up the hill. The survivors welcomed their rescuers with open arms and 

some with tears in their eyes. Their spirits rose even higher around midnight 

when Colonel Johnson arrived with Companies A and C.48

Colonel Johnson, now in command of the Americans on Hill 875, 

brought with him several flamethrowers, two 81-mm. mortars, and a batch 

of M72 66-mm. light antitank weapons that General Schweiter had flown 

out from Dak To. Some of Johnson’s men knew how to use the M72s, but 

the flamethrowers were a different story. One or two men per platoon were 

shown how to operate the cumbersome devices and told to employ them as 

best they could.49

The 4th Battalion, 503d Infantry, began its attack on the afternoon of 21 

November. The battalion advanced on a three-company front—Company A 

on the left, Company B in the center, and Company C on the right. The North 

Vietnamese defenders, seemingly unaffected by the preparatory air and artillery strikes that had lasted for around eight hours, met the advancing soldiers 

with a storm of fire. The M72 rocket launchers that the paratroopers carried 

proved to be nearly useless against bunkers, most of which had firing slits 

only fifteen centimeters wide and were impervious to all but a direct hit on 

the aperture. The flamethrowers fared no better because most of the men 

operating them were reluctant to stand up in full view of the enemy for the 

several seconds required to fire the jet of burning fuel. A few who did use 

them were not able to saturate the bunkers with enough napalm to knock 

them out. 

As darkness set in several hours later, Johnson pulled his men back to 

their starting line. As the paratroopers headed down the slope, many of 

them yelled curses at the North Vietnamese to vent their anger. Johnson’s 

4th Battalion had suffered greatly—15 killed and 108 wounded. Some of the 

injured men could be patched up and returned to duty right away, but even 

so Johnson’s battalion had effectively lost around 20 percent of its strength 

in just one day.

Seeing firsthand the difficulty his men had faced, Johnson recommended 

that Schweiter pull the U.S. forces back so a B–52 strike could annihilate the 

summit. Schweiter declined. The minimum safe distance for a B–52 strike 

47 Interv, Foster with Co A, 2d Bn, 503d Inf, n.d., Encl 7.

48 AAR, Battle of Dak To, 4th Inf Div, p. 2, Encl 6.

49 Ibid., pp. 3–4.
177

Across the Central Highlands

was 3,000 meters, and he feared that the North Vietnamese on Hill 875 would 

slip away if he pulled his paratroopers back to Firebase 16. The general did, 

however, get authorization for B–52s to pummel suspected staging areas 

to the west and northwest of Hill 875 where reserve elements of the 174th 

Regiment might be hiding.50

Despite his determination to take the hill, Schweiter could not ignore the 

worsening situation of his brigade. By the morning of 22 November, the 2d 

and 4th Battalions of the 503d Infantry had lost a total of 86 killed and 130 

wounded who required medical evacuation. 

General Peers tried to relieve some of the pressure on the paratroopers by 

turning the southern side of the mountain that the Montagnard scout company had been monitoring over to the 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry, 4th Infantry 

Division, a unit he had just flown in from Darlac Province. Companies A and 

D from the battalion made an unopposed landing at the base of the hill that 

afternoon. On instructions from General Schweiter, they moved halfway up 

the southern slope and established a blocking position for the evening. The 

Americans received occasional mortar rounds but encountered no North 

Vietnamese that day.51

At first light on the morning of 23 November—Thanksgiving Day in the 

United States—Schweiter sent the 2d and 4th Battalions, 503d Infantry, up 

the north side of the hill, while the 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry, did the same 

on the reverse slope. This time the paratroopers only faced sporadic mortar 

and rifle fire as they trudged up the ruined landscape. After eliminating a 

few North Vietnamese diehards from the trenches that ringed the summit, 

Schweiter’s soldiers reached the top of Hill 875 at around 1130. Both exultant and relieved, many men cried out “Airborne” and “Geronimo” as they 

reached the top. Companies A and D from the 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry, 

came up the opposite slope a short time later, having encountered almost no 

resistance. That afternoon, helicopters delivered a hot Thanksgiving dinner. 

When the Americans finished policing up the battlefield, they found a 

total of 298 North Vietnamese dead from the 1st and 2d Battalions, 174th 

Regiment. As for the 173d Airborne Brigade, the 2d Battalion, 503d Infantry, 

had lost a total of ninety-five men killed between 19 and 23 November, 

while the 4th Battalion, 503d Infantry, had lost eighteen killed during the 

same period. The following morning, General Schweiter withdrew his wornout paratroopers from the hill, relinquishing it and Firebase 16 to the 1st 

Battalion, 12th Infantry.52

In the week that followed, the 173d Airborne Brigade regrouped at Ben 

Het, while the 4th Division’s 1st Brigade continued to search the ridges 

and valleys south of Route 512. The effort turned up a handful of North 

Vietnamese stragglers and numerous abandoned camps. Many of the enemy’s 

50 Ibid.

51 Interv, Capt Peter L. Sawin, 29th Mil Hist Det, with Lt Col Harold B. Birch, 1 Jul 68, 

Vietnam Interview Tape (VNIT) 170, CMH. 52 AAR, Battle of Dak To, 173d Abn Bde, pp. 28–31; AAR, Battle of Dak To, 4th Inf Div, 

p. 35.
Staying the Course

178

supply depots, sleeping areas, and command posts were built into the sides of 

steep hills and lined from floor to ceiling with thick logs. Some still contained 

food, equipment, and ammunition that the enemy had abandoned.53

The South Vietnamese landed one final blow against the retreating enemy. 

On 29 November, the South Vietnamese 2d and 3d Airborne Battalions 

engaged two battalions of the 24th Regiment northeast of Tan Canh, killing 

109 Communists while losing 10 of their own men. The North Vietnamese 

replied by rocketing and mortaring Firebase 12 near Ben Het on the evening 

of 1 December. With that parting shot, the month-long battle came to a close. 

Over the next two months, the U.S. airborne units returned to their regular 

duties on the coast, while the B3 Front rested and refitted its regulars for the 

next phase of the winter-spring campaign.54

Results and Interpretations

Allied commanders regarded the Dak To campaign as a victory, 

albeit one with a bitter aftertaste. General Peers had sent the better part 

of three infantry and cavalry brigades to trap and destroy the 1st PAVN 

53 AAR, Battle of Dak To, 1st Bde, 4th Inf Div, pp. 13–14; Hymoff, Fourth Infantry Division, 

Vietnam, pp. 132–33. 54 AAR, Battle of Dak To, 1st Bde, 4th Inf Div, pp. 21–22; and Encl 4 to AAR, Battle of 

Dak To, 1st Bde, 4th Inf Div; AAR, Opn MacArthur, 1st Bde, 1st Air Cav Div, n.d., pp. 6–7, 

Historians files, CMH; ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, I FFV, p. 12; Interv, Sawin with Birch, 1 

Jul 1968, p. 41.

Soldiers from the 173d Airborne Brigade occupy North Vietnamese trenches 

on Hill 875.
179

Across the Central Highlands

Division in the hills south of Dak To, resulting in the most savage and prolonged encounter of the war to date. Although the 173d Airborne Brigade 

had taken a beating, the allies had captured all of their objectives and 

inflicted sore losses on the enemy. The trio of South Vietnamese airborne 

battalions that had taken Hill 1416 also showed great aplomb under difficult circumstances. “The combined U.S. and [South Vietnamese Army] 

enemy body count of 1,644 is by itself proof that the enemy suffered an 

enormous defeat,” Peers reported following the battle. “However, his real 

defeat lies in the fact that he was caught while preparing for an attack that 

he calculated would demonstrate his ability to take and hold an area and 

give him the victory he so desperately needs. . . . Instead, he was suddenly 

on the defensive and after more than three weeks of savage fighting was 

sent limping back to his sanctuaries.”55

The North Vietnamese, for their part, were equally upbeat about the 

battle. Radio Hanoi asserted that the allies had committed a total of seven 

divisions to the fight and had lost 2,800 dead. According to a Communist 

propaganda pamphlet meant for South Vietnamese soldiers in the highlands, “American and Puppet Troops in Saigon and Kontum usually brag 

and flatter you by telling you: ‘calm down because you have the 173d US 

Airborne Brigade to fight along with you.’ This so-called Allied Force . . . 

was beaten to death in Dak To.”56

A more objective look at the numbers tells a different story. Rather 

than employing seven divisions as the enemy claimed, the allies had committed only ten battalions, several of which had done little or no fighting. U.S. casualties totaled 283 killed and 1,188 wounded, while the South 

Vietnamese had sustained 61 killed, 253 wounded, and 14 missing. By 

contrast, even if the enemy had incurred only half of the 1,663 killed and 

captured and more than 2,400 wounded the allies claimed, he had still 

suffered far more grievous losses than his opponents.57

Testifying to the efficacy of U.S. air power in this battle, North 

Vietnamese prisoners later revealed that many of their casualties had 

come from the 257 B–52 strikes flown during the battle. A soldier from 

the 66th Regiment estimated that B–52s had killed 200 men in his regiment 

alone and wreaked similar havoc on other units. The bombing strikes had 

also proved unusually effective against the enemy’s command and control 

55 Memo, Maj Gen William R. Peers for HQ, 4th Inf Div, Ofc of the Commanding General, 

n.d., sub: Combat Operations After Action Report, Battle of Dak To, attachment to AAR, 

Battle of Dak To, 4th Inf Div. 56 Spook Sheet, HQ, 173d Abn Bde, Ofc of Intel Ofcr, no. 3, 27 Nov 67, attachment to AAR, 

Battle of Dak To, 173d Abn Bde; MACOI, Release no. 348-67, 14 Dec 67; Ltr, Birch to Berry, 

31 Aug 67; MACOI, Release no. 16-68, 16 Jan 68. Both in Historians files, CMH. 57 A returnee from the 66th Regiment, Vu Nhu Y, estimated that the 1st Division had lost 

approximately 650 men during the battle, most to B–52 and artillery strikes, while a returnee 

who worked as a doctor in the 1st Division put the number of their wounded at 1,100. Special 

Rpt, CMIC, no. 60368, 18 Mar 68, sub: Battle of Dak To and Effects of B-52 Strikes, p. 2, box 

150, doc. 113a, NSF-Vietnam Country file, LBJL; AAR, Battle of Dak To, 4th Inf Div, pp. 

34–35; Special Rpt, CMIC, no. 310268, 9 Apr 68, sub: Medical Organization and Activities of 

Agr Site 1, B.3, pp. 12–13, box 65, CMIC Interrogation Dossiers, J–2, MACV, RG 472, NACP.
Staying the Course

180

structure. On 15 November, a B–52 strike had hit the headquarters of the 

32d Regiment near Hill 1262, causing several dozen casualties. Among the 

dead was the regiment’s deputy chief of staff. A prisoner also reported that 

a B–52 strike had decimated the staff of the 9th Battalion, 66th Regiment, 

as it held a meeting on Ngok Dorlang in early November, killing the battalion commander, four company commanders, two company executive 

officers, and two platoon leaders.58

The battle demonstrated the limitations of the enemy’s logistical 

system. A captured North Vietnamese battalion commander revealed 

that his division had spent more than a month moving supplies across the 

border to staging areas that were still well to the south of Dak To. After 

consuming some of the supplies during the month, the North Vietnamese 

soldiers had brought most of the remainder to forward positions at the 

beginning of November. Limited to what they could carry on foot, their 

ammunition supply had only been large enough for a few days of hard 

fighting. When it was gone, the enemy had no choice but to withdraw.

The slow nature of the enemy’s logistical system also hindered his 

tactical movement. Most of the 1st Division was still moving into place 

when two battalions from Colonel Johnson’s 1st Brigade came to Dak To 

and began searching the nearby hills. As a result, the 120-mm. mortar 

crews and 122-mm. rocket crews from the 40th Artillery Regiment failed to 

58 Rpt, CHECO, PACAF, 21 Jun 68, p. 6; Special Rpts, CMIC, no. 50868, 7 Mar 68, sub: 

B-52 Airstrikes in Kontum Prov, RVN, p. 2; CMIC, no. 305368, 18 Apr 68, sub: Organization 

of the 1st Division or Agr Site 1, B.3, p. 24. Both in box 65, CMIC Interrogation Dossiers, J–2, 

MACV, RG 472, NACP.

General Peers confers with Lt. Col. Jamie R. Hendrix, the commander of the 

3d Battalion, 12th Infantry, 4th Infantry Division.
181

Across the Central Highlands

get into their firing positions on Rocket Ridge. The 174th Regiment had 

completed its fortifications on Hill 875 only a few days before the 173d 

Airborne Brigade had arrived, and the regiment’s 3d Battalion that had 

clashed with the 1st Battalion, 503d Infantry, on the eighteenth, was three 

weeks behind schedule for a planned attack on Ben Het. 

As for American casualties, the air and artillery strikes that had so 

devastated the enemy also bloodied the U.S. infantry units they were 

trying to support. The tangled, triple-canopy forests around Dak To concealed the troops on the ground from pilots and fire control observers, 

making targeting mistakes all too frequent. On top of that, the massive, 

iron-hard trees sometimes deflected even the most carefully aimed bombs 

and shells, many of which carried time-delay fuses in order to penetrate 

the undergrowth before exploding. The net effect was an inordinate 

number of casualties from friendly fire. 

The 173d Airborne Brigade’s historian summed up the cost: 

Of the 192 [dead in] . . . the 173d a good 70 of these were killed by our own 

people. A misplaced bomb officially killed forty-two but actually caused at 

least fifty deaths. On another occasion misplaced artillery landed on a company CP group killing the company commander (2d tour Infantry Captain), 

Forward Observer, 1st Sgt, [the Radio Operators] . . . and many CIDG troops. 

There were other instances of misplaced indirect fire and shooting of men 

wandering in front of friendly positions. Almost 40% of our fatal casualties 

were caused by ourself [sic].59

Questions were also raised about the tactics that General Peers had 

permitted his subordinates to employ. Maj. Gen. Charles P. Stone, who 

succeeded Peers as commander of the 4th Infantry Division on 4 January 

1968, later described the methods that U.S. commanders had previously 

used in the highlands as “stupid.” Stone was particularly critical of 

General Schweiter and his performance at Dak To. “I had the damnest 

time (after my arrival in Vietnam) getting anybody to show me where Hill 

875 was,” he told interviewers following the war. “It had absolutely no 

importance in the war thereafter. None. It had no strategic value. . . . It 

made no difference . . . that the enemy held all those mountains along the 

border because they controlled no people, no resources, no real growing 

areas and suffered a horrible malaria rate. Why . . . go out there and fight 

them where all the advantages were on . . . [their] side.”60

General Westmoreland, by contrast, expressed no dissatisfaction with 

the tactical decisions his commanders had made prior to or during the 

battle. On balance, the MACV commander believed it was worth pursu59 Interv, 24th Mil Hist Det with Foster, Nov 67, sub: Analysis and Observation of Historian 

during Battle of Dak To, Dak To Combat After Action Intervs, Nov 67, 173d Abn Bde, 

Historians files, CMH. 60 Interv, MacGarrigle and Robert Pringle with Maj Gen Charles P. Stone, fmr Cdr, 4th Inf 

Div, 31 Oct 68, Historians files, CMH.
Staying the Course

182

ing the enemy at every opportunity if that kept him bottled up along the 

border. “We cannot permit [the enemy] . . . to strike the confidence of the 

South Vietnamese people in ultimate victory or to bolster his own morale 

with successes,” he wrote to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 

General Wheeler, shortly after the battle, for

to do otherwise would be to deliver to him, without contest, the very objectives which he seeks. . . . If we intentionally let the enemy deep into Kontum 

Province, we would be taking a major step backwards. . . . [The] people (in 

that province) could feel, justifiably, that they had been let down. . . . The first 

step in total erosion of our posture in this country would have begun.

No matter the tactical challenges of fighting the enemy deep in the interior mountains, Westmoreland argued, it was still preferable to fighting him 

in the populated lowlands. If the allies shied away from engaging North 

Vietnamese in the highlands,

we would have a much more serious proposition. We cannot apply our fire 

power [in the lowlands] with as much freedom, we permit him to get at potential sources of food to sustain his forces, and we give him more maneuver 

room. . . . It would have cost at least twice as much in military casualties (not 

to mention civilian casualties) and would have taken at least twice as long to 

do the job.61

Good Neighbors in the Highlands

If U.S. officers disagreed over the necessity of the Dak To campaign and 

the way it was fought, they were united in their support for pacification. Like 

other U.S. formations in Vietnam, the 4th Infantry Division supplemented its 

major combat activities with a host of smaller but still consequential actions 

designed to boost the ability of the government of Vietnam to enhance its 

control of the rural population in the thinly populated highlands. In addition 

to performing security missions, particularly along the major roads to the 

benefit of civilian and military traffic, the division supported pacification by 

training local security forces and by conducting civic actions.

In the 4th Division, Combined Mobile Training Teams performed the territorial training function done by Mobile Advisory Teams in III Corps, while 

Combined Mobile Inspection Teams were the equivalent of Improvement 

Action Teams, improving outpost security. By year’s end, these teams had 

trained thirty-four Regional Forces companies and sixty-five Popular 

Forces platoons. The division also assisted in the training of Revolutionary 

Development teams. Throughout the process, division trainers took special 

cognizance of the abilities exhibited by South Vietnamese officers and noncommissioned officers, quietly passing this information along to the provin61 Msg, Westmoreland MAC 11956 to Wheeler, 10 Dec 67, Westmoreland Msg files, CMH.
183

Across the Central Highlands

cial advisory team. CORDS advisers reported that units that had received 

training from the 4th Infantry Division emerged with higher morale and 

greater proficiency. Peers further reinforced local security by maintaining 

five reaction platoons and one exploitation platoon at Camp Enari, ready to 

respond to reported threats.62

While Peers’ men helped improve the population’s first line of defense, 

they performed equally fine service through the “Good Neighbor” program. 

Wherever 4th Division troops went in Pleiku, Darlac, and Kontum Provinces, 

they conducted psychological, medical, and civic actions to ameliorate 

living conditions and to curry favor with the local inhabitants. Between 1 

November 1967 and 31 January 1968, U.S. forces in the 4th Division’s tactical 

area of responsibility delivered 61 million leaflets, 302 hours of airborne and 

318 hours of ground loudspeaker broadcasts, and 32 hours of audiovisual 

presentations. In November, the attached 2d Squadron, 1st Cavalry, used 

its vehicles to round up sixteen cattle for a village, while a team from 41st 

Civil Affairs Company performed much work in support of the Edap Enang 

Refugee Center in Darlac Province. The division made it possible for twelve 

civilians to receive training as health workers and for fifty people to attend 

the Montagnard Agricultural School, while it posted one soldier full time to 

the Highlands Junior Military Academy as a sports and English instructor. 

During the three months ending 31 January 1968, division accomplishments 

included the construction of twenty-six medical civic action shelters, seven 

playgrounds, nine wells, sixteen kilometers of road, three pig pens, and one 

dispensary, with four more under way. U.S. Army engineers cleared 10 acres 

for civilian use at Edap Enang, while the division distributed nearly 12,000 

pounds of food, 7,000 pounds of clothing, 3,000 pounds of soap, 9,700 feet 

of lumber, and 61 tons of sand for construction. Last but not least, the division veterinarian treated 67 cattle, and medical personnel treated 38,000 

people and provided daily rations of milk and vitamins for 34,000 youth. 

Recognizing their popularity, the Viet Cong damaged or destroyed eight of 

the twenty-six shelters that the medical civic action teams used when making 

their rounds, but by the end of January the division had rebuilt all but two.63

Most of these actions were well received. A notable exception was the effort 

to introduce American methods of pig husbandry. The South Vietnamese 

government brought in piglets and U.S. personnel built pens and provided 

instruction, but the locals proved disinterested. An inordinate number of 

piglets died and the farmers abandoned the pens, allowing their animals to 

once again roam free.64

General Peers focused much of his effort on creating a zone of security 

and prosperity around Camp Enari. U.S. troops brought security through 

frequent patrols and progress through socioeconomic assistance. His actions 

had a dual purpose, for the zone essentially corresponded to the range of 

62 Rpt, CORDS, Kontum Province, 31 Dec 67, p. 10; ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 4th Inf 

Div, 7 Mar 68, pp. 8–9, 21. Both in Historians files, CMH. 63 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 4th Inf Div, pp. 12, 17–21.

64 Ibid., p. 19.
Staying the Course

184

North Vietnamese rockets, thus enhancing the safety of the U.S. base as well 

as the civilian population. 

In December, Peers expanded the pacification and security zone around 

Camp Enari from a radius of ten kilometers to twelve. The move raised the 

number of hamlets in the zone from sixty-nine to eighty-five. This increased 

the total population in the Good Neighbor area to nearly 100,000 people, 

representing over 60 percent of the population of Pleiku Province. To service 

the area, the division created twenty-three civic action teams, each consisting 

of five to ten men. Because the division’s manpower authorization did not 

include these positions, Peers took men out of troop units to man the teams. 

At first he rotated personnel through the assignment, but eventually he realized that it was best to make the assignments permanent, as the knowledge 

and experience team members gained over time enhanced their effectiveness. 

The teams visited their assigned hamlets five days a week, consulting with 

district and village headmen and performing civic actions. A Good Neighbor 

Council permitted the exchange of ideas between the provincial government, 

community leaders, and the 4th Division.65

General Peers reported that the civic action teams had “created a favorable psychological climate for local civilians to join the U.S./Government of 

Vietnam side. The advances in health and living conditions the Montagnards 

have achieved in cooperation with civic action teams, and the promise of 

education are strong incentives to join the free world.” Even in areas less 

frequented by U.S. forces, civilians responded to American kindness with 

information about enemy activities, allowing soldiers to avoid ambushes and 

mines. One village of resettled Montagnards that frequently received civic 

action assistance, Plei Thi The in Pleiku Province, reciprocated by throwing 

its lot in with the allies. When the Viet Cong threatened to destroy the community if the residents did not move back to their original homes, the villagers sought U.S. help instead. After consulting with government authorities, 

the 4th Division provided material to fortify the hamlet. It also armed and 

trained a platoon of defenders and maintained a small detail in the village 

to further guide the residents in their very personal struggle against the Viet 

Cong.66

Stories like that of Plei Thi The warmed Peers’ heart, but he had to admit 

“the lack of security in most hamlets forces the civilians to cooperate with 

both sides.” Outside of the Dak To campaign, the enemy was not terribly 

active in the 4th Division’s area in late 1967, but allied forces were spread so 

thin over such a large area that they could not make much progress in improving local security conditions outside of the Good Neighbor area. Security 

in Kontum Province in particular was in a critical condition. For while the 

enemy’s main force units were nowhere to be seen, having withdrawn back 

to their sanctuaries after Dak To, local guerrillas had stepped up operations, 

engaging in numerous acts of kidnapping, road mining, terror, and other 

65 Ibid., pp. 17–18; MFR, MACV, 24 Jun 67, sub: MACV Commanders’ Conference, 11 June 

1967, pp. 17–18, folder 18, Westmoreland History files, CMH. 66 MFR, MACV, 24 Jun 67, pp. 11, 20–22, 23 (quote).
185

Across the Central Highlands

forms of harassment. The Viet Cong were especially interested in pressuring 

farmers to give them their winter harvest, and in December U.S. patrols in 

Pleiku frequently came upon large food caches that the villagers had secreted 

away for the enemy. The nature of combat may have been somewhat different 

in the forested mountains of II Corps than in III Corps’ rolling plains or the 

rice paddies of IV Corps, but the challenges of fighting both a dangerous 

conventional foe and a clandestine insurgent movement remained the same.67

67 Ibid., pp. 23 (quote), 35; Rpt, CORDS, Kontum Province, 31 Dec 67, pp. 1–2, 7–8, 12; 

CORDS, Pleiku Province, 31 Dec 67, p. 3; CORDS, Darlac Province, 31 Dec 68, pp. 5–6. All in 

Historians files, CMH.

6

Defending the Central Coast

I

f the war in the Central Highlands was a battle over outposts, the war 

on the central coast was a struggle over resources. II Corps’ five eastern provinces—Binh Dinh, Phu Yen, Khanh Hoa, Ninh Thuan, and Binh 

Thuan—offered a concentrated source of manpower and food to whichever 

side could control them. Nearly two million people lived in the coastal lowlands within forty kilometers of the South China Sea. That population produced 85 percent of the rice grown in II Corps, harvested an annual bounty of 

fish, manufactured the pungent nuoc muam (fish sauce) that added protein and 

flavor to the Vietnamese diet, and extracted salt from the ocean at a rate of 115 

tons per year to preserve fish and other meat products. In recognition of those 

facts, the Combined Campaign Plan for 1968 allocated the majority of allied 

resources within II Corps to the five coastal provinces. The plan also gave 

National Priority Area status to the lowlands of Binh Dinh Province, the most 

densely populated and agriculturally productive area on the coast, making it 

eligible for additional “funds, military forces, GVN [Government of Vietnam] 

civil cadre, materials, and managerial attention” from Saigon.1

 

In late October 1967, allied forces in eastern II Corps consisted of 

approximately 100,000 troops built around fifty maneuver battalions. The I 

Field Force commander, General Rosson, controlled ten U.S. maneuver battalions. Also present were eighteen maneuver battalions from the Republic 

of Korea Expeditionary Force, an organization separate from MACV, but 

which operated in close coordination with the Americans. The 41st Artillery 

Group supported those twenty-eight maneuver battalions with seven artillery battalions. The 10th and 268th Aviation Battalions provided helicopter 

support through four assault UH–1 companies and two medium-lift CH–47 

companies. General Rosson’s counterpart, II Corps commander General 

Vinh Loc, kept twenty-two of his thirty-six maneuver battalions in the coastal 

provinces, as well as a significant majority of his 25,000 Regional Forces and 

33,000 Popular Forces soldiers.2

Of the fifty allied battalions stationed in eastern II Corps, over half 

operated in the strategic province of Binh Dinh. The commander of the 1st 

Cavalry Division, Maj. Gen. John J. Tolson, kept two brigades on the north 

and central coast to help two regiments from Brig. Gen. Nguyen Van Hieu’s 

South Vietnamese 22d Infantry Division. Two infantry regiments and one 

1

 CCP, 1967, AB142, 7 Nov 66, pp. B-6, E-1-5, E-2-3, Historians files, CMH. 

2

 MACV History, 1967, vol. 1, pp. 371–73; Stanley R. Larsen and James L. Collins Jr., Allied 

Participation in Vietnam, Vietnam Studies (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 1975), 

pp. 120–59.
Staying the Course

188

cavalry regiment from the South Korean 1st “Capital” Division defended 

the southern end of Binh Dinh Province, an area that contained the Phu Cat 

airfield and the port of Qui Nhon, South Vietnam’s fifth largest city and the 

primary I Field Force logistical center in northern II Corps. South Korean 

forces also protected Highway 19, a two-lane paved road that extended west 

from the outskirts of Qui Nhon and up the winding An Khe Pass, some sixty 

kilometers away, to Camp Radcliff at An Khe where the 1st Cavalry Division 

located its rear service elements. A composite force of armed helicopters, 

artillery, and military policemen stationed at Camp Radcliff protected the 

airfield complex and the next portion of Highway 19, which continued westward across a broad plateau toward Pleiku City.

Farther down the coast in Phu Yen Province, the 173d Airborne Brigade 

worked alongside a regiment from the South Korean 9th “White Horse” 

Infantry Division and a regiment from the South Vietnamese 22d Infantry 

Division in the lowlands surrounding Tuy Hoa, the provincial capital. Khanh 

Hoa, the third coastal province, contained fewer regular units but a number 

of facilities that were vital to the war effort. The headquarters of the South 

Korean 9th Infantry Division and one of its regiments operated from the 

small but densely populated plain around Ninh Hoa, a district capital on 

the central coast of Khanh Hoa Province. Thirty kilometers farther south, 

General Rosson’s I Field Force headquarters and the forward command post 

of the South Korean Expeditionary Force managed their respective organizations from the Roberts Compound in downtown Nha Trang. The provincial 

capital also contained the headquarters of the 5th Special Forces Group, the 

headquarters of the 17th Aviation Group, and an airfield with four squadGenerals Westmoreland, Rosson, and Tolson
189

Defending the Central Coast

rons of AC–47 gunships and several dozen CH–47 heavy-lift helicopters that 

operated throughout II Corps. Finally, south of Nha Trang the coast curved 

back to create Cam Ranh Bay, an immense natural harbor shielded from the 

ocean by a long sandy peninsula. Featuring six deep-draft mooring stations, a 

massive POL (Petroleum, Oil, and Lubrication) station, and two 3,000-meter 

runways capable of handling any aircraft in the U.S. Air Force’s inventory, 

the bay area represented the most important cluster of logistical and aviation 

facilities between Qui Nhon and Saigon. Still growing in size at the end of 

1967, Cam Ranh Bay ranked a close second to Saigon in the volume of U.S. 

supplies that it received. To protect the complex, the allies maintained a base 

on the mainland side of the harbor near Dong Ba Thin, which housed an 

infantry regiment from the South Korean 9th Infantry Division and several 

U.S. helicopter companies.

On the southern coast of Ninh Thuan, a regiment from the South 

Vietnamese 23d Infantry Division and several Korean battalions defended 

the lowlands around the provincial capital, Phan Rang. A nearby air base 

housed three F–100 squadrons as well as three squadrons of C–123 Providers, 

a midsize transport plane that could land on shorter airfields than the C–130 

but not carry as much cargo. Finally, at the southern extreme of II Corps, 

a one-battalion task force from the 1st Cavalry Division operated with two 

Vietnamese battalions in Binh Thuan, the southernmost coastal province in 

II Corps.3

3

 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, I FFV, 15 Feb 68, p. 21, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd Historian, 

HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP.

South Korean soldiers from the “Tiger” Division in Qui Nhon
Staying the Course

190

Allied commanders faced approximately 20,000 North Vietnamese and 

10,000 Viet Cong regulars in the five coastal provinces of II Corps, backed 

by perhaps 20,000 part-time guerrillas and 5,000 rear services personnel. The 

North Vietnamese contingent consisted of five infantry regiments and several 

support battalions under the direction of Maj. Gen. Chu Huy Man, commander of Military Region 5. Man controlled his main force units in Binh 

Dinh, Phu Yen, and Khanh Hoa Provinces through a tactical headquarters 

known as the B1 Front. Local province and district committees supported 

those North Vietnamese units with half a dozen Viet Cong battalions and 

more than twice that number of local force companies. On the lower coast of 

II Corps, Maj. Gen. Nguyen Minh Chau directed four Viet Cong battalions 

through a subcommand of COSVN known as Military Region 6.

4

General Westmoreland’s planning directive for the 1967–1968 winter-spring 

season called on his I Field Force commander, General Rosson, to “expand 

security in the pacification priority areas of the coastal provinces” and to support “increased offensive operations by ROK [South Korean] forces against 

enemy main force and local units . . . with emphasis on Phu Yen and southern 

Binh Dinh.” U.S. combat units would assume the main burden of searching 

the coastal hills for the North Vietnamese regiments that operated from them. 

By driving main force enemy units into the mountains, the Americans would 

make it difficult for them to enter the lowlands to interfere with the pacification programs being run by CORDS and the South Vietnamese government. 

South Korean units would focus their efforts on defending the major logistical 

hubs and lines of communications on the central coast, while nearly all of 

the South Vietnamese units in eastern II Corps would remain tied to specific 

districts to provide area security against local Viet Cong forces and to support 

Revolutionary Development. So far this year, the enemy had not been especially active, but with the autumn harvest just beginning, allied commanders 

expected to see a rise in enemy activity as North Vietnamese units returned 

from the remote base camps where they had spent the summer to collect food 

and to disrupt pacification along the coast.5

Pacification Support in Binh Dinh 

The province of Binh Dinh was one of the most contested regions in the 

country. Endowed with the most productive farmland north of the Mekong 

4

 Intel Memo, Saigon for CIA, 25 Nov 67, sub: The Status of the North Vietnamese 

Divisions in Coastal II Corps, pp. 12, 14–15, Historians files, CMH; Pike, PAVN, p. 346. The 

enemy’s administrative boundaries differed somewhat from those used by the South Vietnamese 

government. The western third of Binh Dinh Province, for example, was divided among the 

enemy’s Kontum and Gia Lai (Pleiku) Provinces, while the province of Phu Bon was completely 

subsumed in his Dac Lac (Darlac) Province. 5

 Quote from Dir, MACV, 29 Oct 67, sub: Planning Guidance for Senior Commanders for 

the Period 1 Nov 67–30 Apr 68, p. 7. Msg, Rosson NHT 1391 to Westmoreland, 9 Nov 67, sub: 

Evaluation and Assessment of Situation in II CTZ October 1967, p. 1. Both in Historians files, 

CMH.
191

Defending the Central Coast

Delta, it produced enough rice (250,000 tons in 1967) to feed its population 

of nearly 900,000 people with surplus to boot. Nearly all of those inhabitants lived in the coastal lowlands, a series of fertile plains that extended 

inland from ten to fifty kilometers, and divided from one another by lateral 

mountain spurs and hill formations. A broad mountainous plateau covered 

the western half of the province, a mostly undeveloped region covered by 

scrub vegetation and grasslands that was home to scattered communities of 

Montagnards. The highland tribes lived in relative isolation, but many of 

the Vietnamese civilians in the coastal lowlands had been under Communist 

control since 1954 when Viet Minh cadres from other parts of the country 

had settled in this agriculturally rich area after the First Indochina War and 

married into local families. As a result, government authority was sharply 

curtailed in much of the province. 

Working to ensure that this remained so were several regular enemy units, 

the most notable of which was the 3d PAVN Division. The enemy had formed 

the 3d, or “Yellow Star,” Division in September 1965 by linking the 2d PLAF 

Regiment, which had been operating in Binh Dinh since 1962, with the 18th 

and 22d PAVN Regiments, both recently infiltrated from North Vietnam. Led 

by the former chief of staff of the B3 Front, Colonel Vo Thu, the division’s 

6,700 troops worked from a chain of camps in the coastal hills of Binh Dinh 

and southeastern Quang Ngai Province. They enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with the local forces and village cadre on the coast. When the North 

Vietnamese came down to the lowlands, they relied heavily on local party 

committees and on the 50th and E2B PLAF Battalions for guides, porters, 

A troop leader from Troop B, 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry 

Division, issues orders by radio while on a mission during 

Operation Pershing.
Staying the Course

192

security, food, and medical assistance. The Viet Cong, in turn, depended on 

the prompt intervention of the main force units whenever allied operations 

placed the infrastructure in jeopardy.

In 1966, the allies had launched new efforts to increase their presence 

in Binh Dinh. Starting with Operation Masher/White Wing in January, 

the 1st Cavalry Division had frequently operated in northern Binh Dinh. 

During Operations Crazy Horse (May 1966), Thayer I (September 1966), 

and Irving (October 1966), the airmobile division had repeatedly struck the 

enemy. Each time the Americans had hammered the main force units, driving 

them from the lowlands and into the sparsely populated hills. And each time 

the enemy had used the relative safety of the highlands to regroup, replenish, 

and then to return to challenge the allies on the coastal plain, a pattern made 

all the easier by the proximity of the mountains to the sea and the enemy’s long 

association with the population. 

Recognizing the depth of the problem, in February 1967 Westmoreland 

had committed the 1st Cavalry Division to a long-term pacification support 

mission in northern Binh Dinh. Operation Pershing sought to improve population security in the Phu My and Bong Son Plains and adjacent valleys of 

northern Binh Dinh in three ways. First, the division conducted patrols and 

search-and-destroy operations in the highland areas bordering the lowlands so 

as to shield the populated areas from incursions by major enemy units. Second, 

with the concurrence of South Vietnamese officials, it evacuated the residents 

of some of the harder-to-protect valleys to the coast, thereby enhancing their 

security and denying the enemy access to their labors. Finally, the division 

used numerous company-level patrols, airmobile raids, and cordon-and-search 

operations to assist the South Vietnamese 22d Division and provincial forces 

in pacifying the coastal plain itself (Map 17).6

Between September and December 1967, U.S. soldiers were heavily 

involved in protecting the rice harvest in Operation Rice Grain. The 1st 

Cavalry Division commander, General Tolson, conducted daytime patrols, 

nighttime ambushes (dubbed “Bushmaster” operations), and aerial surveillance over farming areas from the time the rice was gathered to the point where 

the grains were bagged for transportation to government-monitored milling 

stations. The hardest part of the effort, and the one over which the division 

had the least control, was in making sure that government officials adequately 

protected the rice once it was in their possession.

Complementing the harvest program was the division’s long-established 

campaign to root out the Viet Cong infrastructure, an effort designated 

Operation Dragnet. In May 1967, the allies had assigned a South Vietnamese 

National Police field battalion to the division for just this purpose. The battalion lived on 1st Cavalry Division bases and was fully integrated into its 

operations. Tolson was impressed by these paramilitary policemen and allowed 

6

 Carland, Stemming the Tide, pp. 202–30, 256–74, 358–59, 366; MacGarrigle, Taking the 

Offensive, October 1966 to October 1967, pp. 83–92, 179–201, 315–16; Interv, Capt Joseph W. A. 

Whitehorne, 14th Mil Hist Det, with Maj Gen John J. Tolson, 28 Jun 68, p. 7, Historians files, 

CMH.
1 50

I I

1 1 Cav

X

1 Cav

X X

2 1 Cav

X

ARVN

40

III

ARVN

41

III

3

PAVN

X X

22

PAVN

III

2

PLAF

III

18B

PAVN

III

LZ GERONIMO

LZ MUSTANG

LZ LARAMIE

LZ ENGLISH

LZ TWO BITS

FSB PONY

LZ UPLIFT

LZ CRYSTAL

LZ TOM

1

1

514

514

506

Dam Tra O

Dam

Nuoc Ngot

SOUTH

CHINA

SEA

Song Lai Giang

Siem Giang

HON GO MOUNTAINS

CAY GIEP MOUNTAINS

'THE CRESCENT'

NUI MIEU 

PHU MY PLAIN

AN LAO VALLEY

BONG SON PLAIN

SUOI CA VALLEY

KIM SON VALLEY

DAMS

DAMS

Tuy An 

Binh Hoa

Hoai Nhon

Hoai An

Phu My

Phu Cat

Hoa Tan

An Lao Hung Long TAM QUAN

Q UA N G N G A I

BI N H D I N H

OPERATION PERSHING

AREA OF OPERATIONS

November 1967

0

0 5 Kilometers

Miles 5

Operational Boundary

Military Installation

0 200 400 600 800 and Above

ELEVATION IN METERS

Map 17
Staying the Course

194

them to wear the 1st Cavalry Division patch on their uniforms. Together, the 

soldiers and policemen conducted hamlet cordon-and-search operations at all 

times of the day and night, varying their activities so as not to set a predictable 

pattern. Some of these raids, dubbed “Swooper” operations, were conducted 

entirely by heliborne assault to minimize the warning time enemy cadre would 

have to hide or escape. During 1967, the division raided some hamlets up to 

thirty times, picking off one or two Viet Cong personnel each visit and gathering information for use in future operations. Vietnamese armed propaganda 

teams and culture/drama troops accompanied the 1st Cavalry Division on 

these operations, wooing the populace through speeches and entertainment.7

In late 1967, province chief Lt. Col. Phan Minh Tho enhanced Operation 

Dragnet by establishing a provincial intelligence office and district-based 

intelligence centers as part of the Phoenix program. Meanwhile the 1st 

Cavalry Division supplemented cordon-and-search operations with a variety 

of other techniques to disrupt Viet Cong activities. One of these was the 

“Selective Snatch,” in which a small team of two helicopters bearing three 

soldiers each and two helicopter gunships scoured the countryside looking 

for “suspicious” individuals. When the helicopters spotted such individuals, 

they would dive down and disgorge their soldiers who would bundle the suspects aboard the helicopters for extraction and interrogation. Another 

method was the use of platoon-size airmobile forces dubbed “minicavs,” also 

escorted by a pair of gunships, which descended on suspicious locales based 

on intelligence reports. When significant resistance was expected or when 

more manpower was needed to effectively seal an area, the division performed larger heliborne raids. In October alone, the 1st Cavalry Division 

conducted 277 battalion or smaller air assaults. In November and December, 

U.S. soldiers and Vietnamese police searched nearly 8,500 homes and interrogated 108,000 people as part of Operation Dragnet and associated activities. These actions resulted in the killing of 29 Viet Cong and the capturing 

of another 43, along with 170 people accused of civil crimes, 18 weapons, 3 

feet of documents, various military supplies, and over 49 tons of contraband 

rice. Together with other actions conducted from November 1967 through 

January 1968, the division captured nearly 96 tons of rice, nearly all of which 

it distributed to needy refugees.8

A final element of the 1st Cavalry Division’s efforts against the enemy’s 

activities was the interdiction of the routes the Viet Cong used to move men, 

food, and supplies to and from populated areas. Most of these movements 

were done at night, further complicating the task of identifying the enemy 

in Vietnam’s heavily foliated terrain. In addition to placing squad and platoon ambushes along suspected Viet Cong routes during hours of darkness, 

U.S. artillery routinely conducted nighttime harassment and interdiction fire 

7

 AAR, Opn Pershing, 11 Feb 67–21 Jan 68, 1st Cav Div, n.d., tab 4, Techniques; ORLL, 1 

Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 1st Cav Div, 17 Mar 68, pp. 10–11. Both in Historians files, CMH. 8

 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 1st Cav Div, Encl 10; Interv, Whitehorne with Tolson, 28 Jun 

68, p. 8; ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 67, 1st Cav Div, 20 Feb 68, p. 34; MFR, MACV, 24 Jun 67, sub: 

MACV Commanders’ Conference, 11 Jun 67, p. 18. All in Historians files, CMH.
195

Defending the Central Coast

missions against trails and supply areas in the coastal hills to discourage the 

enemy from extracting rice from the lowlands. In some cases, the division used 

“artillery ambushes” triggered by trip flares or experimental seismic detectors 

that alerted artillerymen to movement in the targeted areas. A second method, 

“Trail Runner,” involved individually targeting artillery pieces to cover specific 

lengths of trails or ridgelines that intelligence indicated the enemy intended to 

use on a particular night. At the designated moment, the artillery would inundate the route with time-on-target fires. Supplementing these ground-based 

methods were two night aerial techniques. In the “Hunter Killer” technique, a 

UH–1 helicopter equipped with a Starlight scope guided two helicopter gunships toward targets in relatively open areas. “Lightning Bug” operations were 

similar but targeted possible areas of seaborne infiltration. The method of 

identifying the enemy during Lightning Bug actions varied. Sometimes a helicopter dropped flares to illuminate the coastline; at others a Starlight scope 

was used. Once a target was discovered, the patrol would illuminate it either 

with flares or a searchlight, while two helicopter gunships moved in to engage. 

Often a helicopter equipped with side-looking aerial radar would fly ahead of 

the Lightning Bug team to report suspicious activities to be investigated.9

Tolson supplemented the food protection, counterinfrastructure, and 

counterinfiltration campaigns with a variety of activities to strengthen the 

government’s presence among the population. In addition to creating a “pro9

 AAR, Opn Pershing, 11 Feb 67–21 Jan 68, 1st Cav Div, tab 4.

A 1st Cavalry Division soldier checks a civilian identification card.
Staying the Course

196

tective outer shell” for the twelve Vietnamese pacification teams operating in 

Phu My District, Tolson provided special security around polling places for 

national elections on 3 September and 22 October. The effort enabled voters 

to reach the polls without interference from the Viet Cong. Testifying to the 

success of the operations, more than 95 percent of the eligible voters in the 1st 

Cavalry Division area of operations cast their vote.10

General Tolson also carried out psychological and civic actions. Between 

November 1967 and January 1968, U.S. forces distributed over 45 million leaflets and delivered over 202 hours of aerial broadcasts. This effort helped generate eleven defectors. Like most enemy defectors, including the twenty-eight 

Viet Cong that had defected to the 1st Cavalry Division the previous quarter, 

the deserters rallied not for political reasons, but because of a lack of food, 

an abundance of sickness, and the constant fear of being hit by artillery and 

air strikes. They claimed that many of their comrades were equally demoralized, but were too afraid of their officers to desert. In addition to weakening 

the enemy and providing propaganda for the South Vietnamese government 

to exploit, the Chieu Hoi program helped the 1st Cavalry Division in a tangible way by providing recruits for its Kit Carson Scouts. By late 1967, the 

1st Cavalry Division had forty-two Kit Carson Scouts, who repeatedly proved 

their worth by spotting signs of enemy activity, booby traps, and ambushes.11

Between November 1967 and January 1968, the 1st Cavalry Division conducted 550 sick calls to hamlets in northern Binh Dinh, treating over 38,000 

people. It hosted over twenty parties for civilians and refugees and engaged in 

some small community construction projects. The division “strictly emphasized at all levels of command” rules of engagement to minimize harm to 

civilian lives and property, and it initiated new procedures that expedited the 

resolution of civilian claims against the division for up to $1,000 for noncombat damage to their property.12

Last but not least, the 1st Cavalry Division worked to improve government 

forces responsible for area security. It conducted frequent combined operations 

at the company and battalion level with the South Vietnamese 22d Division 

and provincial forces, and lent its air transportation and gunship assets to the 

Vietnamese. Tolson also opened the division’s training center to the South 

Vietnamese, who sent about one hundred men each month to courses offered by 

the center, including a combat leadership class given to select South Vietnamese 

noncommissioned officers. In September 1967, the 1st Cavalry Division 

also organized six Combined Mobile Training Teams to train and inspect 

Regional Forces units during two-week onsite visits, and five Combined Mobile 

Improvement Teams to do the same for the Popular Forces. 13

10 ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 67, 1st Cav Div, pp. 21, 35; ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 1st Cav Div, 

Encl 10. 11 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 1st Cav Div, Encl 11, p. 37; Special Joint Narrative Rpt, RD, 

Binh Dinh Province, 29 Dec 67, p. 5, Historians files, CMH. 12 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 1st Cav Div, Encl 10; AAR, Opn Pershing, 11 Feb 67–21 Jan 

68, 1st Cav Div, p. 10 (quote). 13 ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 67, 1st Cav Div, p. 26; ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 1st Cav Div, p. 

15; AAR, Opn Pershing, 11 Feb 67–21 Jan 68, 1st Cav Div, tab 9.
197

Defending the Central Coast

Battling the Yellow Star Division

As important as the support the 1st Cavalry Division gave to the South 

Vietnamese pacification was, ultimately success or failure was intimately tied 

to the main force war. When the enemy’s conventional forces were absent, 

pacification could advance in relative security. Conversely, incursions by 

enemy regulars threatened isolated units and communities and derailed civil 

programs. In Binh Dinh as well as the rest of Vietnam, the process of trying 

to shield populated areas from the trauma of a main force incursion was never 

ending. And like many of his peers, General Tolson believed he could not sit 

back and wait for the enemy to attack at his leisure. Rather, the 1st Cavalry 

Division’s ethos was to keep the enemy on his heels as much as possible through 

offensive operations.14

Conducting both offensive and area security operations simultaneously 

was difficult under the best of circumstances, but it was particularly hard in the 

case of the 1st Cavalry Division because it doubled as Westmoreland’s strategic reserve. As such, it was sometimes needed elsewhere, thereby disrupting the 

continuity of effort in Binh Dinh. This certainly was the case during the second 

half of 1967. Departing in late June for a month-long operation in the western 

highlands, the 3d Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, was the first to go. It returned 

in late July to operate along Binh Dinh’s border with Quang Ngai Province, 

but left for good two months later to join U.S. forces in central I Corps. The 

1st Brigade was next, departing for Kontum Province during November to 

participate in the battle for Dak To. Until the 1st Brigade returned, General 

Tolson had just three infantry battalions left to conduct Operation Pershing.

General Rosson compensated for the departure of the 1st Brigade by 

giving Tolson control over the 1st Battalion, 50th Infantry (Mechanized), a 

unit that arrived from the United States in late September. The 1st Cavalry 

Division commander headquartered the unit in central Binh Dinh at a firebase named Landing Zone Uplift, fifty-five kilometers north of Qui Nhon. 

Tolson’s plan called for the 1st Battalion, 50th Infantry, to operate along 

Highway 1 on the Phu My and Bong Son Plains, while his 2d Brigade looked 

for the 2d PLAF Regiment, last spotted in the Cay Giep Mountains on the 

southern edge of the Bong Son Plain, and the 18th PAVN Regiment, believed 

to be in the Mieu Mountains, which lay due west of Uplift on the northern 

rim of the Phu My Plain.15

That task became more difficult in mid-November when Tolson learned 

that the 3d Division’s remaining element, the 22d PAVN Regiment, was also 

preparing to move from Quang Ngai Province onto the Bong Son Plain. He 

responded to the threat by asking General Rosson to return the 1st Cavalry 

Division’s 1st Brigade from the western highlands. Even though the Dak 

To battle had not yet ended, Rosson agreed that more troops were needed 

14 AAR, Opn Pershing, 11 Feb 67–21 Jan 68, 1st Cav Div, pp. 6–8, 11. 15 AAR, Opn Pershing, 1st Cav Div, 29 Jun 68, p. 4, box 23, AARs, 1965–1971, Cmd 

Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP; Interv, Whitehorne with Tolson, 28 Jun 68; Interv, 

George L. MacGarrigle with Tolson, 24 Jun 1976, Historians files, CMH.
Staying the Course

198

to protect Binh Dinh Province. When the 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, 

flew back to the coast later that month, Tolson stationed it at Landing Zone 

English, located on Highway 1 in the central portion of the Bong Son Plain. 

He gave the brigade’s commander, Colonel Rattan, control over all 1st Cavalry 

Division units north of the Lai Giang, a river that effectively separated the 

Bong Son Plain from the Phu My Plain.

Rattan got his first solid fix on the enemy on 6 December. Just after 

midnight, the 22d Regiment sent a battalion to attack Landing Zone Tom, 

a South Vietnamese outpost some nine kilometers north of Landing Zone 

English. When the assault went badly, the enemy battalion commander 

radioed his regimental colonel and asked for instructions. A U.S. radio 

research unit intercepted the transmission and determined that the 22d 

Regiment’s command post was broadcasting from Dai Dong, a village just to 

the southeast of Tom. The news surprised Tolson. After all the work over the 

previous year, the enemy had once again infiltrated main force units down 

onto the heavily populated lowlands, albeit to an area with deep Communist 

connections (Map 18).16

One of the chief architects of Army airmobile doctrine, Tolson believed 

that speed and surprise often trumped careful preparation when it came to 

hunting the enemy. As he later wrote in a postwar study of airmobile warfare, conducting “air assaults without prior artillery preparation and with 

limited prior reconnaissance involved considerable risk, but frequently yielded 

rewarding results.” Tolson trusted in his ability to concentrate forces quickly 

and to deliver the necessary fire support with helicopter gunships and aerial 

rocket artillery (Hueys armed with 2.75-inch rocket launcher pods) whenever 

16 Interv, Whitehorne with Tolson, p. 7.

Soldiers from Company A, 1st Battalion, 50th Infantry, form their armored 

personnel carriers into a defensive ring.
22(-)

PAVN

III

D 1-8 Cav

I

1 12 CAV

I I

2 8 Cav

I I

1 8(-) Cav

I I

B 1-50

I

1 50(-)

I I

ARVN

1 40

I I

LZ LOWBOY

LZ TOM

LZ ENGLISH

NORTH

LZ ENGLISH

1

1

1

SOUTH CHINA SEA

Song Lai Giang

Dai Dong (1)

Dai Dong (2)

Binh Phu (3)

Truong Lam (2)

Tam Quan

BAT TLE OF TAM QUAN

THEATER OF OPERATIONS

6–11 December 1967

Ground Movement

Air Assault

Screen

Enemy Retreat

Military Installation

0

0 1 Kilometers

Miles 1

Map 18
Staying the Course

200

his scouts found a promising target. Consequently, when a helicopter crew sent 

to investigate the intelligence report spotted an antenna protruding from a 

bunker near Dai Dong, he did not hesitate to land an aerorifle reconnaissance 

squad, known as a Blue Team, to check it out.17

Dai Dong village contained four hamlets. The two largest hamlets, Dai 

Dong (1) and Dai Dong (2), formed a long north-south island on a sea of 

flooded rice fields. Below Dai Dong (2) lay the third and fourth hamlets in 

the village, smaller in size, which stretched eastward to the sea. The radio 

antenna that the heliborne scouts had spotted was situated in Dai Dong (2).

No sooner had the Blue Team landed in a field west of Dai Dong (2) when 

the hamlet erupted with machine gun and small arms fire. The American soldiers found it impossible to move forward. When a second Blue Team landed 

nearby to relieve some of the pressure, it too attracted a hail of gunfire from Dai 

Dong (2). Certain that he had found some portion of the 22d Regiment, General 

Tolson turned the action over to Rattan. The colonel dispatched Company B 

from the 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry, and a mechanized platoon from Company 

A of the 1st Battalion, 50th Infantry, to investigate further.18

17 Quote from Lt Gen John J. Tolson, Airmobility, 1961–1971, Vietnam Studies (Washington, 

D.C.: Department of the Army, 1973), p. 139. AAR, Opn Pershing, 1st Cav Div, tab 8, pp. 

1–12. 18 Rpt, 14th Mil Hist Det, n.d., sub: Combat After Action Interview No. 2-68, box 9, Mil 

Hist Units, Historians Background files, 14th Mil Hist Det, USARV, RG 472, NACP.

A Blue Team from the 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division, 

watches a UH–1 gunship fly overhead.
201

Defending the Central Coast

The two units arrived on the scene shortly after 1800, the mechanized 

troopers from Company A approaching in their M113 armored personnel carriers from the southwest and Company B from the 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry, 

landing by helicopter in a field west of Dai Dong (2). The soldiers endured 

a brutal volume of fire as they tried to close in on North Vietnamese troops 

from the 7th Battalion, 22d Regiment, who manned a network of bunkers 

and trenches on the edge of Dai Dong (2). The four M113s from Company 

A provided supporting fire with their machine guns from the southwest, but 

thick mud and ferocious rocket-propelled grenade fire prevented the vehicles 

from advancing. The attack stalled a few dozen meters short of the tree line.19

At that juncture, several Communist soldiers emerged from their trenches 

and ran to where injured American soldiers lay. Whether the foray was meant 

to capture the wounded men or to collect their equipment, the remainder of 

Company B took it as a brazen affront. Ignoring the storm of fire that confronted them, the men of Company B closed the remaining distance and engaged 

the enemy at point-blank range. The Americans soon cleared the trenches, but 

fading daylight ruled out a deeper thrust into the hamlet. Unwilling to risk a 

North Vietnamese counterattack in the tight confines of Dai Dong, Colonel 

Rattan withdrew his forces to the fields west of the hamlet.

The 1st Brigade commander spent the evening gathering reinforcements 

for an assault on Dai Dong. He put the commander of the 1st Battalion, 8th 

Cavalry, Lt. Col. Christian F. Dubia, in charge of the battle and made available to him Companies A, B, and D from his own battalion plus an additional 

mechanized platoon of M113 carriers, a section of four M42 Dusters, and two 

flamethrower-equipped M113s. Rattan arranged for elements of the South 

Vietnamese 1st Battalion, 40th Infantry, and Regional Forces troops to seal 

off the area north of the village, while soldiers from the 3d and 4th Battalions, 

40th Infantry, were to do the same south of Dai Dong. A pair of companies 

from the 2d Battalion, 8th Cavalry, would land on the beach to the east to 

complete the encirclement.20

Knowing what was coming, the commander of the 22d Regiment and his 

headquarters slipped out of the village that evening and headed down the 

coast to the Cay Giep Mountains. He ordered the 7th Battalion, 22d Regiment, 

to continue the fight for Dai Dong (2), and for his 8th Battalion to remain 

hidden in a hamlet several kilometers to the south known as My An (2).21

On the morning of the seventh, Companies A and B, 1st Battalion, 8th 

Cavalry, and the two mechanized platoons attacked the village from the west 

after a ninety-minute artillery bombardment that included tear gas shells. 

The choking fumes forced some of the North Vietnamese to abandon their 

bunkers, but the volume of hostile fire hardly slackened. Enemy marksmen 

took a particularly heavy toll of the crews of the armored personnel carriers, killing several drivers and commanders with head shots. Seeing that his 

19 Interv, Whitehorne with Col Donald V. Rattan, p. 2, Historians files, CMH.

20 Rpt, 14th Mil Hist Det, pp. 2–3.

21 Rpt, 1st Cav Div, n.d., sub: Battle of Tam Quan District, p. 31, Historians files, CMH.
Staying the Course

202

attack had lost momentum, Colonel Dubia ordered his forces to pull back 

so artillery, tactical air, and gunships could hammer the enemy’s trench line.

The assault resumed at 1315 hours after the arrival of more armored carriers from Company D, 1st Battalion, 50th Infantry. As before, the lumbering 

vehicles drew some of the heaviest fire. A recoilless rifle knocked out one of 

the M113s but was in turn destroyed by one of the flamethrowing vehicles. At 

around 1415, when the leading U.S. infantrymen were within fifty meters of 

the trenches, several armored personnel carriers accelerated to top speed and 

smashed through a hedgerow shielding the enemy’s front line. The vehicle 

crews swept the adjoining trenches with grenades and machine gun fire as the 

infantry rose from the rice paddy and surged toward the opening. A pair of 

engineer bulldozers then came forward and began crushing the bunkers. The 

fighting continued well into the evening; this time, the Americans retained 

their foothold in the Dai Dong.22

The next morning, 8 December, U.S. mechanized forces advanced 

against token resistance. During the previous night, the 7th Battalion, 

22d Regiment, had slipped away southeast toward My An (2), where the 

8th Battalion, 22d Regiment, occupied a fallback position. All told, the 

defense of Dai Dong (2) had cost the enemy at least 200 killed. American 

losses totaled nine dead.23

Rattan immediately went in pursuit. For the first few days, he could 

not locate the enemy, although South Vietnamese troops discovered and 

surrounded the 8th Battalion, 22d Regiment. However, on 11 December, 

Colonel Rattan’s men regained contact with the 7th Battalion in the hamlet 

of Truong Lam (2), some two kilometers east of My An (2), where the 

1st Cavalry Division had fought a pitched battle with the 22d Regiment

back in January 1967. Sharp fighting around Truong Lam (2) produced 

at least a hundred more enemy dead. South Vietnamese troops inflicted 

even greater losses on the 8th Battalion, 22d Regiment, with help from 

U.S. artillery and air strikes. On 12 December, however, both battalions 

slipped the allied noose once again and retreated south to their camps in 

the Cay Giep Mountains.24

Although the 22d Regiment had lived to fight another day, the fighting in Dai Dong, My An, and Truong Lam hamlets, which the 1st Cavalry 

Division dubbed the battle of Tam Quan after the largest nearby town, was 

a significant blow to the 3d Division. In all, the 22d Regiment had lost nearly 

700 soldiers killed or captured; only its 9th Battalion, which was hiding in 

the hills of the northern An Lao Valley, escaped serious harm.25

22 Rpt, 14th Mil Hist Det, pp. 4–5.

23 Rpt, 1st Cav Div, Dec 67, sub: 1st Air Cavalry Division Presentation, p. 60, Historians 

files, CMH. 24 Ibid., p. 33; Rpt, 14th Mil Hist Det, pp. 7–8; Rpt, 1st Bde, 1st Cav Div, Battle of Tam Quan 

District, 30 Dec 67, p. 32, Historians files, CMH. 25 Rpt, 1st Bde, 1st Cav Div, Battle of Tam Quan District, 30 Dec 67, p. 12; ORLL, 1 Nov 

67–31 Jan 68, 1st Cav Div, 13 May 68, p. 8, box 2, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd Historian, HQ, 

USARV, RG 472, NACP; AAR, Opn Pershing, 11 Feb 67–21 Jan 68, 1st Cav Div, p. 8.
203

Defending the Central Coast

On 14 December, General Tolson turned his attention to the 3d Division’s 

2d Regiment, which had moved from the Cay Giep Mountains on the lower 

edge of the Bong Son Plain to the Nui Mieu Mountains, ten kilometers to the 

south, to attack government outposts on the northern Phu My Plain. That day, 

the 93d Battalion from the 2d Regiment tried to overrun Truong Xuan hamlet 

and a Regional Forces compound. Soldiers from the South Vietnamese 41st 

Regiment and a company from the 1st Battalion, 50th Infantry, manhandled 

the enemy, killing 115 soldiers and capturing 5 more.26

During the month-long campaign that followed, the 2d Brigade, 1st 

Cavalry Division, continued to work closely with the South Vietnamese 41st 

Regiment in pursuing the 2d Regiment. The allies scored some notable victories, including a strike against the regiment’s headquarters that killed either 

the regimental commander or his deputy. Between 2 and 4 January 1968, 

elements of the 1st Battalion, 50th Infantry, and two companies from the 1st 

Battalion, 5th Cavalry, trapped part of the 95th and 97th Battalions and a 

rear service company from the 2d Regiment in a seaside hamlet just south of 

the Cay Giep Mountains. The action cost the enemy ninety-seven dead. By 

mid-January, the allied operations against the 2d Regiment had reduced its 

strength by more than 500 men, or one-third of its original total.27

Elsewhere in the region, South Vietnamese forces joined the South 

Korean Capital Division’s 1st Regiment to drive the enemy’s 18th Regiment

from the lowlands of southern Binh Dinh. Between 17 December 1967 and 

6 January 1968 alone, Operation Maeng Ho (“Fierce Tiger”) 9 accounted 

for 299 enemy soldiers killed and 84 captured, mostly from the E2B PLAF 

Battalion and the 18th Regiment. Just as important, the operation curtailed 

the enemy’s access to food. In late December, the 5th Battalion from the 18th 

Regiment went from having one can of rice per man to one can for every ten. 

With their men facing starvation, the enemy in southern Binh Dinh Province 

was forced to spend far more time and effort procuring food than on conducting operations. 

According to the official history of the 3d PAVN Division, between 

September 1967 and January 1968, the Communist units on the northeastern 

coast of II Corps “suffered [so] many reverses and casualties . . . that heavy 

infiltration of North Vietnamese Army troops was still not enough to fill 

the gaps.” Success in the lowlands convinced General Westmoreland that he 

could safely transfer the 1st Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division from Binh 

Dinh Province to northern I Corps nearly a month ahead of schedule. The 

division officially terminated Operation Pershing on 17 January 1968 when 

Colonel Rattan’s brigade began moving north by air and by sea. The division’s 2d Brigade remained in Binh Dinh for the time being to continue the 

search for the 3d PAVN Division, a mission now called Operation Pershing

II, under the direction of I Field Force headquarters. Westmoreland was 

taking a gamble by leaving the province so thinly defended, but he judged 

26 Rpt, 14th Mil Hist Det, p. 11.

27 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 1, I FFV, 31 Dec 67–6 Jan 68, 6 Jan 68, p. 3, box 2, Periodic Intel 

Rpts, Asst Ch of Staff, G–2, I FFV, RG 472, NACP.
Staying the Course

204

that northern I Corps rather than the central coast would be the theater of 

decision in the coming weeks.28

Fighting for Phu Yen and Khanh Hoa Provinces

Like Binh Dinh to its north, Phu Yen Province had been a strongly proCommunist area since the First Indochina War. In the fall of 1967, up to twothirds of its 350,000 or so inhabitants lived under some degree of Communist 

influence. The region was home to the 18B and the 95th PAVN Regiments, 

nominally attached to the 5th PAVN Division, which was in fact a small forward 

headquarters from the B1 Front that lacked support units normally associated 

with a division. Also present were a pair of well-trained sapper companies and 

two Viet Cong infantry units, the 30th Main Force Battalion and the 85th Local 

Force Battalion. From base camps in the mountains, the enemy periodically 

descended to the coastal plain to collect rice and taxes, recruit new soldiers, 

and attack government outposts.29

Much like Binh Dinh, Phu Yen consisted of a shallow coastal plain 

where most of its people lived and a mountainous interior that covered 

almost three-quarters of the province. The largest concentration of people 

resided on the Tuy Hoa basin, a triangular plain that stretched inland from 

the southern coast to a maximum depth of around twenty kilometers, or 

in the capital city, Tuy Hoa, located on the coast just north of where the Ba 

River emptied into the South China Sea. The 173d Airborne Brigade and 

the 28th Infantry Regiment from the South Korean 9th Infantry Division 

maintained a pair of base camps next to one another about a dozen kilometers down the coast at Phu Hiep. The South Vietnamese 47th Infantry 

Regiment, 22d Infantry Division, operated from a main base in Tuy Hoa 

City, supported by an armored cavalry troop from the South Vietnamese 

8th Cavalry. On a typical basis, two South Vietnamese infantry battalions 

operated on the Tuy Hoa Plain to assist the Regional and Popular Forces 

in shielding the Revolutionary Development areas that ringed the capital. 

A reinforced Korean battalion and some supporting U.S. artillery units 

helped defend the lowlands of Tuy An and Song Cau Districts farther up 

the coast. A combination of territorial units and a South Korean battalion defended the pipeline that ran parallel to the coast in Hieu Xuong 

District. The pipeline carried fuel from Vung Ro Bay where oil tankers 

28 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, I FFV, pp. 10–11; Su Doan Sao Vang (Su Dong 3) Binh Doan 

Chi Lang Quang Khu 1; Ky Su [Yellow Star Division (3d Division), Chi Lang Military Group, 

Military Region 1; Memoir] (Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1984), p. 76 (hereafter 

cited as 3d Division), copy in Historians files, CMH. Quote from Phillip B. Davidson, Vietnam 

at War: The History, 1946–1975 (Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1988), p. 435. 29 Special Joint Narrative Rpt, RD, Phu Yen Province, Nov 67, p. 4, RD files, CMH; AAR, 

Opn Bolling-Dan Hoa, 173d Abn Bde, 2 Mar 69, p. 28, box 4, AARs, 1965–1971, Cmd 

Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP.
205

Defending the Central Coast

discharged their cargo to an air base south of the provincial capital called 

Tuy Hoa South.30

Over the last two years, the 173d Airborne Brigade had acted as one 

of General Westmoreland’s principal “fire brigades,” going from province 

to province, first within III Corps and then across II Corps, as emergencies arose. Most recently, the brigade had spent several months in Kontum 

Province conducting Operation Greeley to protect the Dak To area. In 

September, however, General Rosson instructed the brigade’s commander, 

General Schweiter, to return to Phu Yen Province, minus one airborne battalion, to locate and destroy the 95th Regiment, which had taken refuge in 

the “The Hub,” a base area nestled in the foothills northwest of Tuy Hoa 

City. The main responsibility for this operation, Bolling, fell to the 1st 

and 4th Battalions of the 503d Infantry. General Schweiter could call on 

the South Vietnamese and South Koreans for assistance if needed. 

When heavy fighting around Dak To in early November drew the 173d 

Airborne Brigade back to the Central Highlands, the 3d Battalion, 503d 

Infantry, which had just arrived from the United States, took charge of the 

Bolling area of operations. Fortunately for the unseasoned unit, enemy contact remained light for the next month. The American posture strengthened in 

mid-December when the headquarters of the 173d Airborne Brigade and the 

4th Battalion, 503d Infantry, returned from the highlands.

30 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 173d Abn Bde, 15 Feb 68, p. 5, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd 

Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP.

UH–1D helicopters arrive at a landing zone in Phu Yen Province held by 

soldiers from the 173d Airborne Brigade.
Staying the Course

206

General Schweiter then resumed his search for the 95th PAVN Regiment, 

sending helicopter-borne scout platoons into the interior mountains and 

valleys of Phu Yen Province. The 3d Battalion, 503d Infantry, gained contact on 27 December when a scout platoon came under heavy fire after 

landing in the Ky Lo Valley, some forty-five kilometers northwest of Tuy 

Hoa. The battalion commander, Lt. Col. John R. D. Cleland, had chosen 

to search the valley because the enemy had ambushed South Vietnamese 

and South Korean forces there several times in recent days. Observation 

aircraft had also come under fire whenever they had flown low over the 

valley. Believing that some element of the 95th Regiment was likely there, 

Colonel Cleland landed the remainder of his battalion into the area to 

develop the situation. 

Company A ran into trouble when it touched down near the hamlet of Xom 

Dap, some two kilometers south of the initial contact area. The landing zone, 

a clearing some 200 meters long and 50 meters wide that was surrounded by 

hedges and trees, had already been staked out by the enemy. North Vietnamese 

troops opened fire on the Americans from concealed bunkers as soon as the helicopters touched down. The cross fire killed or wounded a score of paratroopers 

in the opening minutes of the battle and set a helicopter ablaze.

Company A regained its bearings after an initial period of confusion 

and began eliminating the bunkers with grenades. The fight raged for several 

hours, with the enemy breaking contact around 1530 when a company from 

the 4th Battalion, 503d Infantry, arrived on the scene by helicopter. The battle 

resulted in sixty-two enemy dead at a cost of twelve Americans killed and 

thirty-four wounded. Over the next several weeks, the 173d Airborne Brigade 

discovered other evidence of a North Vietnamese presence in the area but saw 

little more of the 95th Regiment. 

In Operation Bolling the 173d Airborne Brigade killed nearly 400 

Communists and captured 59 more along with 146 weapons and 126 civil 

defendants. The brigade also destroyed 103 enemy structures and 177 bunkers 

and captured over 12,000 pounds of food. Shielded by the brigade’s activities, South Vietnamese officials scrambled to complete the 1967 Revolutionary 

Development program, which was about two months behind schedule. Their 

efforts were complicated by the fact that Bolling had resulted in the damage 

or destruction of about 4,000 civilian structures, displacing about 20,000 

people. The 173d Airborne Brigade helped CORDS and civil officials attempt 

to ameliorate the damage by delivering relief supplies and medical care.31

Farther south along the coast, in Khanh Hoa Province, enemy activity 

remained minimal in the last months of 1967. The enemy controlled only a small 

percentage of the 340,000 people who lived in the territory, making it hard for 

him to replace his losses and to obtain food. Because of their precarious supply 

situation, the 18B Regiment, 5th PAVN Division, and the 307th Local Force 

31 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, I FFV, pp. 10–11; ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 173d Abn Bde, 

pp. 9–12, 19–20; Special Joint Narrative Rpt, RD, Phu Yen Province, period ending 31 Oct 67, 

n.d., p. 4, RD files, CMH; AAR, Co A, 3d Bn, 503d Inf, 173d Abn Bde, n.d., pp. 2–5, 15, 17, 

VNIT 28, CMH.
207

Defending the Central Coast

Battalion avoided contact with the nearby South Korean 9th Division, which 

enjoyed excellent support from Khanh Hoa’s Regional and Popular Forces.32

One example that demonstrated the partnership came on 6 November, 

when the South Vietnamese 376th Regional Forces Company located two 

enemy companies during a sweep north of Nha Trang. Despite being outnumbered, the South Vietnamese irregulars kept the enemy pinned in place, 

allowing two companies from the South Korean 9th Division to arrive by 

helicopter and outflank the enemy. When a third enemy company joined the 

fray, the allies countered with well-placed artillery and air strikes. By the time 

the fight ended the next day, several dozen soldiers from the 8th Battalion, 

18B Regiment, lay dead on the battlefield. Three weeks later, the regiment’s

7th Battalion lost sixty-seven killed when it tangled with South Korean troops 

and South Vietnamese irregulars ten kilometers west of Nha Trang. Despite 

the 18B Regiment’s poor track record, however, the allies could not afford to 

32 Special Joint Narrative Rpt, RD, Khanh Hoa Province, Nov 67, p. 3, Historians files, 

CMH.

A gun crew of Battery B, 3d Battalion, 319th Artillery, 173d Airborne 

Brigade, fires a 105-mm. howitzer during Operation Bolling.
Staying the Course

208

become complacent as long as it remained less than a day’s march from the 

vital allied command hub at Nha Trang.33

Defending Southern II Corps

The south-central coast was something of a strategic backwater. The provinces of Ninh Thuan, Binh Thuan, Tuyen Duc, and Lam Dong in II Corps 

and Binh Tuy in III Corps contained a total population of 680,000, barely 

two-thirds of the population of Binh Dinh Province alone. The provinces of 

Ninh Thuan and Binh Thuan were relatively dry because the monsoon slid past 

the low coastal hills without depositing much rain; forests covered most of the 

interior highlands. As a result, the region produced only about 88,100 tons of 

rice, barely more than one-quarter of Binh Dinh’s annual yield. Nevertheless, 

the region linked the larger and more important theaters to the north and 

south. Whichever side controlled southern II Corps could thus project power 

more easily into those critical battlefields.34

In the enemy scheme of organization, the southern provinces of II Corps 

plus Binh Tuy Province belonged to Military Region 6 under General Chau. 

Described by one American officer as a “crafty commander and an expert in 

guerrilla, harassing-type operations,” Chau controlled four Viet Cong battalions and half a dozen district companies. Despite the modest size of his command, he had managed to keep Highway 1 virtually closed for the last several 

years and also to stay one step ahead of his pursuers by regularly moving his 

units across provincial or district boundaries.35

General Rosson maintained a small airmobile task force built around the 

2d Battalion, 7th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division, near Binh Thuan’s capital, 

Phan Thiet, to assist the South Vietnamese on II Corps’ southern coast. The 

battalion had come to Binh Thuan Province in August 1966 for a searchand-destroy mission, Operation Byrd, which was expected to last two 

months. The airmobile task force had proven to be so useful that General 

Westmoreland had decided to keep it in place. Equipped with thirty-eight 

helicopters plus a battery each of 105-mm. and 155-mm. howitzers, Task 

Force Byrd furnished a mobile, hard-hitting offensive punch that the South 

Vietnamese lacked (Map 19). 

Task Force Byrd functioned in close cooperation with Vietnamese authorities. Its commander acted as the senior military adviser to Binh Thuan Province, 

a role that gave him extra credibility when dealing with the province chief, Lt. 

33 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 45, I FFV, 5–11 Nov 67, 11 Nov 67, p. 5; and Periodic Intel Rpt no. 

48, I FFV, 26 Nov–2 Dec 67, 2 Dec 67, pp. 4–5, 7. Both in Historians files, CMH. Periodic Intel 

Rpt no. 1, I FFV, p. 18. 34 MacGarrigle, Taking the Offensive, October 1966 to October 1967, p. 197. 35 Quote from Senior Ofcr Debriefing Program, Lt Gen William R. Peers, 23 Jun 69, p. 3, 

Historians files, CMH. AAR, Opn Byrd, 2d Bn, 7th Cav, 1st Cav Div, 10 May 68, p. 4 and 

app. 8, box 4, AARs, 1965–1971, Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP; Monograph, 

Lt Col Joseph T. Griffin Jr., Operation Byrd, A Model for U.S. Forces During Vietnamization 

(Carlisle Barracks, Pa.: U.S. Army War College, 5 Mar 70), p. 3, Historians files, CMH. 
2 7 Cav

I I

LUONG SON

LZ BETTY

SONG MAO

1

1

1

SOUTH CHINA SEA

Nu i Ta Kou

Nu i Tio Ha

N u i Ta D o m

Nui Ong Trao

A B A N D O N E D 

A B A N D O N E D 

A B A N D O N E D 

Tuy Phong

Hai Ninh

Hoa Da

Xa Muong Man

Thien Giao

Phan Ri Cua

Phan Ly Cham

Ap Luong Tay (1)

Xa Song Luy

Xa Suoi Nhuom

Hai Long

PHAN THIET

OPERATION BYRD

AREA OF OPERATIONS

November 1967

Operational BoundaryMilitary Installation

0 200 400 600 800 and Above

ELEVATION IN METERS

00 10 5 Kilometers

Miles 10 5

Map 19
Staying the Course

210

Col. Nguyen Khac Tuan, who was also the commander of the South Vietnamese 

44th Regiment. The partnership had worked out well, and by the autumn of 1967, 

Byrd had become the longest sustained combat operation conducted by U.S. 

forces in Vietnam.36

Not surprisingly, Task Force Byrd conducted many combined operations. 

A typical formula was to form an operational group that paired one company 

from each nation. Sometimes the paired companies maintained their national 

integrity, while at others they intermixed, so that the U.S. company contained 

a Vietnamese platoon and the Vietnamese company contained an American 

platoon. The Americans benefited from the Vietnamese soldiers’ knowledge of 

the terrain and people, while the Vietnamese seemed eager to demonstrate their 

abilities in a spirit of healthy competition. The Vietnamese also benefited by 

having access to U.S. logistical and medical evacuation resources, whose availability promoted effectiveness and confidence.37

Soldiers from both nations also conducted outreach activities. Most of this 

effort centered on Phan Thiet and the irrigated plain immediately to its north, 

where three-quarters of Binh Thuan Province’s 250,000 people lived and where 

most of the rice was grown. U.S. and South Vietnamese soldiers protected 

farmers harvesting their crops, distributed supplies, undertook small construc36 Monograph, Griffin, Operation Byrd, A Model for U.S. Forces During Vietnamization, 

pp. 5–6, 9. 37 Rpt, CORDS, 6 Dec 67, sub: Evaluation Report, Task Force Byrd, p. 3, Historians files, 

CMH.

A U.S. soldier sets up a movie projector and sound system to show

pro-government films to civilians in Phan Thiet.
211

Defending the Central Coast

tion projects, and provided free medical care to civilians. Task Force Byrd’s 

engineer detachment kept the roads over which civilian commerce passed in 

serviceable condition. Although weaknesses in execution meant that the counterinfrastructure program had yet to score significant gains, a CORDS representative who visited the region in December after a six-month absence noted 

startling changes. In June, economic activity had been minimal; the people had 

appeared timid and would disappear into their homes when approached by 

government officials. In December, the representative reported that “women 

were taking produce to market, the roads were busy with carts, bicycles and 

a few motorcycles. People were harvesting rice, preparing fields and planting 

new crops. While the construction of Revolutionary Development projects 

is behind schedule, considerable progress appears to have been made in the 

less tangible, but more important, psychological area.” Clearly, he concluded, 

Task Force Byrd had “successfully contributed toward improving security 

within Binh Thuan Province, and pacification progress would deteriorate significantly if it were withdrawn.”38

Although the allies had made strides in pacifying this area during 1967, 

several Viet Cong units, most notably the 840th Main Force Battalion and 

the 482d Local Force Battalion, still lurked near the capital. These units and 

six local force companies posed a continuous threat not only to Phan Thiet, 

but also to the many small South Vietnamese outposts scattered throughout the countryside.39

Heading into the final two months of 1967, one of General Westmoreland’s 

main goals on the southeastern coast was to open and improve Highway 1 from 

Xuan Loc to Phan Rang, thereby restoring the ground line of communications between III Corps and II Corps. Task Force Byrd was a centerpiece in 

that mission. Protected by the soldiers of the 2d Battalion, 7th Cavalry, U.S. 

engineers rebuilt or improved damaged sections of Highway 1 throughout the 

length of Binh Thuan Province. Those engineers had also helped Vietnamese 

engineers construct platoon-size outposts at intervals along the highway that 

were now being manned by territorial soldiers. Work was also under way on 

several company-size firebases to give the South Vietnamese 44th Infantry 

Regiment the ability to station troops in forward areas near Highway 1 instead 

of holding them back near Phan Thiet. This new line of outposts allowed the 

province chief to create a forward defensive screen around the Revolutionary 

Development areas of the Phan Thiet basin, making it harder for Communist 

units based in the western mountains to cross the highway undetected.

The enemy moved against this new defensive barrier on 8 November 1967 

when the 840th Battalion and the 450th Local Force Company attacked Fort

Mara, a small post on Highway 1 some fifteen kilometers northeast of Phan 

Thiet. The post contained the headquarters and an infantry company from 

the South Vietnamese 3d Battalion, 44th Regiment, and some Vietnamese 

engineers who were still working on the unfinished fort. The U.S. adviser 

38 Ibid., pp. 6, 7 (first quote), 8 (second quote).

39 AAR, Opn Byrd, 2nd Bn, 7th Cav, 1st Cav Div, pp. 2, 27, 36–37; Monograph, Griffin, 

Operation Byrd, A Model for U.S. Forces During Vietnamization, p. 12.
Staying the Course

212

at Fort Mara called for air support. The commander of Task Force Byrd, 

Lt. Col. Joseph T. Griffin Jr., quickly dispatched three UH–1 helicopters, 

which formed a Night Hunter team. The first helicopter carried infantrymen equipped with night-vision scopes and tracer rounds for their M16s. 

It flew low to the ground, while a second helicopter dropped flares from a 

higher altitude. Bringing up the rear was a third helicopter armed with aerial 

rockets. An AC–47 fixed-wing gunship joined the team over Mara. The aircraft enabled the South Vietnamese to hold on until dawn when a company 

from the 2d Battalion, 7th Cavalry, chased off the attackers. The cost that 

the defenders paid, twenty-eight killed and thirty-five wounded, reflected 

the ferocity of the battle. Viet Cong losses came to forty-two dead. Despite 

the attack, Vietnamese engineers completed Mara two days later, giving the 

allies a strong base to defend that stretch of Highway 1.40

Two weeks later, General Chau showed his willingness to fight the 

Americans, provided it was on his terms. The battle began with a mortar 

attack on Thien Giao, a Vietnamese Army post located some twenty kilometers southwest of Fort Mara. Colonel Griffin dispatched a platoon of infantry to search for the enemy gunners. When helicopters deposited the soldiers 

in a clearing near the post, the surrounding area exploded with small arms and 

machine gun fire. Having guessed correctly where the Americans would land, 

General Chau had set a trap with the 482d Battalion. The hail of fire drove 

off the helicopters, several with damage, as the U.S. platoon fought for its life. 

Colonel Griffin quickly dispatched the remainder of his battalion to relieve 

the stranded platoon. The North Vietnamese greeted the incoming helicopters 

with a hail of machine gun bullets and rocket-propelled grenades. The helicopters pressed through the storm and deposited their passengers, though many 

aircraft suffered damage and two were forced to crash-land. After several 

hours of combat, the soldiers from the 2d Battalion, 7th Cavalry, managed 

to rescue the trapped platoon and to drive off the 482d Battalion. The cost to 

the Americans had been high, eleven dead and thirty-six wounded, while the 

enemy lost an estimated twenty-one killed.41

The 2d Battalion suspended Operation Byrd on 1 December in order 

to join the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, in a new operation codenamed Klamath Falls along the border between Binh Thuan and Lam 

Dong Provinces. Three battalions of the South Vietnamese 44th Regiment 

and the South Vietnamese 11th Ranger Battalion joined in the effort to 

locate and destroy the headquarters of Military Region 6 and any main force 

units that were operating in the area. Of particular concern was the 186th 

Local Force Battalion, which had mauled several Regional Forces companies 

and elements of the South Vietnamese 44th Regiment on 12 November, killing at least sixty-five government soldiers and damaging or destroying two 

105-mm. artillery pieces. A secondary goal of the operation was to improve 

40 AAR, Opn Byrd, 2d Bn, 7th Cav, 1st Cav, pp. 22, 36–37; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 45, I FFV, 

p. 5.41 AAR, Opn Byrd, 2nd Bn, 7th Cav, 1st Cav Div, pp. 32–33.
213

Defending the Central Coast

security on Highway 1 so traffic could move freely between Phan Thiet and 

Nha Trang.42

Over the six weeks that followed, the allies located and destroyed many 

supply caches and bunker complexes along the border between Lam Dong 

and Binh Thuan Provinces, some large enough to serve a battalion, but the 

Viet Cong made only fleeting appearances. Intelligence gathered during 

Klamath Falls suggested that the main enemy units in the area had withdrawn to safer locations just prior to the start of the operation, suggesting 

that the Viet Cong had advance warning of some kind. The ninety-five 

man headquarters of Military Region 6, for example, had split into several 

groups and fled in different directions. In the end, the Americans could 

claim no more than 156 Communists killed over the six-week period. Of 

those, nearly half fell to just one of the five participating U.S. infantry 

battalions, the 2d Battalion, 7th Cavalry, probably due to its greater familiarity with the area.43

As for the operation’s second objective, the reopening of Highway 1, a 

South Vietnamese convoy successfully drove from Nha Trang to Phan Thiet 

and back between 18 and 21 December. Though some parts of Highway 1 

42 AAR, Opn Klamath Falls, 1st Bde, 101st Abn Div, 27 Jan 68, p. 3, box 19, AARs, Asst 

Ch of Staff, J–3, MACV, RG 472, NACP; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 46, I FFV, 12–18 Nov 67, 18 

Nov 67, p. 16, Historians files, CMH. 43 AAR, Opn Klamath Falls, 1st Bde, 101st Abn Div, p. 5, Encl 1-2 and Encl 1-A-3.

A door gunner mans his M60 machine gun as the UH–1D helicopter lands to 

pick up wounded near Phan Thiet.
Staying the Course

214

remained dangerous at night, commercial traffic began to flow in increasing 

volume between Phan Thiet and Phan Rang during the day, opening new markets for the people who lived on the southeastern coast and providing opportunity for greater prosperity.44

The Balance Sheet 

During the December 1967 battle of Tam Quan, the 1st Cavalry Division 

had captured a North Vietnamese soldier who informed his captors that the 

3d PAVN Division had entered the densely populated lowlands to prepare for 

a general offensive and uprising. “We just could not comprehend what he was 

telling us,” recalled Tolson. Indeed, from his perspective the notion sounded 

far-fetched. During its nearly year-long area security mission in northeastern Binh Dinh Province, the 1st Cavalry Division had killed about 5,400 

Communist soldiers and captured another 2,300 along with 2,000 civil defendants, 1,500 weapons, and 482 tons of rice and salt. Nearly 200 of the civil 

defendants turned out to be infrastructure personnel. These confirmed losses, 

together with the likelihood of other casualties, could reasonably be expected 

to have created serious challenges for the enemy. And in fact, they had, for 

when the general offensive finally occurred in early 1968, northeastern Binh 

Dinh would emerge relatively unscathed. And yet the offensive still occurred, 

illustrating both the difficulty not just of interpreting intelligence about future 

enemy actions, but of understanding the state of play at any given moment in 

this complex conflict.45

By the end of 1967, many indices confirmed Tolson’s impression that the 

allies were making headway, not only in Binh Dinh, but in II Corps more 

generally. Compared with 1966, Viet Cong incidents in II Corps had dropped 

18 percent. Information on Communist strength was unclear, with the enemy 

removing his dead and feeding in replacements from North Vietnam, but the 

allies believed that they had killed about 20,000 enemy soldiers in II Corps 

during 1967 while losing 4,900 men themselves. The Americans, with their superior firepower and aggressive inclination, had inflicted over 50 percent of the 

enemy’s casualties, with the South Vietnamese and South Koreans responsible 

for the rest. True, the allies had failed to achieve the unrealistic goal they had 

set for themselves of permanently eliminating all the Communist base areas 

in II Corps. They had, in fact, eliminated none, as the enemy always returned 

after allied soldiers left. Nevertheless, they had penetrated all of the enemy’s 

major bases but one, sometimes repeatedly, damaging his facilities and forcing 

him to rebuild and restock. Considering the damage the allies had done to the 

enemy’s units and bases, I Field Force commander General Rosson believed 

44 Monograph, Griffin, Operation Byrd, A Model for U.S. Forces During Vietnamization, 

p. 22. 45 Interv, Whitehorne with Tolson, 28 Jun 68, pp. 2, 7 (quote); ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 

Jan 68, 1st Cav Div, p. 9. 
215

Defending the Central Coast

that the allies had made “emphatic progress in defeating major [enemy] forces” 

in 1967.46

Rosson was less sanguine when it came to local security. Indeed, by year’s 

end the allies considered security in seven of II Corps’ twelve provinces to be 

unsatisfactory. Rosson acknowledged that the allies had made only modest 

gains in undermining the enemy infrastructure. Likewise, the number of ralliers in 1967—3,154—was less than in 1966. The I Field Force commander 

attributed the situation to the enemy’s skill, flaws in the counterinfrastructure 

and Chieu Hoi efforts, and to the fact that there were fewer major battles in 

1967 than in 1966, as “experience indicates that the number of ralliers tends 

to increase in periods of heavy fighting, especially in the populated lowland 

areas.” Still, during the last three months of 1967, the allies had captured or 

killed over 1,500 infrastructure personnel as the result of 770 small unit operations. Rosson was proud of the efforts that his 961 CORDS personnel (711 of 

whom were military) had made to improve local conditions. He was also proud 

of the contribution made by U.S. combat units, which during the last quarter 

of 1967 had used their own personnel to train forty-three Regional Forces 

companies and eighty-six Popular Forces platoons. Indeed, the I Field Force 

commander boasted to Westmoreland that “some of the best United States– 

Army of the Republic of Vietnam talent is being devoted to improvement of 

Regional Forces/Popular Forces capabilities.” He looked forward to perform46 Memo, Lt Gen William B. Rosson for General William C. Westmoreland, 10 Jan 68, 

sub: I FFV Annual Assessment CY 1967, pp. 7 (quote), 8–9, 19, 22; Rpt, Ofc of the Asst Sec 

Def, Systems Analysis, Southeast Asia Programs, Southeast Asia Statistical Tables through 

October 1968, Tables 2e, 4b. Both in Historians files, CMH. 

Soldiers of the 1st Cavalry Division search a well for enemy supplies.
Staying the Course

216

ing more training assistance and combined operations in the coming year, and 

expected better results as U.S. guidance took root, the Phoenix program took 

full flight, and the growing National Police force completed its reorientation 

toward the counterinfrastructure mission.47

Some positive developments appeared on the civil side of the ledger 

too. More hamlets were rated secure, more food was being produced, and 

the roads were significantly safer. General Rosson estimated that the government had retained control of 89 percent of the rice grown in II Corps, 

which, when coupled with the fact that the allies destroyed about half of 

the Communist-controlled cropland in II Corps, the shortage of rice had 

imposed hardships on enemy soldiers. The Hamlet Evaluation System 

reported that the proportion of II Corps’ population living under government control had risen slightly, from 72.6 percent in January 1967 to 75.8 

percent in December. The situation was particularly good in Khanh Hoa, 

Ninh Thuan, and Binh Thuan Provinces, where CORDS reported 90, 90, 

and 87 percent of the population, respectively, living in relative security. 

Good news also emerged from the challenging province of Binh Dinh, 

where the combined efforts of the United States, South Korea, and South 

Vietnam had lifted the percentage of the population living under government control from 50 percent to 64 percent during the year.48

Of course, as with the military situation, not all the news was good. 

Despite allied efforts, the Viet Cong remained deeply intertwined with 

the population, particularly in Phu Yen and Binh Dinh. Contrary to the 

downward trend in total incidents, the number of assassinations and kidnappings in II Corps had risen in 1967. Although the South Vietnamese 

government reported completing work in 92 percent of the II Corps hamlets targeted for Revolutionary Development in 1967, Rosson believed 80 

percent was a more accurate figure, with the quality of the work as yet 

undetermined. In general, problems large and small plagued most socioeconomic and political measures. “Taken as a whole,” Rosson concluded, 

“the pacification effort in II Corps was successful in 1967,” with “solid 

though not spectacular gains” standing side by side with some “disappointing” performances in pacification by the South Vietnamese.49

One of the most pernicious problems continued to be apathy and corruption among South Vietnamese officials. Rosson saw a glimmer of hope 

when, in October, the Thieu government removed, tried, and convicted 

for malfeasance the province chief and two district chiefs from Binh Dinh. 

The new province chief of whom the Americans thought highly, Colonel 

Hoang Dinh Tho, was continuing to purge disreputable officials, some of 

47 Memo, Rosson for Westmoreland, 10 Jan 68, pp. 11–13, 21 (first quote); Msgs, 

COMUSMACV 03518 to CINCPAC, 3 Feb 68, sub: Pacification in South Vietnam during 

1967, pp. 17–18, Historians files, CMH; Rosson NHT 1391 to Westmoreland, 9 Nov 67, p. 2 

(second quote), 1–30 Nov 67, Westmoreland Msg files, CMH. 48 MFR, MACV, 2 Jan 68, sub: MACV Commanders’ Conference, 3 Dec 67, p. 1, Encl 4, 

Historians files CMH; Memo, Rosson for Westmoreland, 10 Jan 68, pp. 12, 14. 49 MFR, MACV, 2 Jan 1968, p. 1, Encl 4; Special Joint Narrative Rpt, RD, Binh Dinh Province, 

29 Dec 67, p. 2; Memo, Rosson for Westmoreland, 10 Jan 68, pp. 14–16, 19 (quotes), 20.
217

Defending the Central Coast

whom had been lining their pockets by turning a blind eye on illicit trade 

with the enemy. “Probably no other government sponsored program has 

a more immediate and favorable effect on the Binh Dinh populace than 

the drive against corruption,” wrote Rosson, yet it was an uphill battle all 

the same.50

Looking back at the year just ending, Rosson, like Westmoreland, conceded that the allies had achieved less than they had hoped. The citizenry 

of II Corps shared this sentiment. According to the I Field Force commander, public morale dipped at year’s end, as unrealistic expectations that 

the newly elected national government would quickly improve economic 

conditions faded, and the Viet Cong stepped up their terror and harassment 

activities. Nevertheless, like the MACV commander, General Rosson was 

confident that the allies were moving in the right direction, reporting to his 

superior in January that “the outlook for substantially greater gains in 1968 

is favorable.”51 

50 Memo, Rosson for Westmoreland, 10 Jan 68, p. 17 (quote); Special Joint Narrative Rpt, 

RD, Binh Dinh Province, 29 Dec 67, p. 2. 51 Memo, Rosson for Westmoreland, 10 Jan 68, pp. 1 (quote), 17, 23.

7

Reinforcing I Corps

As General Westmoreland looked ahead to 1968, he was particularly 

keen to strengthen his position in the I Corps Tactical Zone. North 

Vietnam remained capable of launching a conventional invasion across 

the Demilitarized Zone with three to five infantry divisions supported by 

artillery and armored units, a concentration of force that might overwhelm 

the allied defenses at any given point. The enemy also exerted pressure on I 

Corps from the west, taking advantage of the relatively short distance (sixty 

kilometers on average) that separated his camps in Laos from the populated 

coast. Those infiltration routes were also fairly secure, since the allies had 

no permanent presence in the mountainous interior of I Corps apart from 

a scattering of Special Forces camps. Furthermore, many hamlets in the 

coastal districts of Quang Tri, Thua Thien, and Quang Ngai Provinces had 

been under de facto Communist rule since 1954, giving the enemy bases in 

the lowlands from which to operate. While the allied position in I Corps had 

improved modestly during 1967, Westmoreland wanted better results in the 

coming year.1

His main goal was to seize the strategic initiative in I Corps, something 

he had been unable to accomplish because of a lack of resources. By the 

fall of 1967, the commander of III Marine Amphibious Force, General 

Cushman, had at his disposal two divisions of U.S. marines, a brigade of 

South Korean marines, and three U.S. Army brigades. All of these troops 

were tied down protecting strategic areas. The 3d Marine Division was fighting a high-intensity conventional war along the Demilitarized Zone, while 

the 1st Marine Division was protecting the port of Da Nang and the adjacent 

National Priority Area in Quang Nam Province. A pair of Marine regiments 

patrolled the sector between the Demilitarized Zone and Da Nang to ensure 

that Highway 1 remained open the length of Quang Tri and Thua Thien 

Provinces. South Korean marines helped secure the coast of central I Corps, 

while to the south the three Army brigades had their hands full battling a 

combination of main force and guerrilla units in an area almost 150 kilometers long in Quang Tin and Quang Ngai Provinces. With barely enough 

1

 Memo, Walt W. Rostow for President Lyndon B. Johnson, 14 Nov 67, sub: General 

Westmoreland’s Assessment for the Month of October, p. 3, Historians files, CMH. For information about I Corps during the summer of 1967, see MacGarrigle, Taking the Offensive, October 

1966 to October 1967, pp. 228–85. Also see Gary L. Telfer et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam: 

Fighting the North Vietnamese, 1967 (Washington, D.C.: History and Museums Division, U.S. 

Marine Corps, 1984). 
Staying the Course

220

troops to fulfill those missions, General Cushman was not in a position to 

wrest initiative from the enemy (Map 20). 

The South Vietnamese corps commander, General Hoang Xuan Lam, 

could offer little offensive help with his thirty-three maneuver battalions. 

Except for one regiment stationed in the war-torn and nearly depopulated 

lowlands just south of the Demilitarized Zone, the South Vietnamese 1st 

Infantry Division was committed to Revolutionary Development activities around Quang Tri City and Hue. The South Vietnamese 51st Infantry 

Regiment supported pacification on the An Hoa Plain, the National Priority 

Area south of Da Nang. The South Vietnamese 2d Infantry Division secured 

the environs of Quang Ngai City and other regional capitals in southern I 

Corps. General Lam’s two armored cavalry groups were needed to secure 

ARVN

1

X X

USMC

3

X X

XXX

I

ARVN

XXX

III MAF

USMC

USMC

1

X X

1 101

X

3 1 Cav

X

Americal

X X

196

X

3 4

X

ARVN

2

X X

DA NANG

QUE SON

DONG HA

QUANG TRI

HUE

CHU LAI

QUANG

NGAI

BA TO

KHE SANH

DUC PHO

610

611

612

607

114

112

117

121

609

613

614

101

511

II CTZ

SOUTH CHINA SEA

1

1

1

9

14

14

DEMARCATION LINE

QUANG

TRI

THUA THIEN

QUANG NAM

QUANG TIN

QUANG NGAI

KONTUM

BINH DINH

Hue

Da Nang

NORTH VIETNAM

LAOS

CAMBODIA

Corps Tactical Zone Boundary

Military Installation

Enemy Base Area

November 1967

I CORPS TACTICAL ZONE

0 50 Miles

0 50 Kilometers

Map 20
221

Reinforcing I Corps

Highway 1, leaving him with a true mobile force of only three ranger battalions. South Vietnamese forces also relied on III Marine Amphibious Force 

for much of their aviation, artillery, and logistical support, none of which 

Cushman could spare without potentially shortchanging U.S. units. 

To meet the severe challenges posed by having to fight roughly 45,000 

North Vietnamese and Viet Cong regulars operating close to North 

Vietnam, the allies had set in motion several projects during 1967. One of 

the biggest was the Strong Point Obstacle System, a network of minefields, 

barbed wire, ground sensors, observation posts, and combat bases that 

III Marine Amphibious Force was building in the northeastern corner 

of Quang Tri Province. Secretary McNamara first proposed the barrier 

system in March 1966, and Admiral Sharp and General Westmoreland 

accepted the concept after a year-long process of review and refinement. 

The III Marine Amphibious Force was less enthusiastic; as one marine 

officer put it, “With these bastards [the North Vietnamese], you’d have 

to build the zone all the way to India and it would take the whole Marine 

Corps and half the Army to guard it; even then they’d probably burrow 

under it.” Nevertheless, the 3d Marine Division and Navy Seabees had 

begun work on the barrier system in the spring of 1967. Code-named 

Dye Marker, the strong point and obstacle trace extended some thirty 

kilometers from the South China Sea to Dong Ha Mountain. Another 

system called Muscle Shoals monitored enemy movement between Dong 

Ha Mountain and the Laotian panhandle with thousands of air-dropped 

sensors. Westmoreland saw Dye Marker as a way to “channel the enemy 

into well-defined corridors where we might bring air and artillery to bear 

and then hit them with mobile ground reserves.” South Vietnamese troops 

would man the barrier after it was completed, freeing the U.S. marines for 

offensive operations.2

Completing that process, however, was not easy, and by late 1967 it 

appeared that U.S. engineers would need another year to finish the system. 

The 600-meter-wide trace was still only half cleared, and most of the sensors and barbed wire associated with the trace had not been emplaced. Nine 

of the ten strong points were finished, but none of those had been properly 

hardened to withstand artillery fire. Engineering equipment and construction material were in short supply, while in October, the northeast monsoon 

brought heavy rains, halting operations of all kinds. Westmoreland therefore 

instructed General Cushman to scale back the Dye Marker effort, concentrating only on the strong points, until dry weather permitted construction 

to resume in the spring.3

2

 Jack Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The Defining Year, 1968 (Washington, 

D.C.: History and Museums Division, U.S. Marine Corps, 1997), pp. 13 (quote), 21–25. 3

 Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, p. 11; Lt Gen Willard Pearson, The War in 

the Northern Provinces, 1966–1968, Vietnam Studies (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing 

Office, 1975), pp. 23–24; Msg, Westmoreland MAC 10489 to Wheeler, 14 Nov 67, p. 1, 

Westmoreland Msg files, CMH. For details of the barrier and other proposed defensive systems 

along the Demilitarized Zone, see MACV History, 1967, vol. II, pp. 911–12, and Telfer et al., 

U.S. Marines in Vietnam, ch. 7.
Staying the Course

222

Another way in which Westmoreland intended to bring pressure on the 

enemy was through the combined airpower of the U.S. Seventh Air Force 

and the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing. The war had depopulated the northern 

part of Quang Tri Province, permitting the United States to use tactical air strikes in that region virtually without restriction. In September, 

the MACV commander had broken up a North Vietnamese siege at Con 

Thien, a strong point north of Dong Ha, with round-the-clock bombing 

sorties that had driven enemy artillery batteries into hiding and had decimated the battalions that were attempting to encircle the outpost. At the 

time, Westmoreland had avoided putting both services under a single joint 

air manager, conscious of Marine reluctance to cede authority over their 

aviation wing. For the sake of efficiency, however, the MACV commander 

hoped to work out an arrangement in the coming year that was acceptable 

both to the marines and the Air Force.

Since no barrier could prevent the main force units in the mountains 

from reaching the populated lowlands, Westmoreland emphasized the 

importance of a third weapon—hunger. As in II Corps, North Vietnamese 

units depended on the food grown on the coastal plain. Working closely 

with South Vietnamese authorities and the U.S. advisory teams, General 

Cushman put additional troops in whichever district happened to be harvesting rice in a particular month. In October, Westmoreland declared 

https://www.fold3.com/image/90379011

The logistics support area at Con Thien
223

Reinforcing I Corps

that the effort had achieved “considerable success,” predicting that the 

enemy would soon resort to desperate measures to acquire food.4

Barriers, bombs, and starvation were only part of the solution, for what 

General Cushman needed most of all were men. In the spring and summer 

of 1967, Westmoreland had reinforced the marines by sending three Army 

formations—the 196th Infantry Brigade (Light), the 3d Brigade of the 4th 

Infantry Division, and the 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division—to form 

a provisional entity, Task Force Oregon. The task force operated in southern 

I Corps, thereby permitting Cushman to shift some of his marines farther 

north. Yet the measure had proven insufficient, so in the fall Westmoreland 

decided on two additional steps—he would move the 1st Cavalry Division 

from II Corps to I Corps, and he would disband Task Force Oregon and 

replace it with a new, fully staffed division, designated the 23d Infantry 

Division. Based at Chu Lai in southern Quang Tin Province under the command of Maj. Gen. Samuel W. Koster, the 23d, or “Americal,” Division 

would permit Cushman to send even 

more marines northward, while the 1st 

Cavalry would give the Marine general 

some badly needed offensive punch.5

What followed over the next four 

months was a complicated dance. In 

September, Westmoreland temporarily assigned the 3d Brigade, 1st Cavalry 

Division, to General Koster. Then, two 

newly raised organizations—the 198th 

and 11th Infantry Brigades (Light)—

arrived from the United States in 

October and December, respectively. 

They joined the 196th Infantry Brigade 

as the official components of the 23d 

Infantry Division. As these formations settled in, the 3d Brigade, 4th 

Infantry Division, and the 1st Brigade, 

101st Airborne Division, both formerly 

part of Task Force Oregon, remained 

under Koster’s operational direction 

until late 1967 or early 1968, when they 

departed from I Corps. The 3d Brigade, 

1st Cavalry Division, also eventually 

returned to General Tolson’s control.

4

 Memo, Rostow for President Johnson, 14 Nov 67, p. 3; Msg, Westmoreland MAC 9425 to 

Cushman, 8 Oct 67, p. 1, Westmoreland Msg files, CMH. 5

 In World War II, the United States had formed the 23d Infantry Division by drawing 

together units that were already serving in the South Pacific. Initially based on the island of 

New Caledonia in 1942, the division’s commander asked for permission to designate the new 

formation the “American, New Caledonian Division.” When the Army reactivated the 23d 

Division in Vietnam under similar circumstances, the title “Americal” was reborn. 

General Koster
Staying the Course

224

It was a turbulent process. General Koster at times commanded up to 

five brigades at once, juggling battalions from place to place as he lost or 

gained units. When the dust finally settled in early 1968, Cushman would 

have two full U.S. Army divisions under his control—the 23d Infantry and 

the 1st Cavalry—plus the support of another provisional Army unit, the 

108th Artillery Group. With soldiers freeing up marines from security duties 

in central and southern I Corps, with the South Vietnamese preparing to 

take over some of the bases along the Demilitarized Zone, and with the 1st 

Cavalry Division readying itself for action in its new theater, Cushman would 

finally have the resources he needed to hold the border, to shield the population, and to take the war to the enemy.6

General Cushman welcomed the development, yet the process underlined 

the hard fact that even after the deployment of nearly half a million U.S. 

military personnel to South Vietnam, the allies simply did not have enough 

men for the tasks at hand. To meet new threats or to undertake new initiatives, Westmoreland always had to rob Peter to pay Paul—in this case to 

weaken security in northern II Corps by transferring the 1st Cavalry Division 

to I Corps. The statistic relating the total number of U.S. military personnel 

in Vietnam hid the fact that most of those personnel were not direct combatants, but rather combat support and combat service support personnel. 

These people were vitally necessary to project the kind of combat power that 

America was wielding nearly 14,000 kilometers from home, but they were 

not capable of holding ground themselves. Of the 485,000 military personnel 

in Vietnam in December 1967, only about 74,000 were in combat maneuver 

battalions. Cushman’s gain was thus someone else’s loss.7

But what to do with his newfound strength? With his position bolstered 

along the Demilitarized Zone, General Cushman planned to unleash the 1st 

Cavalry Division on a six-month campaign to cripple the North Vietnamese 

logistical system in the borderlands of I Corps. He anticipated launching the 

first phase of this offensive, dubbed Operation York, in late December, by 

sending the 3d Brigade from the 1st Cavalry Division, a South Vietnamese 

airborne task force, and elements of the 4th Infantry Division into southwestern Quang Ngai to sweep the Do Xa War Zone, a logistical hub that supplied 

most of the main force units in Military Region 5. The second phase of York, 

set to begin in February 1968, called for the entire 1st Cavalry Division and a 

South Vietnamese airborne task force to invade a pair of enemy strongholds, 

Base Area 114 in the mountains southwest of Hue and Base Area 101 in the 

Hai Lang Forest southwest of Quang Tri City. In the last phase of York,

slated to begin in late March or early April, the 1st Cavalry Division and 

the Vietnamese paratroopers would invade the A Shau, a remote valley in 

6

 Telfer et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, pp. 231–32; Schlight, The War in South Vietnam, 

p. 313; Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, p. 747; Interv, Lt Col William Baxley Jr. 

with Brig Gen George H. Young Jr., CG, Americal Div, 22 Jun 68, p. 3, VNIT 71, CMH; 

MacGarrigle, Taking the Offensive, October 1966 to October 1967, pp. 206–07. 7

 Michael Hennessy, Strategy in Vietnam: The Marines and Revolutionary Warfare in I Corps, 

1965–1972 (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1997), p. 127.
225

Reinforcing I Corps

western Thua Thien Province that served as the enemy’s main distribution 

center in northern I Corps.8

If all went according to plan, the marines would block any potential 

invasion from the north, while the 1st Cavalry Division’s offensive and 

Americal’s security operations would prevent the North Vietnamese in 

central and southern I Corps from launching a major offensive from the 

west. Meanwhile, the completion of the barrier system would restrict enemy 

attacks in the eastern half of the Demilitarized Zone and allow the 3d Marine 

Division to build up a mobile reserve that it could use for offensive operations 

in its zone. By the beginning of summer, if the situation in I Corps remained 

stable, Westmoreland would be at liberty to send the 1st Cavalry Division 

on other missions elsewhere in the country or, if President Johnson gave him 

the authority he had long sought, to thrust into Laos to interdict the Ho Chi 

Minh Trail.9

The Struggle for the Que Son Basin 

All of these plans were in the future. Until the 1st Cavalry Division had 

fully deployed to I Corps, Cushman could only maintain his predominantly 

defensive duties. For the newly formed 23d Infantry Division and its attachments, this meant providing a protective buffer around core pacification areas 

situated along Highway 1 in the coastal sections of Quang Nam, Quang Tin, 

and Quang Ngai Provinces. One of the division’s principal areas of operations during the closing months of 1967 was the Que Son Basin.

The Que Son Valley straddled the border of Quang Nam and Quang Tin 

Provinces. It measured twenty kilometers at its widest point and extended 

inland for nearly forty kilometers, blanketed by rice fields and dotted with 

small hillocks that rose to a maximum height of sixty meters. Thick hedgerows enclosed and subdivided the hamlets in the valley, which were usually 

built around the hillocks. Most of the small streams that irrigated the fields 

drained into a central channel, the Ly Ly River, a shallow, slow-moving waterway that flowed in a northeastern direction to the South China Sea. Two 

roads traveled the length of the valley, Route 535 to the north and Route 534 

to the south, both branching west from Highway 1 on the coast and coming 

together near the district town of Hiep Duc at the far end of the valley.10

Control over the Que Son Valley was important both for the rice it produced 

and the access it gave to the National Priority Area in Quang Nam Province. 

This area stretched from the autonomous coastal city of Da Nang southward 

8

 Msg, Westmoreland MAC 11636 to Sharp, 3 Dec 67, p. 1, Westmoreland Msg files, CMH; 

Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, p. 16. 9

 Msg, Westmoreland MAC 01382 to Sharp, 30 Jan 68, p. 1, Westmoreland Msg files, CMH.

10 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 2-68, III Marine Amphibious Force (MAF), 7 Jan 68, pp. A8–A10, 

folder 003, U.S. Marine Corps, Hist and Museum Div, Vietnam War Documents Collection, 

Vietnam Center and Archive, Texas Tech University (TTU), Lubbock, Tex.; AAR, Opn 

Wheeler/Wallowa, 3d Bde, 1st Cav Div, 17 Feb 68, an. A, p. 1, box 12, Historians Background 

files, 14th Mil Hist Det, USARV, RG 472, NACP.
Staying the Course

226

about thirty kilometers to the capital of Quang Nam Province, Hoi An, and 

extended inland roughly fifteen kilometers. The region included the eastern 

half of the An Son Valley, which ran parallel to the Que Son Valley and was 

separated from it by a steep ridgeline known as Mat Rang Mountain. The 

5th Marines patrolled the western half of the An Son Valley, while the South 

Vietnamese 51st Infantry Regiment and the South Vietnamese 1st Ranger 

Group defended the lowlands between Da Nang and Hoi An, shielding the 

thirty Revolutionary Development teams dispersed throughout the National 

Priority Area. Several dozen U.S. Marine Combined Action Platoons, each 

consisting of an infantry squad and one Navy corpsman, were also scattered 

throughout the zone. Each was paired with a Popular Forces platoon in an 

assigned hamlet where they lived full time, training the Vietnamese irregulars, performing security duties, and supervising civic aid programs. 

Neither the Revolutionary Development teams nor the Combined Action 

Platoons could survive for long without the protection of the larger ground 

units and U.S. air and artillery assets, for lurking on the fringes of the Que 

Son Basin was the 2d PAVN Division. Commanded by Senior Col. Le Huu 

Tru, the 6,000-man North Vietnamese division contained three infantry regiments—the 3d, 21st, and 31st—backed by antiaircraft, recoilless rifle, and 

sapper units. It was Koster’s primary foe.11

In the fall of 1967, two brigades under General Koster’s control led the 

campaign against the 2d PAVN Division. On 11 September, Brig. Gen. Salve H. 

Matheson’s 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, began Operation Wheeler

in the southern part of the Que Son Valley. General Matheson maintained 

his headquarters on Highway 1 near Tam Ky, the capital of Quang Tin 

Province, about fifteen kilometers southeast from the entrance to the Que 

Son Valley. After the 3d Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division had displaced the 

5th Marines from the northern half of the valley on 3 October, it joined the 

hunt with Operation Wallowa. Led by Col. Hubert S. Campbell, the brigade 

established its main base at Landing Zone Baldy, positioned on Highway 1 

at the mouth of the valley near the district town of Thang Binh, some eleven 

kilometers south of Hoi An. Also in early October, General Matheson gained 

control over the 1st Battalion, 35th Infantry, which left the 3d Brigade of the 

4th Infantry Division based at Duc Pho in southern Quang Ngai Province for 

the Wheeler area of operations (Map 21).12

The two Army brigades got off to a fast start. Aided by mild weather that 

rarely curtailed flying, their Huey gunships found plentiful targets since the 

enemy troops in the Que Son Valley, accustomed to fighting marines who 

had few helicopters, were used to moving around during the day. By the end 

of October, Koster could boast that his two brigades had drawn at least five 

11 Telfer et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, p. 188; Special Joint Narrative Rpt, RD, Senior 

Province Adviser, Quang Nam Province, 30 Nov 67, p. 6, Historians files, CMH. 12 AAR, Opn Wheeler, 1st Bde, 101st Abn Div, 11 Dec 67, p. 1, AARs, box 17, Asst Ch of 

Staff, J–3, MACV, RG 472, NACP; AAR, Opn Wheeler/Wallowa, 3d Bde, 1st Cav Div, an. A, 

p. 1.
2(-)

PAVN

X X

2(-)

PAVN

X X

2(-)

PAVN

X X

2 502

I I

2 502

I I

1 327

I I

2 327

I I

3 1 Cav

X

101 1

X

196

X

101 1

X

8 Nov

24 Nov

Special Forces Camp

TIEN PHUOC

TAM KY

HILL 35

LZ LESLIE

LZ ROSS

II

II

2–327 1–327

2–502

1–327

Song Tranh

Song Chang

1

534

Que Son

Hiep Duc

Trung Chanh

Tam Ky

OPERATION WHEELER/WALLOWA

6–25 November 1967

FireghtGround AssaultAir AssaultMilitary Installation

0 200 500 800 and Above

ELEVATION IN METERS

00 5 Kilometers

Miles 5

Map 21
Staying the Course

228

of the 2d Division’s nine battalions into combat and that they had killed or 

captured more than 1,600 soldiers.13

Despite its losses, the 2d Division refused to leave the Que Son Basin. 

On 8 November, troops from the 3d PAVN Regiment used a dozen or more 

carefully concealed 75-mm. recoilless rifles to ambush a column of armored 

personnel carriers from the Americal Division’s reconnaissance unit, the 1st 

Squadron, 1st Cavalry, near Landing Zone Ross, a battalion camp for the 3d 

Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, located fifteen kilometers northwest of Hiep 

Duc. The attack cost the Americans ten killed and forty-six wounded, as well 

as four armored personnel carriers destroyed. The 1st Squadron, 1st Cavalry, 

found three of the 75-mm. recoilless rifles and forty-five North Vietnamese 

dead when it searched the battlefield the next day.14

The clash produced disquieting intelligence. A captured North 

Vietnamese soldier reported that two battalions from the 68th PAVN 

13 ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 67, Americal Div, 8 Feb 68, p. 11, box 66, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd 

Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP; AAR, Opn Wheeler, 1st Bde, 101st Abn Div, pp. 2–3, 

Encl 1; Periodic Intel Rpt, MACV, Oct 67, n.d., pp. 2, 8; Intervs, MacGarrigle with Brig Gen 

Samuel W. Koster, CG, Americal Div, 26 Aug 82; MacGarrigle with Col James O. McKenna, 

Commanding Officer (CO), 3d Bde, 1st Cav Div, 16 and 22 Jun 82. All in Historians files, CMH. 14 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, Americal Div, n.d., p. 11, box 45, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd 

Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP; AAR, Opn Wheeler, 1st Bde, 101st Abn Div, pp. 8–9.

UH–1B gunships from the 3d Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, 

skim low across the terrain looking for enemy targets.
229

Reinforcing I Corps

Artillery Regiment, a unit armed with 122-mm. rockets, had recently moved 

into the hills overlooking the Que Son Valley. Although the weapons were 

inaccurate, they had a twelve-kilometer range and their warheads packed a 

substantial punch. If the prisoner’s report was true, that would give the 2d 

Division a long-distance striking power it had formerly lacked and would 

put American bases at greater risk.15

General Koster could not allow the rocket threat to go unchecked. To 

find the enemy before he struck, Koster turned to his aerial reconnaissance 

teams, a combination of OH–23 scout helicopters and UH–1 Hueys that 

carried six-man reconnaissance squads. Now familiar with U.S. airmobile 

tactics, the enemy initiated countermeasures. On 13 November, machine gun 

fire brought down a Huey carrying a Blue Team in a rice paddy southeast of 

Landing Zone Ross. When a trio of helicopters flew in to rescue the downed 

aircrew, as many as six North Vietnamese 12.7-mm. machine guns concealed 

on a nearby knoll opened fire. The effect was devastating. One helicopter 

exploded in midair and two more were forced to make emergency landings. 

The 2d Division had executed its first preplanned helicopter ambush.

The commander of the 101st Airborne’s 1st Brigade, General Matheson, 

ordered the commander of the 1st Battalion, 35th Infantry, Lt. Col. Robert 

15 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, Americal Div, pp. 11–12.

https://www.fold3.com/image/244993904

Men of Company A, 2d Battalion, 12th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division, 

climb a hill in the Que Son Valley during Operation Wallowa.
Staying the Course

230

G. Kimmel, to mount a relief operation to save the downed aircrews. After 

suppressing the nest of enemy machine guns with air and artillery strikes, the 

colonel landed three rifle companies into the area to establish a perimeter 

around the downed Hueys before night fell.

The following morning, Colonel Kimmel flew out in his command helicopter to direct the sweep for the North Vietnamese ambushers. While his 

men were beating the bushes and inspecting hamlets, a concealed enemy 

machine gun opened fire on Kimmel’s aircraft, severing its main rotor blade. 

The subsequent crash killed everyone on board, including Kimmel. His battalion continued its mission, later passing to the control of Lt. Col. Marion C. 

Ross when he arrived with his 2d Battalion, 12th Cavalry, later that afternoon. 

Neither battalion regained contact with the enemy, prompting Colonel 

Ross to terminate the mission two days later. U.S. casualties came to twentytwo killed and twenty-eight wounded. Hostile fire had hit over twenty helicopters, eight of which were destroyed or severely damaged. Enemy losses 

were unknown. The Americal Division changed its operational doctrine in 

the wake of that incident, mandating that ground units spearhead future 

rescue efforts rather than helicopter rescue teams.16

On 11 November, Koster combined Operation Wheeler with Operation 

Wallowa to simplify command and control arrangements as the mix of 

American units began to change in the valley. A week later, the 198th Infantry Brigade (Light) moved from Duc Pho to Chu Lai, relieving Col. Louis 

Gelling’s 196th Infantry Brigade, which moved into the southern part of the 

Wheeler-Wallowa zone. With the arrival of Gelling’s brigade, General 

Matheson flew his 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, down to Phan Rang 

for a month-long mission in southern II Corps. 

The first test of the 196th Infantry Brigade came on 22 November when 

a U.S. radio research unit picked up a transmission apparently sent by the 

headquarters of the 3d PAVN Regiment. Triangulation of the signal placed 

its origin at Hill 63, a small granite outcrop seven kilometers east of Landing 

Zone Ross. If the 3d Regiment was indeed in the valley near Landing Zone

Ross, Colonel Gelling had a rare opportunity to bag a major part of the 2d 

Division.

Gelling passed along the information to the executive officer of the 

4th Battalion, 31st Infantry, Maj. Gilbert N. Dorland, who was on patrol 

near Ross with Companies B and D from his battalion, two platoons of 

armored personnel carriers from Troop F, 17th Cavalry, and a platoon of 

tanks from Troop A, 1st Squadron, 1st Cavalry. It was too late in the day for 

Major Dorland to act on the tip, but he resolved to investigate the following 

morning.17

Task Force Dorland approached Hill 63 on a cool and cloudy 

Thanksgiving morning, 23 November. Despite its modest height, the hillock 

offered a commanding view of the surrounding farmlands. Knowing that the 

16 AAR, Opn Wheeler/Wallowa, 3d Bde, 1st Cav Div, an. A, p. 4.

17 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, Americal Div, p. 12.
231

Reinforcing I Corps

North Vietnamese sometimes used it as an observation point when they were 

gathering food, Major Dorland moved to investigate. 

Task Force Dorland split into two groups and approached the hill from 

opposite sides. When the American infantrymen began climbing its slopes 

at around 0700, a torrent of small arms and machine-gun fire greeted them 

from concealed positions higher on the hill. Four U.S. soldiers were killed 

and another eleven wounded during the opening phase of the battle. The 

volume of fire led Major Dorland to conclude that at least one battalion from 

the 3d PAVN Regiment held the hill.

As Companies B and D fought their way up the northern and southern 

slopes, Major Dorland led a group of M48 tanks and M113 armored personnel carriers around the hill to establish a blocking position on its western side. When the mechanized group reached its destination, a platoon of 

North Vietnamese soldiers emerged from the tall grass near the base of the 

hill, fired at the Americans, and then sprinted west to a hedgerow-enclosed 

hamlet some 200 meters away. Troop F pursued. Moments later, recoilless 

rifles concealed in the hamlet opened fire on the troopers. Enemy rounds 

slammed into two armored personnel carriers, including the one carrying 

Dorland. He was thrown from his vehicle and then badly injured when the 

carrier ran over his body. Despite his pain, Dorland refused painkillers or 

medical evacuation so he could return to the fight.

A hedgerow-enclosed hamlet provided concealment for the enemy.
Staying the Course

232

While Dorland’s armored vehicles fought back with machine guns and 

cannon, his two infantry companies fought their way up Hill 63. It was slow 

and costly work, with the companies sustaining some fifty casualties in the 

first two hours of combat. Seeing he had a major fight on his hands, Dorland 

asked for help. Colonel Gelling sent Company B, 4th Battalion, 21st Infantry, 

commanded by Capt. David Spohn, which landed near the eastern side of 

Hill 63 around 0915.

Believing that the enemy on Hill 63 was more or less trapped, Major 

Dorland ordered Captain Spohn to seize the enemy-held hamlet. Supported 

by several M48 tanks, Company B closed the intervening distance and 

entered the maze of hedgerows that enclosed the settlement. The infantrymen 

silenced several recoilless rifles, which allowed the tanks to begin destroying 

enemy bunkers at close range, either with cannon fire or by crushing them 

underneath the weight of the vehicles.

Back on Hill 63, Companies B and D from the 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry, 

finally reached the summit, killing the last defender around noon. That accomplished, Major Dorland ordered both companies to march west and join the 

hamlet-clearing operation. Ninety minutes later, helicopters flew in Company 

C from Dorland’s 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry, which also joined the battle. 

Confident that the four infantry companies and reinforced mechanized troop 

were taking care of matters, Dorland relinquished his command at around 

1500 and flew out by helicopter to receive some much-needed medical attention. The Army recognized his gallantry by awarding him the Distinguished 

Service Cross.

The next day, Colonel Gelling flew in Company D from the 3d Battalion, 

21st Infantry, and Company B from the 2d Battalion, 1st Infantry, to search 

the area around Hill 63 for other 2d Division elements, while the units already 

on the ground finished clearing the hamlet to its west. The enemy abandoned 

the hamlet later that day and scattered to the east and south in small, fasting-moving teams to complicate allied pursuit. Documents found on dead 

North Vietnamese soldiers identified their unit as the 2d Battalion, 3d PAVN 

Regiment. Colonel Gelling’s men reported that they had killed a total of 128 

Communists in the three-day battle for Hill 63 and its environs. Seven U.S. 

soldiers had been killed (all in the first two hours of the first day) and eightyfour wounded. Some of the wounded had been wearing armored vests, which 

had saved lives by absorbing grenade fragments.

What mission the 3d PAVN Regiment had been performing near Ross

remained a mystery, but the Americal Division obtained more evidence a 

week later that something was afoot. On the afternoon of 5 December, an air 

cavalry troop commander assigned to support the 3d Brigade, 1st Cavalry 

Division, was training a new gunship team from the 1st Squadron, 9th 

Cavalry, when he spotted some people on a ridge north of Landing Zone 

Ross. After the helicopters made a low pass that identified them as North 

Vietnamese, the two gunships opened fire and cut down several of the figures. A Blue Team landed on the ridge just a few minutes later and eliminated 

even more soldiers, bringing the total number of dead to seventeen. 
233

Reinforcing I Corps

A search of their possessions revealed that they had been the command 

group of the 2d Division, apparently caught while performing a reconnaissance mission against Landing Zone Ross. Among the dead were the division 

commander, Colonel Tru, the division’s political officer, its deputy chief of 

staff, its chief of rear services, its chief of military operations and intelligence, its chief of combat operations and training, and the commanders of 

the 3d and 21st Regiments along with several of their battalion commanders.

18

A notebook marked “Absolute Secret” and other documents recovered 

from the scene described a plan for a multiregiment attack on Ross. The 

plan emphasized the need to destroy a large number of U.S. helicopters 

and discussed tactics that could be used to shoot them down. Although 

the document did not specify a date for the attack, it described a preparatory phase that was to end on 23 December. Therefore, U.S. intelligence 

deduced that the attack would probably come just before or right after the 

customary Christmas truce.19

Taking the document at its word, General Koster strengthened the 3d 

Brigade’s defenses at Ross. He also reinforced Leslie, a smaller, companysize base that was four kilometers to the southwest. Most significantly, he stationed a troop of M113s from the 1st Squadron, 1st Cavalry, at Ross, giving 

the base a hard-hitting reaction force.

Koster learned more about the 2d Division’s plans on 9 December, when 

his main air reconnaissance element, Troop B of the 1st Squadron, 9th 

Cavalry, spotted a battalion-size group of North Vietnamese five kilometers northwest of Landing Zone Baldy. After air and artillery strikes had 

pounded the location, several companies from the 1st Battalion, 35th Infantry, 

moved in to engage the enemy. The day-long battle resulted in the deaths 

of 121 Communist soldiers. Ten more soldiers who were taken prisoner said 

they had been part of a food-gathering party from the 1st and 3d Regiments. 

According to their reports, the headquarters of the 2d Division was trying to 

accumulate a month’s worth of rice so it could conduct a major operation in 

the Que Son Valley.

Over the next several weeks, Troop B of the 1st Squadron saw no more 

sign of the 2d Division. Its only major contact during that period came on 14 

December, when gunships spotted troops from the 70th Main Force Battalion

and the V15 Local Force Company on the coastal plain east of Baldy. The 

helicopters killed fifty-eight Viet Cong soldiers with help from the 5th 

18 Interv, Capt Joseph W. A. Whitehorne, 14th Mil Hist Det, with Col Hubert S. Campbell, 

CO, 3d Bde, 1st Cav Div, 12 May 68, pp. 2–3, VNIT 96, CMH; Su Doan 2, Tap 1 [2d Division, 

Volume I] (Da Nang: Da Nang Publishing House, 1989), p. 85 (hereafter cited as 2d Division), 

copy in Historians files, CMH; Rpt, 3d Bde, 1st Cav Div, n.d., sub: Sequence of Events, WinterSpring Offensive 1967-68, 2d NVA Division, MR5, p. 3, Historians files, CMH. 19 Interv, MacGarrigle with Col Alfred E. Spry, S–2, 3d Bde, 1st Cav Div, 19 Apr 83, 

Historians files, CMH. Spry was the first to analyze the captured notebooks and maps. Interv, 

MacGarrigle with Koster, 26 Aug 82; Interv, Whitehorne with Campbell, 12 May 68, p. 3; Rpt, 

3d Bde, 1st Cav Div, pp. 2–3.
Staying the Course

234

Battalion, 7th Cavalry, but a search of the dead local force fighters produced 

no additional clues about the intentions of the 2d Division.

20

The 2d Division Attacks

The next warning sign came on 23 December, when signals analysts reported 

that the 2d Division had assumed an “alert posture,” a strong indication that a 

major attack was in the offing. Helicopters and reconnaissance teams scoured 

the valley, but they found no sign of the enemy. U.S. intelligence concluded that 

the 2d Division had probably canceled the attack after the Americal Division 

had captured a copy of the enemy’s plans on 5 December. 

Koster was not so sure. Even though the B1 Front must have known that 

its plan had been compromised—MACV had released portions of it to the 

media on 6 December—the general knew that the enemy was desperate to 

regain control of the Que Son Valley to feed his troops. North Vietnamese 

soldiers had already raided villages along the periphery of the valley, but the 

20 AAR, Opn Wheeler/Wallowa, 3d Bde, 1st Cav Div, an. A, p. 7; Rpt, 3d Bde, 1st Cav Div, 

p. 5.

A line of M113s from the 1st Squadron, 1st Cavalry, Americal Division, 

during a sweep operation near Tam Ky
235

Reinforcing I Corps

amount of rice they had collected was not enough to feed the 2d Division. 

Trusting his instincts, Koster directed the two brigades in the Que Son Basin 

to assume that the enemy was still planning a major attack in the near future.21

Koster’s hunch proved correct. Even though the B1 Front commander, Maj. 

Gen. Chu Huy Man, wished to call off the attack and give the 2d Division a rest 

prior to the upcoming general offensive and uprising, he went ahead with the plan 

because he had orders from the North Vietnamese Ministry of Defense to cripple 

the 3d Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, and to tie it down prior to the great offensive set to begin in less than a month. Although his staff was already swamped 

with preparations for Tet, Man sent cadres from his headquarters to replace the 

decimated 2d Division command group. Senior Col. Giap Van Cuong, General 

Man’s chief of staff and a former commander of the 3d PAVN Division, became 

the 2d Division’s new commander. Cuong and his staff had no time to change the 

plan so they went ahead with the existing scheme to attack Landing Zone Ross. 

Colonel Cuong could only hope that the Americans would drop their guard once 

the original attack date of 23 December passed without incident.22

On 26 December, three North Vietnamese soldiers from the 2d Division

surrendered and informed their captors that a multiregiment attack would 

take place against Landing Zones Ross and Baldy in the near future. More 

evidence that an attack was imminent came five days later when the radios of 

the 2d Division fell silent. In the past, a sudden break in enemy radio traffic 

often signaled that a big attack was near. 

To preempt the long-anticipated blow, General Koster on 2 January 

directed the 3d Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, to scour the area around 

Ross with helicopter-borne infantry. Early that day, a company from the 2d 

Battalion, 12th Cavalry, drew heavy fire when it landed into a rice paddy west 

of Landing Zone Ross. A second company reinforced the first, and the two 

units remained in heavy contact with the enemy until dark. The Americans 

killed twenty-four North Vietnamese soldiers and took two prisoners. The 

captured men claimed that they had just come out of the mountains to the 

northwest with at least a thousand other troops, had seen numerous antiaircraft weapons, and had passed an artillery position containing six 122-mm. 

rocket launchers. Also during that day, U.S. engineers found and destroyed a 

large number of mines on the road between Ross and Leslie, a route that had 

formerly seen little mining activity. On the basis of those reports and the continued radio silence, the 3d Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, went on full alert.23

On the night of 2 January 1968, enemy forces north and south of the Que 

Son Valley carried out a series of diversionary attacks to support the plan of 

the 2d Division. Two Viet Cong battalions assaulted a district headquarters 

in Quang Ngai Province, while a battalion of sappers raided a district headquarters in Quang Tin Province. Both attacks failed. General Man’s troops 

21 Intervs, Whitehorne with Campbell, 12 May 68, p. 3; MacGarrigle with Koster, 26 Aug 82.

22 2d Division, p. 85; Man, Time of Upheaval, p. 478. 23 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 23d Inf Div, p. 12, box 66, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd Historian, 

HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP; Interv, Whitehorne with Campbell, 12 May 68, p. 3; Rpt, 3d Bde, 

1st Cav Div, p. 8. 
Staying the Course

236

fared better in Quang Nam Province, where they conducted twenty-five 

attacks in seven of the province’s nine districts and subjected Da Nang Air 

Base to a rocket barrage. A few of the smaller assaults fared well, as the Viet 

Cong overran the Hieu Duc District headquarters and destroyed a Marine 

Combined Action Platoon in Hieu Nhon District, but the more ambitious 

efforts fizzled. An attempt to seize a South Vietnamese artillery base miscarried, while the attack on Da Nang, for all its violence, inflicted only slight 

damage on the base (Map 22).24

General Man launched his main attack in the Que Son Valley at 0145 on 

3 January. Although the 196th Infantry Brigade’s Landing Zone West, ten 

kilometers south of Ross, and several other bases in the valley came under 

mortar attack, Ross and the smaller Leslie bore the brunt of the assault, 

sustaining at least 250 rounds from 82-mm. and 120-mm. mortars as well as 

fifty 122-mm. rockets and heavy fire from 75-mm. recoilless rifles. As the 

barrage lifted, two battalions from the 3d Regiment attacked Ross from the 

west, while one battalion from the 21st Regiment attacked from the south.

Fighting from reinforced bunkers that had kept them safe from the bombardment, the 400 soldiers who defended the outer perimeter of Landing 

Zone Ross met the attackers with blistering fire. The armored personnel carriers raked the enemy with their cupola-mounted .50-caliber machine guns; 

artillerymen fired their 105-mm. howitzers at the attackers by aiming along 

the top of their barrels. No amount of bravery could overcome that curtain of 

steel; the assault slowed, lost its cohesion as casualties mounted, and finally 

came to an end around 0530. 

Meanwhile, at Leslie, a reinforced company of sappers from the 2d 

Division armed with satchel charges and flamethrowers broke through the 

perimeter around the same time that the attack against Ross was getting 

under way. The sappers caused havoc along the bunker line for several minutes, killing over a dozen U.S. soldiers in the swirl of close-range fighting 

before the infantry company from the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, which was 

defending the base, drove them off. After making several more unsuccessful 

efforts to regain their foothold, the sappers withdrew at around 0600. All 

told, the North Vietnamese lost 242 killed at Ross and 67 at Leslie. U.S. 

casualties came to 18 killed (15 of those at Leslie) and 137 wounded.25

The next morning, the fourth of January, the 196th Infantry Brigade 

faced a late-developing attack by the 1st Regiment at Landing Zone West, 

ten kilometers south of Ross. At 0430, Company D of the 4th Battalion, 31st 

Infantry, was reconnoitering the area to the northwest of the landing zone 

when it spotted a company of North Vietnamese soldiers. Once the shooting 

began, more enemy troops joined the fight. Soon the Americans were facing 

24 Rpt, 3d Bde, 1st Cav Div, p. 8; Rpt, Senior Adviser, CORDS, Quang Nam Province, 13 

Feb 68, sub: Province Report, Quang Nam Province, for the period ending 31 January 1968, p. 

4; Special Joint Narrative Rpt, RD, Hieu Nhon District, Jan 68, p. 1. Both in Historians files, 

CMH. 25 Rpt, 3d Bde, 1st Cav Div, p. 8; Interv, Whitehorne with Campbell, 12 May 68, p. 3; Charles 

A. Krohn, Lost Battalion of Tet: Breakout of the 2/12th Cavalry at Hue (Annapolis, Md.: Naval 

Institute Press, 2008), p. 30.
237

Reinforcing I Corps

Map 22

an entire North Vietnamese battalion. Companies A and C, 4th Battalion, 

31st Infantry, converged on the area to prevent the enemy force from reaching 

the base. 

The fighting near Landing Zone West continued all that day and into the 

fifth. On the afternoon of 5 January, Colonel Gelling sent Company A of the 

3d Battalion, 21st Infantry, and Company C of the 2d Battalion, 1st Infantry, 

to reinforce the three companies from the 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry, presV103

PAVN

I

2(-)

PAVN

I

68(-)

PAVN

III

70

PAVN

I I

21(-)

PAVN

III

1

PAVN

III

2

PAVN

X X

LZ BALDY

LZ COLT

LZ LESLIE

LZ ROSS

LZ WEST

1

535

534

534

536

533

Song Chang

Song Tranh

Hiep Duc

Que Son

Thang Binh

Tien Phuoc

2d PAVN DIVISION AT TACK

QUE SON AREA

3 January 1968

0

0 4 Kilometers

Miles 4

0 300 800 and Above

ELEVATION IN METERS

Enemy Axis of Attack

Mortar Attack

Military Installation
Staying the Course

238

ently in contact. As darkness fell, the five companies began preparing night 

defense positions, separated from one another by around 500 to 1,000 meters, 

in order to screen a wider area with the night ambush teams each would later 

send out.

Company C of the 2d Battalion, 1st Infantry, was still preparing its positions when a North Vietnamese battalion struck. Enemy fire took out the 

company commander and one of his platoon leaders almost immediately. 

More Americans fell dead and wounded as the volume of fire intensified. 

Company C fought a desperate four-hour holding action until rescued by 

Company A of the 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry. The battle cost Company C 

sixteen killed and fifty-six wounded. Gelling pulled the unit out of the field 

and replaced it with Company B, 2d Battalion, 1st Infantry, and Company D 

from the 3d Battalion, 21st Infantry.26

While North Vietnamese infantrymen clashed with soldiers from the 

196th Infantry Brigade around Landing Zone West, the 12.7-mm. antiaircraft battalion attached to the 2d Division continued to hunt Colonel 

Campbell’s helicopters from entrenched positions around Ross and Leslie. 

Despite heavy air and artillery strikes on their locations, North Vietnamese 

gun crews still managed to hit at least twenty-six helicopters and destroy six. 

26 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 196th Inf Bde, 2 Feb 68, p. 3, box 142, ORLLs, 1966–1971, 

Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP.

Men of Company A, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division, on 

patrol in the Que Son Valley during Operation Wallowa
239

Reinforcing I Corps

Their most notable success came on 7 January, when enemy gunners shot 

down a helicopter carrying the commander of the 2d Battalion, 12th Cavalry, 

Lt. Col. Robert L. Gregory, killing him and six others on board.27

After a week of hard fighting, however, the 2d Division was reaching the limit of its endurance. The final clash of the campaign came on 10 

January when the 2d Battalion, 12th Cavalry, tangled with a reinforced 

North Vietnamese battalion near Ross. The firefight resulted in 122 enemy 

dead for a cost of 16 American wounded and 4 armored vehicles destroyed. 

Afterward, the 2d Division withdrew from the valley. In the end, the enemy’s 

plan to create a helicopter killing zone around Leslie and Ross had yielded 

some success, damaging or destroying several dozen aircraft. On the other 

hand, the 3d Brigade had never experienced a critical shortage of working 

helicopters and the U.S. defenders never ran out of food and ammunition. 

Moreover, U.S. officers estimated that during its week-long offensive in the 

Que Son Valley, the 2d Division had lost 1,100 soldiers killed in action and 

a similar number wounded badly enough to require extended medical care. 

Total enemy losses attributed to Operations Wheeler and Wallowa through 

the end of January 1968 exceeded 3,300 killed and 600 weapons captured 

at a cost of 220 American lives. Until reinforcements arrived from North 

Vietnam via the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the 2d Division would be only marginally 

combat effective.28

The Battle for Quang Tin and Quang Ngai Provinces

As fighting heated up in the Que Son Valley at the turn of the year, it 

was more sporadic in the other areas occupied by the Americal Division, 

southern Quang Tin and Quang Ngai Provinces. In Quang Tin, the Americal 

Division operated in the southeast portion of the province from its main base 

camp at Chu Lai. In Quang Ngai, the most populous province in I Corps, 

General Koster was responsible for the northern (Binh Son) and southern 

(Mo Duc and Duc Pho) districts, while the South Vietnamese 2d Division 

was responsible for the National Priority Area around Quang Ngai City and 

the province’s central coast. Most of the province’s forty-four Revolutionary 

Development groups labored within twenty kilometers of Quang Ngai City. 

In both Quang Tin and Quang Ngai, the allies left the sparsely populated 

western mountain districts mostly to the enemy. 

Quang Ngai’s relative tranquility belied its violent past. The Communists 

had ruled over most of the province since the 1940s, indoctrinating the population and fortifying almost every hamlet in the sectors they controlled with 

bunkers, trenches, tunnels, and traps. The situation had worsened after the 

enemy had created the 3d PAVN Division in Binh Dinh and southern Quang 

27 AAR, Opn Wheeler/Wallowa, 3d Bde, 1st Cav Div, an. B, p. 2.

28 Interv, Whitehorne with Campbell, 12 May 68, p. 3; F. Clifton Berry, Chargers (New York: 

Bantam Books, 1988), pp. 71–95; ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 196th Inf Bde, pp. 1–4; ORLL, 1 

Nov 67–31 Jan 68, Americal Div, 8 Feb 68, p. 25, Historians files, CMH.
Staying the Course

240

Ngai Provinces in 1965. With the South Vietnamese unable to expand very 

far from Quang Ngai City on their own, Westmoreland had provided help, 

first by sending in U.S. marines, and then, in 1967, by creating Task Force 

Oregon. The Americans conducted extensive operations north and south of 

Quang Ngai City. By late 1967, they had succeeded in creating a shield around 

the central pacification area and in driving off the main force units from the 

lowlands. The cost, however, had been high—the destruction of many hamlets and the creation of tens of thousands of refugees who had either fled the 

fighting on their own or who had been removed, willingly or not, by allied 

forces to the relative safety of government-controlled areas. The conflict had 

been especially devastating in Duc Pho District, where the presence of the 

3d Division, extensive fortifications, and strong local forces had led to a situation in which “virtually every meter of ground had to be fought over.” But 

the battle had also taken a toll on the enemy, and it was a welcome reprieve 

when in November the 3d Division departed for Binh Dinh Province and the 

half-dozen Viet Cong battalions that remained in Quang Ngai dispersed to 

nurse their wounds and to gather rice during the fall harvest.29

General Koster used the lull to reshuffle his forces in southern I Corps. 

On 16 November, the 3d Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, commanded by Col. 

George E. Wear, moved from Duc Pho to Landing Zone Gator, just south of 

the Chu Lai complex. Colonel Wear’s unit joined the 196th Infantry Brigade 

in Operation Muscatine, a security mission to protect Chu Lai and the neighboring lowlands from several Viet Cong battalions, and to search for their 

camps in the hills that ran along the Quang Tin–Quang Ngai border. Ten days 

later, the 196th Infantry Brigade moved north into the Que Son Valley to join 

Operation Wheeler. It was replaced by the 198th Infantry Brigade, which in 

turn handed over Duc Pho to the newly arrived 11th Infantry Brigade under 

the command of Brig. Gen. Andrew A. Lipscomb. 

Koster made further adjustments in early January 1968 when the 2d 

Division launched its offensive in the Que Son Valley. He moved two battalions from the 198th Infantry Brigade at Duc Pho north to Tam Ky area 

of Quang Tin Province to relieve elements from the 196th Infantry Brigade, 

which Colonel Gelling could then deploy against the 2d Division if needed. 

The 198th Infantry Brigade units deployed to Tam Ky also assumed tactical 

control over the Batangan Peninsula in northeastern Quang Ngai Province, 

assuming that sector from the South Korean 2d Marine Brigade, which 

deployed to the Hoi An area in Quang Nam Province to reinforce the 

National Priority Area there. In the meantime, Koster ordered the 198th 

Infantry Brigade to continue Operation Muscatine in Duc Pho District 

29 Rpt, CORDS, 13 Sep 67, sub: Evaluation Report, Task Force Oregon Operations, p. 4 

(quote), Historians files, CMH; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 2-68, III MAF, 7 Jan 68, pp. A8–A10; 

Special Joint Narrative Rpt, RD, Quang Tin Province, 1 Nov 67, p. 2; Special Joint Narrative 

Rpt, RD, Quang Ngai Province, 31 Oct 67, p. 2; Special Joint Narrative Rpt, RD, Quang Nam 

Province, 1 Nov 67, p. 1. All in RD files, CMH.
241

Reinforcing I Corps

with the 1st Battalion, 52d Infantry, and elements of the 3d Brigade, 4th 

Infantry Division.30

The enemy exploited the shifting roster of units in early December, when 

he embarrassed allied officials by destroying the Binh Son District headquarters. Operation Muscatine was equally frustrating for ordinary U.S. 

soldiers, who suffered a steady stream of casualties from booby traps and 

mines, but rarely encountered the enemy. To the dismay of the troops, most 

of the Viet Cong’s mines came from bases abandoned by the South Koreans 

who had departed the area without clearing their minefields.31

Although there were few major battles, the security situation deteriorated toward the end of the year, as Viet Cong guerrilla forces picked 

up the slack from the 3d Division. Harassing fire and acts of terrorism 

accounted for most of this activity, but in January 1968 several clashes 

occurred with larger enemy forces. On New Year’s Day, elements of the 

Americal Division deployed to blocking positions in Quang Ngai Province 

as troops from the South Vietnamese 2d Division and U.S. helicopter gun30 Special Joint Narrative Rpt, RD, Province Senior Adviser, Quang Ngai Province, 28 Dec 

67, p. 3, Historians files, CMH. 31 AAR, Opn Muscatine, 4th Bn, 3d Inf, 11th Inf Bde, 20 Jun 68, p. 28, box 2, Historical 

Background files, 3d Mil Hist Det, RG 472, NACP.

Soldiers from Company B, 1st Battalion, 14th Infantry, 3d Brigade, 4th 

Infantry Division, move across a swampy area during Operation Muscatine.
Staying the Course

242

ships engaged a large enemy force, killing 111 and capturing 37 weapons. 

On the following day, the enemy struck back, as the Viet Cong 406th and 

38th Battalions and a pair of local force platoons penetrated the central 

pacification zone and attacked the headquarters of Quang Ngai’s Nghia 

Hanh District. Fortunately, a Viet Cong deserter had alerted the defenders 

to the impending assault. Fully prepared, the South Vietnamese rebuffed 

the attack, killing seventy-four Viet Cong and capturing five prisoners 

and twenty weapons. Two weeks later, the Americal Division initiated 

the largest U.S. action of the period when on 17 January, Company A, 1st 

Battalion, 52d Infantry, caught up with four local force companies near 

the coastal village of Phu Nhieu in Quang Tin Province, several kilometers 

south of Chu Lai. Reinforced by the battalion’s Company B, the troops 

swept toward the village, while the 3d Brigade’s reconnaissance platoon 

and Company B, 1st Battalion, 14th Infantry, landed into blocking positions south and west of the town. As the attack progressed, Viet Cong who 

had sought refuge in the village fled into the blocking positions, where 

small arms fire and gunships cut them down. At a loss of 1 soldier killed 

and 6 wounded, the Americans claimed 100 enemy dead, 7 prisoners of 

war, and 38 captured weapons. The following day, the wheel of fortune 

turned again, when a Viet Cong company ambushed an understrength 

government battalion backed by five Popular Forces platoons in Nghia 

Hanh District. The district chief who was accompanying the operation 

and the South Vietnamese soldiers fled, leaving their U.S. advisers to fend 

for themselves.32 

With most of the enemy’s main forces having retreated from the seat 

of action, U.S. units shifted to patrol mode. The 3d Brigade, 4th Infantry 

Division, for example, operated by establishing firebases in strategic locations while keeping its rifle companies out and about in the countryside. 

Each day the companies would move to a new location. Punctuating the 

constant day and night patrols were occasional company- and battalionsize search-and-destroy operations and extensive harassment and interdiction fire by the brigade’s artillery, which every night launched shells into 

suspected enemy locations. The combined effect of U.S. and enemy actions 

produced a low-grade attrition. By the end of January 1968, Operation

Muscatine had yielded 454 enemy dead and 103 weapons captured at a 

cost of 25 American lives.33

According to a CORDS report, the frequent battles over fortified hamlets, the large flows of refugees, and the heavy use of air and artillery fire 

had, over the years, created a “conventional type of war” in Quang Ngai 

and Quang Tin, in which “many houses were destroyed.” Similar conditions 

32 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, Americal Div, pp. 15, 26; AAR, 3d Mil Hist Det, n.d., sub: 

Free World Military Forces Operations: Operation Muscatine, p. 4, Historians files, CMH; 

ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 3d Bde, 4th Inf Div, 2 Feb 68, p. 5, AARs, 1965–1971, Cmd 

Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP; Memo, District Adviser, Nghia Hanh, for Senior 

Adviser, Quang Ngai Province, 1 Feb 68, sub: District Report, Historians files, CMH. 33 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, Americal Div, p. 25.
243

Reinforcing I Corps

existed in Quang Nam and portions of Quang Tri. In March 1968, writer 

Jonathan Schell brought this aspect of the war to the attention of the U.S. 

public in a pair of articles published in the New Yorker magazine. Based on a 

visit he had made to Quang Tin and Quang Ngai Provinces in August 1967, 

Schell recounted in detail the extensive damage U.S. forces had done to sections of the countryside, the suffering of civilians caught in the fighting, and 

the callousness that can taint the outlook of men in combat.34

U.S. officials knew of Schell’s findings before they were published, for on 

his return to the United States he briefed Secretary McNamara, who then 

gave Schell a room in the Pentagon to write the articles. According to Deputy 

Secretary of Defense Paul Nitze, McNamara was “horrified” by the stories 

of “meaningless and random bombings” and “the cynical attitude toward 

human life which, it purported, permeated our forces.” The news reinforced 

the anguish the secretary felt over a war he helped initiate, but that he no 

longer believed in. 35 

34 Rpt, CORDS, 13 Sep 67, p. 5; Jonathan Schell, “Quang Ngai and Quang Tin I,” New 

Yorker, 9 Mar 68, pp. 37–129; and pt. II, 16 Mar 68, pp. 40–130. 35 Nitze quote from Louis A. Wiesner, Victims and Survivors, Displaced Persons and Other 

War Victims in Viet-Nam, 1954–1975 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1988), p. 116, and see also 

pp. 114–18.

U.S. soldiers interact with civilians during a search-and-clear mission in 

Quang Ngai Province.
Staying the Course

244

After reading Schell’s draft, McNamara circulated it within the government, triggering several investigations. The investigators concluded that 

Schell had exaggerated the amount of destruction and that he had gotten 

some of his facts wrong. They also believed that he had not explained the 

unusual and unfortunate combination of factors that had made fighting in 

I Corps so desperate, thereby leading readers to the erroneous conclusion 

that the conditions he had witnessed were typical of the country as a whole. 

Nevertheless, they conceded that much of what Schell had recounted was 

true—that those sections of the countryside that had seen the most fighting had been turned into a moonscape; that some of these areas were now 

devoid of people, while others still contained large numbers of civilians who 

were subjected to air and artillery strikes; that thousands of refugees crowded 

into towns and camps; and that rules of engagement designed to limit harm 

to civilians were not always understood or obeyed. In short, many of the 

fears U.S. officials had expressed early on about the potential adverse consequences of committing U.S. troops to fighting in heavily populated areas had 

come true in I Corps.36

The Schell stories also amplified concerns that had already been growing about the number of refugees in Vietnam—concerns that were sparking 

inquiries in the U.S. Congress and were spurring MACV to reexamine the 

issue. People left their homes for many reasons. Some fled when the Viet 

Cong attacked their villages. Some left on their own accord to escape Viet 

Cong oppression or to seek better job opportunities in urban areas, while 

others became homeless as a consequence of battle. Many chose to flee 

areas of recurrent fighting in search of safety, and in some cases allied forces 

had evacuated whole communities, either for their protection, to deny the 

enemy labor and supplies, or to facilitate military operations. It was therefore 

impossible to apportion responsibility precisely for the creation of refugees. 

One U.S. official estimated that only about 1 percent of all refugees came 

about as a result of deliberate evacuations by allied forces. This number was 

undoubtedly far too low, but allied officials were probably correct in maintaining that the vast majority of refugees had not come about as a result of 

mandatory evacuations. One critic of U.S. actions who undertook a detailed 

analysis estimated that evacuations accounted for only about 10 percent of 

the total refugee population during the course of the war.37

36 Memo, James D. Hataway Jr. for Ambassador, U.S. Embassy, Saigon, 12 Dec 67, sub: 

House Destruction in Quang Ngai and Quang Tin; Comments on the Schell Manuscript, 16 

Dec 67, attached to Memo, Hataway for Ambassador, 26 Jan 68, sub: Destruction in Quang 

Ngai and Quang Tin. Both in Historians files, CMH. 37 Memo, Robert W. Komer for General William C. Westmoreland, 28 Nov 67, sub: Refugees, 

p. 1; Rpt, Jerry L. Dodson, Field Evaluator, CORDS, 4 Sep 67, sub: Evaluation of Refugee 

Handling Operations in Quang Ngai Province, with attachments; Rpt, Col Hugh G. Fly, Ofc 

of the Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency and Special Activities (SACSA), JCS, 13 Dec 

67, sub: After Action Report—Field Trip, Vietnam, p. 4; Memo, Col R. B. McRae, RD Div, 

SACSA, JCS, for Maj Gen William E. DePuy, 3 Nov 67, sub: Causes of Refugee Flow, pp. 

1–5, and attachments. All in Historians files, CMH. Thomas Thayer, “How to Analyze a War 

Without Fronts, Vietnam, 1965–1972,” Journal of Defense Research, ser. B: Tactical Warfare, 

vol. 7B, no. 3 (Fall 1975): 924–25; Wiesner, Victims and Survivors, pp. 353, 357–59.
245

Reinforcing I Corps

Realizing that it was politically important for both governments to 

mitigate the refugee situation, the United States reinforced long-standing 

efforts to push South Vietnam toward improving its handling of refugees. 

Meanwhile, in October MACV reemphasized the desirability of minimizing population displacement and directed that commanders report all 

movements of 500 or more people. CORDS Director Robert Komer also 

canvassed the corps-level commanders, asking if they could take steps to 

reduce the number of refugees created by U.S. operations. All of them 

replied in the affirmative except one—III Marine Amphibious Force 

commander General Cushman, who stated that refugees were inevitable 

given the location and intensity of combat in I Corps. In his opinion, 

it was better to relocate people than to expose them to the hazards of 

battle. He also rejected, as did most U.S. commanders, a suggestion by 

Komer that U.S. military units take over responsibility for the refugees 

they generated from the South Vietnamese government. He conceded that 

U.S. forces needed to do a better job of coordinating their operations with 

civil officials, both to limit the number of refugees and to better care for 

those who left their homes. MACV reinforced the importance of the issue 

by publishing a new annex devoted exclusively to the subject of refugees 

in the 1968 Campaign Plan.38

If U.S. officials were united in believing that the allies needed to do more 

to care for refugees, and if they were mostly in agreement on the need to 

reduce the number of displaced persons created by allied operations, they 

were of two minds as to the role refugees played in the conflict. Some saw 

the refugee crisis as an unmitigated disaster. Others believed that the flow of 

refugees into government-controlled territory hurt the Viet Cong by denying 

them labor and recruits. In essence, population movement drained the human 

sea in which the guerrillas swam, a turn of a phrase from Maoist guerrilla 

doctrine that Westmoreland himself employed. Certainly the phenomenon 

gave the government access to people it otherwise would not have had. The 

Viet Cong seemed to share the view that dislocated people represented a gain 

for the government and a loss for them, for they constantly pressured refugees who came from Viet Cong–dominated areas to return to their homes. A 

stark example of this occurred in Quang Nam in November, when the Viet 

Cong targeted refugee camps throughout the province, “resulting in heavy 

38 Comments on the Schell Manuscript, 16 Dec 67, pp. 8–10, attached to Memo, Hataway 

for Ambassador, 26 Jan 68; Msg, COMUSMACV 2564 to CG, III MAF, et al., 23 Jan 68, sub: 

Refugees; Msg, Saigon 8577 to State, 14 Oct 67; Memo, Peter R. Rosenblatt for Komer, 16 Feb 

68, sub: The Refugee Situation in I Corps; Robert W. Komer, Press Background Statement, 28 

Dec 67, sub: Refugee Situation; Rpt, Col F. P. Serong (Australian Army), CORDS, Dec 67, sub: 

The Refugee Situation, National Overview; Memo, R. M. Montague for Komer, 28 Dec 67, 

sub: Notes on Refugee Policy; Memo, Charles T. Cross, Acting Deputy, CORDS, I CTZ, for 

Komer, 7 Dec 67, Msg, CG, III MAF, to COMUSMACV, 2 Oct 67. All in Historians file, CMH. 

Wiesner, Victims and Survivors, pp. 84–98, 118–22.
Staying the Course

246

civilian casualties, destruction of over 600 dwellings, widespread terror and 

an obvious psychological impact.”39

The impact of relocation on the population varied. Most found living 

conditions to be worse than that of their peacetime villages, and U.S. officials 

openly worried that the government’s often shoddy treatment of refugees at 

best squandered an opportunity and at worst turned the affected people into 

opponents of the regime. On the other hand, a CORDS survey in Quang 

Ngai found that many refugees enjoyed being free from Viet Cong impositions and appreciated the improved safety that resulted from their relocation. 

Some even welcomed the mandatory evacuations imposed by allied forces. 

The reason for the latter sentiment was that one way the Viet Cong discouraged people from leaving Communist-dominated areas was by preventing 

them from taking their property with them. Becoming a refugee thus meant 

becoming destitute. However, when U.S. forces conducted a planned evacuation, they often helped people take out their livestock and belongings, thereby 

allowing the people to escape both Communist domination and the fighting 

while keeping their worldly goods.40

If the effects of population movement on the political struggle were 

debatable, in Quang Ngai and other “liberated” zones in which the enemy 

was deeply entrenched, evacuation made sense from a narrow, tactical point 

of view. Every person who relocated out of the combat area was one less 

potential casualty, and every depopulated acre was one more in which allied 

firepower could be applied against the enemy with less restraint—firepower 

that was critical owing to the enemy’s heavy fortifications.41

A CORDS investigation revealed how communities in Quang Ngai sometimes became casualties of war. When U.S. troops operated in Viet Cong–

controlled areas, they frequently came under fire or mine attack from hamlets, including ones that had previously been “cleared” of the enemy. Galled 

by the recurring threat but feeling constrained in the application of return 

fire due to the presence of civilians, U.S. units would issue stern warnings to 

the inhabitants. One such warning, a leaflet produced by the U.S. marines 

and published by Schell, depicted rubble and read, “If you support the Viet 

Cong . . . your village will look like this.” It continued:

The Viet Cong hide among innocent women and children in your villages 

to fire upon troops and aircraft. If the Viet Cong in this area use you or 

your village for this purpose, you can expect death from the sky. Do not 

let your lives and your homes be destroyed. Do not let the Viet Cong be 

the reason for the death of your loved ones. Report all Viet Cong locations 

immediately.42

39 Memos, CG, III MAF, for COMUSMACV, 4 Jan 68, sub: CORDS Field Overview for 

December 1967, p. 12; Senior Adviser, Quang Nam Province, for CORDS, 1 Dec 67, sub: Quang 

Nam Province, period ending 30 November 1967, 30 Nov 67, p. 3 (quote). Both in Historians 

files, CMH. 40 Rpt, CORDS, 13 Sep 67, p. 8.

41 Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, pp. 152–53. 42 Quote from Schell, “Quang Ngai and Quang Tin I,” p. 43, and see also pp. 42, 44. 
247

Reinforcing I Corps

The Americal Division distributed similar leaflets. The CORDS report 

explained what often happened next. 

After repeated warnings to the hamlet, usually to no avail, a search and 

destroy operation is launched. The hamlet is surrounded and searched and 

the inhabitants screened for Viet Cong suspects. They are allowed time to 

pack their belongings and collect their livestock and then are moved to 

one of the sixty-five refugee camps in the province. Shortly thereafter, the 

hamlet is destroyed. Notwithstanding this type of operation, friendly forces 

still continue to receive fire from such hamlets and encounter mines, but 

they no longer are inhibited from returning fire and calling in artillery or 

air strikes.43

As for anyone left behind, and people often refused to evacuate, allied 

officials tended to believe that such individuals had chosen to side with the 

enemy and would have to live with the consequences of their decision. An 

investigation revealed, however, that when civilians became casualties, U.S. 

forces treated them responsibly, regardless of who had caused their injury or 

on which side of the conflict the civilians were thought to belong.44

The Balance Sheet in I Corps

With the advent of the New Year, allied officials struggled to assess how 

matters were fairing in I Corps. They had at their disposal a mass of statistics 

and some subjective reports, but what did they mean? And how did the war 

look from the enemy’s perspective, or, for that matter, from the viewpoint of 

the Vietnamese people? Here as elsewhere in Vietnam, facts, assumptions, 

and unanswered questions blended together to create a picture that was at 

once hopeful and discouraging. 

Militarily, the allies had done well. During 1967, U.S., South Vietnamese, 

and South Korean forces reported that they had killed 40,000 enemy soldiers in I Corps and suspected that they had put out of action 33,000 more. 

They had captured 3,697 Communist personnel, 9,287 weapons, and 2,720 

tons of rice. Of the casualties, U.S. military forces had killed about 16,000 

Communists in large-unit operations and 9,000 in small-unit operations, 

with the number of small-unit operations conducted in the theater three times 

higher than in 1966. Focusing even more narrowly, between 1 November 1967 

and 31 January 1968, the Americal Division alone had killed nearly 4,600 

enemy soldiers and captured 1,425 weapons, indicating that at least on this 

front, positive news was likely to continue into the new year.45

43 Rpt, CORDS, 13 Sep 67, p. 8.

44 Comments on the Schell Manuscript, 16 Dec 67, p. 15, attached to Memo, Hataway for 

Ambassador, 26 Jan 68. 45 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, Americal Div, p. 26.
Staying the Course

248

Military pressure led by the United States was also a major factor in 

boosting the Chieu Hoi program. During 1967, a total of 2,258 individuals 

took advantage of the program, a 53 percent increase over the previous year. 

Heavy fighting in Quang Ngai generated the largest number of defectors 

in I Corps. In neighboring Quang Tin, an entire Viet Cong platoon of 38 

men surrendered, while during the last two months of the year defectors on 

three occasions guided Americal soldiers to caches totaling over 170 weapons, including recoilless rifles, machine guns, and many arms of Chinese 

manufacture.46 

There was also positive news on the political front. According to the 

CORDS senior representative in I Corps, 1967 had been a year of “slow but 

steady progress in pacification.” The number of “A” hamlets (hamlets that 

earned the highest score on the Hamlet Evaluation System [HES] scale) had 

trebled, the number of “B” hamlets had doubled, and the number of Viet 

Cong hamlets had declined by 14 percent. Seventy-eight percent of the hamlets scheduled for Revolutionary Development at the start of the year had 

completed the process. By year’s end, the HES reported that 56.6 percent of 

I Corps population was relatively secure—well below the national average of 

66.9 percent, but an 8.1 percent increase over the course of the year. Indeed, 

the 317,000 people added to the rolls of those living in government-controlled 

areas represented the largest gain of any corps area in 1967.47

During 1967, the allies had built 300 classrooms and trained 500 teachers in I Corps. CORDS had spent over 20 million piasters on expansion of 

hospitals in the region that over the course of the year had admitted 67,188 

patients, 18,000 of whom had war-related injuries. CORDS had also built 

23 village dispensaries and delivered 66,993 tons of commodities while constructing enough housing to shelter 60,000 refugee families.48

Task Force Oregon and the Americal Division had contributed significantly to pacification progress. For example, between November 1967 

and January 1968 General Koster’s division treated 65,407 patients through 

MEDCAP (Medical Civic Action Program) and helped build 3 dispensaries, 

17 schools, 22 wells, 21 public latrines, 3 marketplaces, 561 houses, 2 playgrounds, and a church. Americal units and individuals donated 1,390 pounds 

of clothes, 287,274 pounds of food, 58,000 board feet of lumber, 16,850 bars 

of soap, and 142,470 piasters during the same time period. Koster also significantly eased CORDS’ logistical difficulties by loaning it trucks to move 

its supplies and relocate refugees.49

46 Ibid., p. 39; Memos, CG, III MAF, for COMUSMACV, 4 Jan 68, pp. 7–10; Quang Tin 

Advisory Team for CORDS, 1 Nov 67, sub: Special Joint Narrative Report on Revolutionary 

Development, p. 6, Historians files, CMH. 47 Msg, COMUSMACV 03518 to CINCPAC, 3 Feb 68, sub: Pacification in South Vietnam 

during 1967, pp. 10–11, 17; Memo, CORDS for Distribution, 14 Jan 68, sub: Monthly 

Pacification Status Report, p. 3-1. Both in Historians files, CMH. Memo, CG, III MAF, for 

COMUSMACV, 4 Jan 68, pp. 1, 2, 5. 48 Memo, CG, III MAF, for COMUSMACV, 4 Jan 68, pp. 13–15.

49 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, Americal Div, pp. 37–38.
249

Reinforcing I Corps

In mid-November, General Koster initiated Operation Haystack, which 

paired companies and platoons from the Americal Division with National 

Police in a program that established random checkpoints on Highway 1. The 

effort led to the arrest of a number of Viet Cong agents who were attempting 

to move supplies from one place to another disguised as legitimate traders. 

In a related program, Americal Division police and National Police targeted 

the black market in and around Chu Lai, Tam Ky, and Duc Pho, restricting 

the flow of marijuana to U.S. troops and apprehending Vietnamese draft 

dodgers who made their living through the black market. Meanwhile, U.S. 

engineers were constantly busy with minesweeping, repair, and maintenance 

missions on Highway 1, and restoring fourteen bridges and thirty-four culverts destroyed by enemy demolitions in the final months of 1967. Engineers 

also opened twenty-two kilometers of Route 535 from Highway 1 to Landing 

Zone Ross, creating an all-weather road that extended into the heart of the 

Que Son Valley. By keeping the roads of central and southern I Corps open, 

Koster helped government programs and civilian commerce alike.50

Operation Haystack reflected an increasing interest on the part of U.S. 

military officials in making the counterinfrastructure program more effective. In September, a CORDS investigation stated that Task Force Oregon’s 

counterinfrastructure efforts had failed to do much damage to the enemy. 

50 Ibid., pp. 24, 30.

A U.S. medic checks the eyes of a young girl during a MEDCAP mission.
Staying the Course

250

According to the report, Viet Cong cadre had often been able to “hoodwink” 

U.S. soldiers due to their unfamiliarity with Vietnamese language, people, 

and customs. Vietnamese interpreters were not much help, both because they 

were few in number and because they were generally urban in origin and 

unfamiliar with the local situation. Consequently, the report recommended 

that U.S. units integrate a few locally recruited Popular Forces soldiers into 

each platoon. By year’s end, there were some glimmers of hope. Every jurisdiction now had district operations and intelligence coordination centers that 

were slowly gaining in experience. In troubled Duc Pho District, for example, 

the center supplied information to combined teams formed by members of 

the local provincial reconnaissance unit and a U.S. rifle platoon drawn from 

the 3d Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, which killed or captured sixty-two 

members of the infrastructure in the last two months of the year.51

In September 1967, a CORDS review stated that there was insufficient 

coordination between U.S. Army units, province advisers, and civil officials 

in I Corps. By year’s end, however, senior CORDS officials were heaping 

praise on the Army. Three U.S. Army civil affairs platoons were acting as 

liaisons between military and civilian agencies in coordinating civic actions 

in the Americal area of operations. The 29th Civil Affairs Company had also 

assigned displaced person teams to Quang Nam, Quang Tin, and Quang 

Ngai Provinces to assist in refugee relief efforts, while at the division level 

General Koster’s G–5 attended weekly meetings with the province advisory 

teams in Quang Tin and Quang Ngai. In Quang Tin, the senior province 

adviser reported in November that “the most favorable factor during this 

period has been the massive offensive operations by the U.S. Army units in 

the province. If these operations continue at this level it will allow the 1968 

[Revolutionary Development] program to be greatly expanded.” The following month, the senior CORDS representative in Quang Ngai wrote that relations between the province and U.S. units stationed there had been excellent, 

and that planning for Revolutionary Development “enjoyed the close coordination and received magnificent support from the leadership of the Americal 

Division.” Similarly, when elements of the 1st Cavalry Division moved into 

Quang Tri Province in January 1968, the province senior adviser reported 

that they “were outstanding in their eagerness to coordinate and cooperate 

with CORDS and [South Vietnamese] authorities.”52

Last but not least, the population seemed to be bearing up under the 

strain. Those who had suffered most as a result of the war, the refugees, 

seemed largely apathetic but not openly hostile to the government. Indeed, 

51 Rpt, CORDS, 13 Sep 67, p. 7 (quoted word), and p. 2, Encl 2; Memo, District Adviser, Duc 

Pho, for Senior Adviser, Quang Ngai Province, 27 Dec 67, sub: District Report, p. 1, Historians 

files, CMH. 52 Rpt, CORDS, 13 Sep 67, p. 11; Memo, CG, III MAF, for COMUSMACV, 4 Jan 68, p. 9; 

ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, Americal Div, pp. 34, 36; Memos, Quang Tin Advisory Team for 

CORDS, 1 Nov 67, p. 2 (quote); Senior Adviser, Quang Ngai, for Deputy, CORDS, III MAF, 

4 Dec 67, sub: Quang Ngai Province, period ending 30 November 1967, pp. 1, 4; Rpt, CORDS, 

Quang Tri Province, period ending 31 January 1968, 31 Jan 68, p. 9. All in Historians files, 

CMH.
251

Reinforcing I Corps

more seemed to blame the Viet Cong than the government for their plight. As 

for the population as a whole, the senior CORDS representative in I Corps 

reported that the “morale of the populace has vacillated during the year, 

depending on security conditions and political events. The net balance, however, has been a significant rise in confidence in the [South Vietnamese government] and a rising belief that the Viet Cong cannot win.” Contributing to 

this confidence was the favorable view most civilians reportedly had of U.S. 

soldiers. Two factors underlay this phenomenon. First, the populace credited 

the Americans with improving their security through military action. People 

surveyed in September contrasted U.S. military performance favorably with 

that of French soldiers more than a decade earlier, noting not only superior 

U.S. firepower, but also that the Americans patrolled more vigorously than 

had the French. Second, the CORDS survey reported that “almost all of the 

people in the operation region of Task Force Oregon have acknowledged 

that soldiers in American units have treated people with kindness.” All and 

all, General Koster had reason to believe that his combat and noncombat 

actions were having a generally positive effect.53

Yet there were countervailing signs too. The same report that credited the 

majority of U.S. soldiers with kindness also reported that ill-considered acts 

by some—unnecessary shootings, unwarranted destruction, and the molestation of women—tarnished America’s reputation. U.S. actions had likewise 

not been able to improve the region’s critical rice deficit. Rice production 

in I Corps had held steady at 154,320 tons in 1967, considerably below the 

1965–1966 average of 435,400 tons. This was due to the heavy military activity 

that had damaged farms and spurred farmers to abandon land in contested 

areas. In addition to disrupting the economy, the movement of people was 

creating a staggering burden. By year’s end, I Corps had over half a million 

refugees—far more than any other corps zone in Vietnam due to the theater’s 

peculiar military and geographical conditions. Refugee care drained social 

resources away from other government programs, including Revolutionary 

Development. Moreover, U.S. officials fretted that the Vietnamese government was missing a significant opportunity to win converts by its handling of 

the crisis. Noting that “apathy on the part of government officials remained 

the single most important obstacle to the refugee program,” the entire U.S. 

civil and military apparatus pressed the Vietnamese government to improve 

refugee care. Although some improvement was reported by year’s end, a 

brigade commander in I Corps vocalized a common sentiment among U.S. 

officials when he remarked about a local district chief, “Hell, I care more 

about his people than he does!”54

53 Rpt, Dodson, 4 Sep 67, p. 5; Memo, CG, III MAF, for COMUSMACV, 4 Jan 68, p. 7; Rpt, 

CORDS, 13 Sep 67, pp. 1, 4 (quote), Encl 2. 54 Rpt, CORDS, 13 Sep 67, p. 10; and p. 1, Encl 2; Memo, CG, III MAF, for COMUSMACV, 

4 Jan 68, pp. 11, 12 (III MAF quote). Brigade commander quote from Comments on the Schell 

Manuscript, 16 Dec 67, p. 16, attached to Memo, Hataway for Ambassador, 26 Jan 68. Wiesner, 

Victims and Survivors, pp. 86, 88, 111. 
Staying the Course

252

When one considers that the government registered 200,000 new refugees 

in I Corps in 1967, it is clear that much of the HES gains that year were 

the result of people moving into government areas rather than the government expanding its control outward. This was certainly the case in Duc Pho 

District, where the number of people living in government-controlled areas 

doubled, nearly all as the result of population movement. In all of I Corps, 

the allies had been able to provide the necessary security for only 5,600 refugee families to return to their native hamlets.55

To make matters worse, the enemy had made up much of his losses, 

mostly by infiltrating more soldiers in from North Vietnam. Reports indicated a massive increase in truck traffic along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The 

vehicles bore not just fresh manpower but tons of weaponry such as assault 

rifles, antitank rockets, and artillery that materially improved the enemy’s 

arsenal. The appearance of the 304th and the 320th PAVN Divisions near Khe 

Sanh forced Westmoreland to alter his plans. In mid-December, he canceled 

the first phase of Operation York (the incursion into the Xo Da base area of 

southwestern Quang Ngai Province) so that the 1st Cavalry Division could 

move farther north into Thua Thien and Quang Tri Provinces by late January 

1968, a month ahead of schedule, in case the enemy launched a new offensive 

against Khe Sanh and the Demilitarized Zone. Should the enemy not act, the 

1st Cavalry Division would be poised to attack base areas in western Quang 

Tri and Thua Thien in the spring as originally envisioned in phases two and 

three of York.

56

U.S. ground combat units could do little about North Vietnamese infiltration given the administration’s proscription against cross-border operations, but even within their sphere of action, signs existed that all was not 

well. Although CORDS evaluators praised the U.S. Army’s extensive civic 

action effort, they conceded that “its value is difficult to assess.” As one 

Vietnamese member of a CORDS inspection team reported, social welfare 

programs could not by themselves erase years of Communist propaganda 

and domination.57 Equally important was the fact that even though “the 

military situation is considerably improved” thanks to U.S. combat operations, security, “the sine qua non of Revolutionary Development program 

accomplishment” according to the region’s senior CORDS official, remained 

“the primary problem within I Corps.” Until the security situation could 

be improved, little could be expected of pacification. As the U.S. adviser in 

Quang Ngai explained, people “like the material things the Revolutionary 

Development cadre can produce or procure for the good of their hamlets. But 

they are still reluctant to give their full support to a government they don’t yet 

55 Memo, CG, III MAF, for COMUSMACV, 4 Jan 68, pp. 11–12; Rpt, CORDS, 13 Sep 67, 

p. 3.56 Memorandum for the Record (MFR), 9 Dec 67, sub: Meeting, Westmoreland History file, 

no. 26, CMH; Cmd Chronology, 3d Marine Amphibious Force, Dec 67, Historians files, CMH; 

Study, Estimate of the Enemy Situation: DMZ Area, Vietnam, 1 Jan 67, U.S. Fleet Marine 

Force, Pacific, Historians files, CMH; Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, pp. 14–15; 

Msg, Westmoreland MAC 12397 to Wheeler, 20 Dec 67, p. 4, Westmoreland Msg files, CMH. 57 Rpt, CORDS, 13 Sep 67, pp. 10 (quote), 11.
253

Reinforcing I Corps

fully understand or trust and which is often unable to supply total security 

from Viet Cong terrorism and personal reprisals.”58

The Viet Cong did their best to add to the insecurity. Although the 

number of large engagements fell in I Corps thanks to U.S. actions, the total 

number of Viet Cong–initiated incidents actually doubled in 1967 over 1966, 

making it the only corps zone in South Vietnam to experience a rise in incidents. Most of these incidents were small, but they undermined government 

authority and kept the public in a state of unease. Particularly noticeable was 

a rise in terrorism, part of a nationwide trend but especially stark in I Corps, 

where the number of assassinations and abductions tripled over the course of 

the year, leaving 1,127 civilians dead and 1,794 missing.59 

Even more surprising to CORDS investigators was that in Quang Ngai 

the enemy attacked hamlets in U.S. Army areas of operations more frequently 

than in areas protected by the South Vietnamese Army. This was the opposite of what they had expected due to the U.S. Army’s greater level of activity, 

but the situation probably reflected the fact that U.S. units operated in the 

more difficult outer areas, shielding the National Priority Area occupied by 

government forces. Still, the data indicated the limits of U.S. achievement. 

Although the U.S. forces had driven the enemy’s main forces away from the 

lowlands, their cordon was never so ironclad as to prevent incursions, nor 

had they been able to root out the many snipers, guerrillas, and political 

cadre who had remained behind, with one survey estimating that 75 percent 

of the refugees in Duc Pho District were still in contact with the Viet Cong.60

U.S. officials placed most of the blame for the situation on the South 

Vietnamese. They bore primary responsibility for the local security, counterinfrastructure, and state-building effort, but they often failed to followup U.S. military achievements with effective action. U.S. officials expressed 

satisfaction with the fact that South Vietnam had committed 16 regular battalions, 1 battalion and 34 companies of Regional Forces, and 190 Popular 

Forces platoons to support Revolutionary Development in I Corps, with most 

of the government’s remaining units performing security and offensive missions that complemented the pacification effort. They particularly praised 

the pacification work of the 1st South Vietnamese Division in the north, but 

in the south, CORDS officials believed the South Vietnamese 2d Division 

was “excessively passive” and the Regional and Popular Forces understaffed. 

If inadequacies in recruitment, training, and equipment were not enough, the 

task of keeping the territorials up to strength was complicated by high desertion rates. Many units had “ghost” soldiers on the rosters—nonexistent men 

for whom commanders collected salaries—while in Quang Ngai three entire 

Popular Forces platoons were manned solely by invalids.61 

58 Memo, CG, III MAF, for COMUSMACV, 4 Jan 68, p. 8 (quotes); Memo, Senior Adviser, 

Quang Ngai, for Deputy, CORDS, III MAF, 4 Dec 67, p. 5. 59 Memo, CG, III MAF, for COMUSMACV, 4 Jan 68, pp. 8–9; Msg, COMUSMACV 03518 

to CINCPAC, 3 Feb 68, pp. 15, 17. 60 Rpt, CORDS, 13 Sep 67, pp. 5–6; and p. 4, Encl 2.

61 Memo, CG, III MAF, for COMUSMACV, 4 Jan 68, p. 10; Rpt, CORDS, 13 Sep 67, pp. 

4 (quote), 6.
Staying the Course

254

Inadequacies on the civil side matched shortcomings exhibited by the 

South Vietnamese security services. Most of the government ministries supporting the Revolutionary Development program continued to display little 

genuine interest, and the performance of officials was often mediocre. In the 

words of the senior CORDS adviser for I Corps, “Certain obstacles exist 

which could negate the impressive progress of this past year. The most serious problem will be transforming the government of Vietnam into an effective political organism which will genuinely serve the needs of the people 

and with which they can identify.” Nation building in war-torn I Corps was 

clearly going to be a task of many more years.62

The combination of the government’s weaknesses and the enemy’s 

strengths left two of the three provinces in which Americal operated at the 

bottom of the HES scale in I Corps, with just 41.7 percent and 46.2 percent of 

the population relatively secure in Quang Nam and Quang Tin, respectively. 

Quang Ngai, by contrast, had the highest level of government control in I 

Corps, at 58.6 percent. As in many provinces, however, much of the territory 

was contested, if not in enemy hands outright.63

The sometimes conflicting imperatives of defeating the enemy’s main 

forces, improving security, and minimizing civilian casualties and social dislocation raised questions as to whether a change in method was necessary. 

Noting that “Task Force Oregon’s experience has demonstrated that clearing 

hamlets is of little use unless forces remain behind to hold them,” a CORDS 

study team wondered if U.S. units should assume from the South Vietnamese 

greater responsibility for the local security mission. Advisers in Quang Ngai 

championed this idea. They had seen the disruption to pacification caused 

both by the rotation of U.S. units in and out of the province and by the heavy 

toll that U.S. tactics took on the socioeconomic fabric of the countryside. In 

August, Binh Son District senior adviser Lt. Col. Robert C. Jarvis suggested a 

scheme to reclaim the depopulated sections of his district. Conceding that “the 

inclination of conventional force commanders to support a system of removing 

civilian non-combatants out of harm’s way has moral, political, and tactical 

merit,” Jarvis believed that U.S. forces needed to integrate their efforts with 

a systematic oil-spot campaign that would reclaim lost land, resettle refugees, 

and mobilize the population for their own defense. Under his proposal, people 

would be resettled in abandoned territory, not in their original homes, but in 

specially selected and fortified communities not unlike the agrovilles and strategic hamlets of old. U.S. units would then conduct search-and-destroy operations in the area, working closely with the Vietnamese to restore order, security, and governance. Jarvis’ successor, Maj. Neill J. Willoughby, went further. 

Casting much of the blame for Binh Son’s lack of progress on local officials, he 

suggested two major changes. First, that U.S. advisers be given greater authority over their Vietnamese counterparts, for until this was done, “we will continue to ‘throw sand against the wind.’” Second, he wanted the United States to 

do more to upgrade the Popular Forces, for “unless drastic changes are made 

62 Memo, CG, III MAF, for COMUSMACV, 4 Jan 68, pp. 3, 7 (quote).

63 Memo, CORDS for distribution, 14 Jan 68, p. 3-4.
255

Reinforcing I Corps

to upgrade these forces, across the board, we can forget about winning.” Binh 

Son District was home to eight of the seventy-nine Marine Combined Action 

Platoons in I Corps, and the adviser believed that they did an excellent job in 

boosting the security of the communities they served. He proposed having U.S. 

Army units join the marines by deploying squads to live and work with the 

Popular Forces in the hamlets.64

These suggestions had some merit and reflected the growing movement, 

spearheaded by CORDS, for greater coordination of U.S. operations with 

politico-military programs. On the other hand, few of the proposals were 

new, and elements of them had already been implemented in various ways. 

As for breaking down Army units on a large scale and stationing them in 

hamlets, this was a nonstarter. Neither Secretary McNamara, Ambassador 

Komer, nor General Westmoreland supported the idea.65 The Marine program had had some success, but it was significantly behind schedule, and 

after two years had yet to produce a single hamlet defense organization capable of standing on its own. Recognizing that the elephant in the room was 

the North Vietnamese Army, General Cushman allocated only 1,250 men to 

the Combined Action Program while devoting over 98 percent of his marines 

to operations indistinguishable from those conducted by the Army. Given 

the limitations of the program, MACV preferred to enhance local security 

through the use of mobile training teams that augmented the existing territorial advisory system. Such an approach was more in keeping with the 

mutually agreed upon division of labor between the allies, an arrangement 

that made sense not just on political grounds, but for military reasons as well. 

As a CORDS investigation team explained, 

It seems doubtful whether Task Force Oregon should be assigned the mission of occupying ground, or villages or hamlets that have been cleared 

of large units. The mobile battalions which compose Task Force Oregon

would be frittered away in company and platoon size local garrisons. Task 

Force Oregon’s effectiveness as a highly mobile striking unit to be used 

against main force Viet Cong regiments and battalions which continue to 

threaten the coastal plain, would diminish.66

In short, deconstructing the allies’ principal offensive weapon in the 

name of local security would reduce capability and risk disaster given the 

enemy’s military strength. Until and unless the enemy’s large, conventional 

units could be defeated, the U.S. military would have no choice but to focus 

the majority of its efforts on the main force war.

64 Rpt, CORDS, 13 Sep 67, p. 8; Memo, Lt Col Robert C. Jarvis, Sub Sector Adviser, Binh 

Son, for Sector Adviser, Quang Ngai, 16 Aug 67, attached to Memo, Dodson for Komer, 16 Aug 

67, sub: Evaluation of Refugee Handling Operations in Quang Ngai Province; Memo, Senior 

Adviser, Binh Son District, for Senior Adviser, Quang Ngai, 29 Jan 68, sub: District Report, p. 

1 (quotes). Both in Historians files, CMH. 65 Birtle, U.S. Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations Doctrine, 1942–1976, pp. 

399–400, 415–16, endnote 85. 66 Rpt, CORDS, 13 Sep 67, pp. 4, 6.

8

The Gathering Storm

As the northeast monsoon campaign season reached its midpoint in 

early January 1968, General Westmoreland felt relatively satisfied 

with the progress his command had achieved during the last three months. 

Allied forces had decimated two of North Vietnam’s most experienced divisions at Loc Ninh, Song Be, and Dak To. They had preempted or contained 

North Vietnamese offensives in the coastal lowlands, on the Bong Son Plain, 

in the Tuy Hoa Basin, and in the Que Son Valley. The allies had reopened 

important lines of communications, the upper part of Highway 13 in III 

Corps, and the stretch of Highway 1 between II and III Corps, while also preserving existing routes—Highway 4 in the upper delta and Highway 19 in the 

Central Highlands—that the enemy tried to close. Rice denial efforts were 

taking a toll on the health and morale of the enemy units that operated in 

the coastal provinces of I Corps and II Corps. Allied combat operations had 

eliminated 25,000 enemy soldiers and captured nearly 8,000 weapons during 

the last quarter. Another 4,500 enemy soldiers had voluntarily surrendered. 

The pacification program continued to lag in some areas but the general 

trend was positive, with 66.9 percent of the people relatively secure (urban 

areas plus hamlets rated A, B, or C by the Hamlet Evaluation System).1

Westmoreland expected to see even faster progress during the coming 

year as MACV added more troops and some major initiatives. He anticipated completing the Strong Point Obstacle System and converting the 101st 

Airborne Division into an airmobile division. He also intended to consolidate 

the entire 9th Infantry Division at Dong Tam for offensive operations in IV 

Corps and to remove the 1st Cavalry Division from daily operations so that 

it could serve as a true, theaterwide reserve. The present strength of MACV 

now stood at around 480,000 troops, a figure that would rise to 525,000 personnel when the remaining part of the Program 5 deployment package—a 

mix of helicopter, support, and fighter-bomber units—arrived by mid-1968.2

Ambassador Bunker was equally optimistic about the political situation in 

South Vietnam. Writing to the White House on 13 January, the U.S. ambassador said that President Thieu now appeared to be willing to undertake many of 

the reforms suggested to him by the U.S. Mission. The South Vietnamese leader 

promised to crack down on corrupt and incompetent officials, and announced 

his intention to replace more than a third of his province and district chiefs 

1

 Periodic Intel Rpts, MACV, Oct 67, 30 Oct 67, p. 15; MACV, Nov 67, 30 Nov 67, p. 15; 

MACV, Dec 67, 31 Dec 67, p. 15; Memo, CORDS for distribution, 14 Jan 68, sub: Monthly 

Pacification Status Report, p. 3-1. All in Historians files, CMH. 2

 MACV History, 1967, vol. 1, pp. 156–57. 
Staying the Course

258

in the next few months. Thieu had called for a national mobilization effort, 

which would expand the size of the South Vietnamese Armed Forces by nearly 

100,000 troops during the coming year, around half of that increase going to 

the Regional and Popular Forces. The national economy was growing, and the 

rate of inflation was under control. President Thieu had settled his differences 

with Vice President Ky, his former rival, and the likelihood of another military 

coup or mass civilian demonstrations in Saigon seemed remote.3

Though the pacification effort had yielded mixed results in 1967, 

CORDS Director Robert Komer expected to see stronger gains in the 

coming year. The U.S. government had budgeted over $500 million in aid 

to the Ministry of Revolutionary Development, up from $350 million in 

1967. Komer expected the number of 59-man Revolutionary Development 

teams to grow from the present total of 555 teams to around 700 by the 

end of 1968. Additional manpower was flowing into the security services. 

The Regional and Popular Forces stood to gain another 40,000 personnel, a strength increase of more than 10 percent. Now that the South 

Vietnamese government had agreed to participate in MACV’s Intelligence 

Coordination and Exploitation (ICEX) effort, soon to be renamed the 

Phuong Hoang/Phoenix program, thousands of men would be added to the 

South Vietnamese National Police Field Force and other security agencies 

that were in charge of identifying and apprehending Viet Cong cadre. With 

those extra resources, Ambassador Komer hoped to establish another 1,480 

Revolutionary Development hamlets by the end of 1968, exceeding the 1967 

tally of around 900 hamlets by more than 50 percent.4

Admiral Sharp agreed that the allied war effort appeared to be gaining 

momentum. Writing to General Wheeler on 1 January, the CINCPAC commander reported that the 1967 combined campaign had produced a “definite shift in the military situation favorable to us . . . the enemy is no longer 

capable of a [decisive] military victory.”5

Even so, Sharp and Westmoreland both predicted that the war would intensify in 1968. In a message to Wheeler on 20 December, the MACV commander 

said that the enemy had now “decided that prolongation of his past policies for 

conducting the war would lead to his defeat,” and that Hanoi “would have to 

make a major effort to reverse the downward trend.” Given the current disposition of forces, North Vietnam was most likely to launch a major offensive in 

northern I Corps, a sector where the ratio of allied to enemy troops was nearly 

equal, or to conduct further attacks in the borderlands of II Corps and III 

Corps in hopes of getting better results than it had at Loc Ninh, Song Be, and 

Dak To. Whatever the enemy had in mind, Westmoreland believed that MACV 

possessed sufficient resources to handle any threat.6

3

 Telg, Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker AMB 16225 to President Lyndon B. Johnson, 17 Jan 

68, pp. 1–3, document 77a, NSF-Vietnam Country files, LBJL. 4

 Text of News Conf, Ambassador Robert Komer, 24 Jan 68, Historians files, CMH.

5

 Msg, Admiral Ulysses S. Grant Sharp to JCS, 1 Jan 68, pp. 1–2, Historians files, CMH.

6

 Msg, Westmoreland MAC 12397 to General Earle G. Wheeler, 20 Dec 67, pp. 1–3, 

Westmoreland Msg files, CMH.
259

The Gathering Storm

Writing to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 26 December, 

Admiral Sharp endorsed Westmoreland’s opinion that “the enemy may be 

approaching a period where basic decisions concerning the future conduct of 

the war probably will have to be made.” Sharp did not anticipate the enemy 

making an all-out, go-for-broke effort since Hanoi had sufficient intelligence 

capabilities to be accurately informed about the balance of power in the 

South. Even so, he agreed with Westmoreland that “the enemy hopes that if 

he strikes some effective blows in the next few months the U.S. may respond 

to pressures from home and abroad and accept a (Viet Cong–dominated) 

coalition government.” If those offensives failed to generate the desired 

results, he expected Hanoi to return to a strategy of protracted war but at 

a reduced level. “In summary,” the admiral wrote, “most of the evidence we 

hold points toward the approach of an important although not final period 

in the enemy situation . . . the likelihood of a final effort in the winter-spring 

offensive sometime after Tet cannot be discounted but remains remote.”7

Enemy Preparations for Tet

As the new allied campaign plan was going into effect at the beginning of 

January, the Fourteenth Plenum of the Lao Dong Party Central Committee 

officially endorsed the general offensive–general uprising strategy first proposed by the Politburo in October 1967. The only element yet to be decided 

was the exact time and date that it would begin.

At this stage, preparations for the offensive had been proceeding in earnest for more than two months. Almost 35,000 soldiers had traveled down the 

Ho Chi Minh Trail during that time, roughly three times the normal average. 

Communist logisticians had delivered more than 61,000 tons of supplies to 

the southern battlefield, twice what the North had committed to the previous 

winter-spring campaign. Nearly all of the local force units had traded in their 

World War II–era weapons for new AK47s and rocket-propelled grenade 

launchers. Rank-and-file soldiers had received dozens of hours of indoctrination meant to convince them that the war was entering its decisive phase and 

could be won within the next year.8

In early January, only a few high-ranking generals in each Military 

Region and Front headquarters knew the full extent of the plan. The colonels 

who commanded regiments and senior colonels who commanded divisions 

were aware of Hanoi’s intention to launch a general offensive and general 

uprising—they had all been briefed on Resolution 14 via special study guides 

issued by the Ministry of Defense back in October—but they did not know 

when it would start, or what was going to happen outside of their tactical 

area. Lower-ranking officers would receive their orders approximately a week 

7

 Msg, Sharp to Wheeler, 26 Dec 67, pp. 1–2, Westmoreland Msg files, CMH.

8

 Special Rpt, CMIC, no. 2088, 30 Jul 68, sub: Preparations for the Tet Offensive, p. 2, box 8, 

CMIC Interrogation Rpts, Asst Ch of Staff, Intel, MACV, J–2, RG 472, NACP.
Staying the Course

260

beforehand; the average soldier would not learn about the offensive until less 

than twenty-four hours before he went into battle. 

According to the blueprint developed by PAVN Chief of Staff General 

Dung, the first phase of the offensive would begin at Khe Sanh ten days 

before the main attack got under way. General Hai’s instructions were to 

besiege the Marine base with the 304th and 325C Divisions in order to “draw 

enemy forces away from other theaters of operation.” North Vietnamese 

leaders especially hoped to pull in South Vietnamese airborne and Marine 

battalions from the Joint General Reserve so they would be sidelined when 

the cities came under attack.9

 

The initial wave of the offensive called for approximately 45,000 Viet Cong 

and 40,000 North Vietnamese main and local force soldiers to invade almost 

9

 Quote from Chien Troung Tri-Thien-Hue Trong Cuoc Khang Chien Chong My Cuu Nuoc 

Toan Thang (Du Thao) [The Tri-Thien-Hue Battlefield/Military Region During the Victorious 

War of National Salvation Against the Americans (draft)] (Hue: Thuan Hoa Publishing House, 

1985), pp. 135–36. Chien Dich Tien Cong Duong 9 - Khe Sanh Xuan He 1968 [The Spring-Summer 

1968 Khe Sanh -- Route 9 Offensive Campaign] (Hanoi: Military History Institute of Vietnam, 

1987), p. 16 (hereafter cited as Khe Sanh-Route 9 Offensive Campaign), copy in Historians 

files, CMH. Su Doan 304, Tap II [304th Division, Volume II] (Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing 

House, 1990), pp. 59, 62–63 (hereafter cited as 304th Division), copy in Historians files, CMH.

The Soviet-designed RPG7 rocket-propelled grenade launcher was a more 

powerful successor to the RPG2 launcher and began to arrive on the battlefield 

in late 1967.
261

The Gathering Storm

300 cities, including most of the 44 provincial capitals, around one-third of 

the 245 district capitals, and all 6 autonomous cities, including Saigon. Their 

main targets were South Vietnamese command, control, and administrative 

facilities; radio stations; airfields; and logistical depots. In the countryside, 

artillery and sapper units would strike dozens of allied firebases, airfields, 

and bridges. Hamlet-based guerrillas would try to overrun Regional and 

Popular Forces outposts, impede traffic on secondary roads, and assassinate 

local officials.

As Communist troops poured into the cities, undercover political cadre 

and urban agents would take to the streets with banners and bullhorns, 

exhorting the civilian population to rise up against the government. Viet 

Cong hit squads would attempt to kill high-ranking South Vietnamese officials, for “without the annihilation of tyrants and spies, there would be no 

uprising.” Once the government apparatus in each city had been paralyzed, 

local party committees would emerge from the shadows and set up revolutionary councils to complete the seizure of power.10 

General Dung directed the heaviest attacks against Saigon and its outlaying districts. Ten local force battalions and urban sappers from the F100 

Special Action Group would destroy command and control centers in the 

capital, while the 5th PLAF, 7th PAVN, and 9th PLAF Divisions attacked 

allied installations and blocked roads on the outskirts of Saigon. Hue, the 

former imperial capital and a symbol of Vietnamese nationalism, was to be 

the second main theater in the general offensive. Three North Vietnamese 

regiments under the command of the Hue City Front would overrun the 

walled city, while a fourth PAVN regiment, detached from the 325C Division

at Khe Sanh, occupied several hamlets to the west of Hue to open a supply 

channel between the city and Base Area 114 in the nearby mountains. At 

least two more regiments would march down from Khe Sanh in the days 

that followed.

In other parts of the country, North Vietnamese main force soldiers would 

accompany local Viet Cong troops when they invaded their target cities. The 

2d PAVN Division, for example, would send a battalion into Da Nang to 

assist three local force battalions. In II Corps, a battalion from the 3d PAVN 

Division would enter Qui Nhon alongside two Viet Cong units; two battalions 

from the 24th PAVN Regiment and two local force battalions would invade 

Kontum City; and the entire 33d PAVN Regiment would enter Ban Me Thuot 

alongside three local force battalions.

Viet Cong local and main force units would spearhead most of the attacks 

in III Corps and all of the assaults in IV Corps. Outside of the capital zone, 

10 Quote from Intel Rpt, Department of Defense (DoD), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), 

no. 6027069968, 23 Jan 68, sub: Propaganda Leaflets, p. 8, box 13, DoD Intel Information Rpts, 

Asst Ch of Staff, Intel, MACV, J–2, RG 472, NACP. Special Rpt, CMIC, no. 2074, 30 Jul 68, 

sub: Preparations for Offensive, p. 3, box 8, CMIC Interrogation Rpts, Asst Ch of Staff, Intel, 

MACV, J–2, RG 472, NACP; U.S. Mission Saigon, “The New Situation and Mission,” VDRN, 

no. 20, Mar 68, p.1, Historians files, CMH; Combined Document Exploitation Center, Intel 

Bull 9388, 9 Feb 68, p. 2, box 29, CDEC Bulls, Asst Ch of Staff, Intel, MACV, J–2, RG 472, 

NACP.
PAV

III

PA

I

29(-)

PAVN

III

325C

PAVN

X X

95C

PAVN

III

8 29

PAVN

I I

USMC

2 9

I I

USMC

3

III

USMC

26

III

USMC

3 9

I I

CAM

CA LU

KHE SANH

ROCKPILE

Song Ben Hai

556

9

9

D E M I L I TA R I Z E D Z O N E

D E M I L I TA R I Z E D Z O N E

D E M I L I TA R I Z E D Z O N E

D E M I L I TA R I Z E D Z 

Lao Bao

Lang Vei

Huong Hoa

L A O S

S O U T H V I E T N A M

L A O S

N O R T H V I E T N A M

NORTH

VIETNAM

Map 23
812

N

90

AVN

III

USMC

3

FWD

X X

USMC

9

III

USMC

12

III

USMC

3 4

I I

USMC

3 3

I I

USMC

2 1

I I

ARVN

2

III

USMC

1

III

USMC

1

A–2 I I

A–3

CON THIEN/A–4

A–1

C–1

C–4

C–2A

C–2

C–3

C–3A

DONG HA

QUANG TRI

CAM LO

MP CARROLL

GIO LINH

CUA VIET

GULF OF 

TONKIN

Song Thach Han

Song Mieu Giang

Song Thach Han

561

561

558

556

559

555

1

1

1

1

9

D Z O N E

A B A N D O N E D 

Ba Long Thon My Chanh

Hai Lang

Trung Luong

Quang Tri

Lang La Vang Ta

Dong Ha

Cam Lo

Q UA N G T R I

T H UA T H I E N

NORTHERN I CORPS

SITUATION

January 1968

0

0 5 Kilometers

Miles 5

Military Installation

0 300 800 1400 and Above

ELEVATION IN METERS
Staying the Course

264

the strongest attacks in the delta would be directed at the cities of My Tho, 

Ben Tre, Vinh Long, and Can Tho. Multiple Viet Cong battalions would also 

attack Da Lat and Phan Thiet in southern II Corps. 

North Vietnamese leaders expected to launch a second phase of the 

general offensive about three weeks after the first, using the approximately 

15,000 soldiers that would come down the Ho Chi Minh Trail during the 

intervening period to replenish the losses sustained during the initial phase. 

Following that up with a third phase in early March, the enemy high command would then evaluate the political and military situation to determine if 

and when another round of general offensives would begin later that year.11 

The Politburo waited until 14 January to choose the exact day and hour 

that the offensive was to begin. It decided to strike at midnight between the 

first and second days of Tet Mau Than, the holiday that marked the start of 

the lunar new year. Doing so would violate the cease-fire pledge they had 

made, and potentially alienate some of the urban residents the enemy was 

counting on to participate in antigovernment demonstrations, but the military advantage of attacking when more than 50 percent of South Vietnamese 

soldiers were expected to be on leave was too great to pass up. To preserve 

security, General Dung would transmit that information to his commanders 

a mere seventy-two hours ahead of time, giving them just enough time to get 

their troops into their forward attack positions.12

Warning Signs

On the evening of 2 January, a Marine listening post outside Khe Sanh 

ambushed six North Vietnamese soldiers who appeared to be on a reconnaissance mission. The marines killed five of the men; the sixth, though wounded, 

escaped in the darkness. The five dead soldiers proved to be high-ranking 

North Vietnamese officers, including a regimental commander. That incident, combined with word that the 304th and 325C Divisions were closing 

in around the combat base, convinced Westmoreland’s chief of intelligence, 

Brig. Gen. Phillip Davidson, that a major showdown was developing at Khe 

Sanh (see Map 23).13

Westmoreland took all possible measures to ensure that the outcome 

of the battle would never be in doubt. The key to his plan was overwhelming firepower. He ordered the III Marine Amphibious Force and the U.S. 

Seventh Air Force to design a plan to subject the North Vietnamese around 

11 Tong Ket Cuoc Khang Chien Chong My Cuu Nuoc: Thang Loi va Bai Hoc [Review of the 

Resistance War Against the Americans to Save the Nation: Victory and Lessons] (Hanoi: National 

Political Publishing House, 1995), pp. 67–73 (hereafter cited as Review of the Resistance War 

Against the Americans), copy in Historians files, CMH. 12 Tran Bach Dang, 35 Nam Mau Than: Bo Chi Huy Tien Phuong ABon Tap; Hai Muoi Chin 

Tet (28-1-1968-Chu Nhat) [The 35th Anniversary of the Tet Offensive: The Forward Headquarters 

Charges Forward; 29 Day of the Lunar Month (Sunday, 28 January 1968)] Bao Cong An T.P. Ho 

Chi Minh [Ho Chi Minh City Public Security Newspaper] 23 Jan 03. 13 Msg, Westmoreland MAC 00276 to Sharp, 7 Jan 68, Westmoreland Msg files, CMH. 
265

The Gathering Storm

Khe Sanh to the most sustained bombardment of the war. The resulting 

operation, named Niagara to invoke an image of cascading bombs and 

shells, used a concept known as SLAM (Search, Locate, Annihilate, and 

Monitor) that Westmoreland’s deputy for air operations, General Momyer, 

had developed four months earlier to break the siege at Con Thien. SLAM 

placed all available air, ground, and naval assets under a single manager, 

cutting through bureaucratic tangles and parochial service barriers to bring 

the maximum amount of firepower to bear on a target with the greatest 

possible speed and efficiency.14

The first phase of Niagara, an intensive reconnaissance and intelligence collection effort to “search” and “locate,” began immediately. General 

Momyer increased the number of aerial reconnaissance flights over Khe 

Sanh and seeded the surrounding terrain with air-dropped seismic sensors. 

Radio research units in the air and on the ground eavesdropped on North 

Vietnamese electronic communications, and an elite U.S. Army Special 

Forces reconnaissance unit that Westmoreland sent to Khe Sanh tracked 

enemy movements on the ground.15

When MACV had developed a fix on the enemy’s positions, it would 

unleash the “annihilate” phase of Niagara II, a round-the-clock bombing 

effort involving B–52 strikes, close air support sorties from the 1st Marine 

Aircraft Wing and the U.S. Seventh Air Force units at Da Nang, and artillery fire from the sixteen 175-mm. guns at Camp Carroll, some twenty kilometers to the west. Marine gunners at Khe Sanh would add to that fire 

with three 105-mm. howitzer batteries, one 155-mm. howitzer battery, and 

one 4.2-inch mortar battery. Meanwhile, ground patrols from Khe Sanh 

and reconnaissance aircraft equipped with high-resolution cameras would 

conduct poststrike assessments (the “monitor” phase) in order to refine the 

targeting process.16

Sensitive to the political implications of fighting a high-profile battle near the 

North Vietnamese border, Westmoreland wanted the South Vietnamese Army 

to play a visible role in the defense of Khe Sanh. President Thieu was in complete 

agreement. At his instructions, General Vien ordered his corps commander, 

General Lam, to send the South Vietnamese 37th Ranger Battalion to join the 

garrison at Khe Sanh. Vien also flew two South Vietnamese airborne battalions 

to Quang Tri Province, giving Lam a total of three airborne battalions. 

While Westmoreland was preparing to engage the enemy in northern 

I Corps, he also saw signs in early to mid-January that other parts of South 

Vietnam might be in danger too. Some of the earliest warnings came in the 

western highlands. On 2 January, radio researchers from I Field Force intercepted a message from B3 Front headquarters instructing regional command14 Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, pp. 203–04. 15 Ibid., p. 315; Rpt, Senate Hearings, Confirmation of General William C. Westmoreland 

as Ch of Staff, 14 May 68, sub: Operation Niagara, U.S. Army, Fact Bk II, copy in Historians 

files, CMH. 16 Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, p. 337; Rpt, CHECO, 13 Sep 68, sub: Khe Sanh 

(Operation Niagara), pp. 4–12, Historians files, CMH; Bernard C. Nalty, Air Power and the 

Fight for Khe Sanh (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1973), pp. 82–86.
Staying the Course

266

ers to prepare for a forthcoming general offensive and general uprising. Three 

days later, soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division captured a directive entitled 

“Urgent Combat Order Number One,” containing plans for an enemy offensive 

in Pleiku Province that would begin “before the Tet holiday.”17

Westmoreland also heard dangerous rumblings coming from III Corps. 

General Weyand arranged a special meeting with the MACV commander on 10 

January to discuss the ominous intelligence trends he was seeing. Contact with 

the enemy had fallen off in recent weeks, the II Field Force commander said, but 

his radio research units were hearing increased chatter between COSVN and 

its main force units. Weyand’s most trusted field agents confirmed that something big was brewing. He feared that as many as five regiments had slipped 

through the line of American units on the border. He asked Westmoreland for 

permission to move some U.S. battalions closer to the capital. After speaking 

with General Davidson, who reported the same “tenuous but disturbing” information, Westmoreland agreed to move thirteen battalions from the 1st and 25th 

Infantry Divisions back to Binh Duong and Hau Nghia Provinces, raising to 

twenty-seven the number of U.S. battalions guarding the approaches to Saigon.18

17 Quote from Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, p. 317. 18 Ibid., p. 318; Rpt, II FFV, 20 Mar 68, sub: G–3 Briefing, pp. 4, 7, Historians files, CMH; 

Wirtz, Tet Offensive, pp. 183, 200.

An aerial view of the base at Khe Sanh
267

The Gathering Storm

Also on 10 January, Westmoreland canceled the first phase of Operation 

York in southwestern Quang Ngai Province so the 1st Brigade of the 1st 

Cavalry Division could move straight into northern I Corps to assist General 

Cushman’s 3d Marine Division. The MACV commander instructed General 

Weyand to prepare the 2d Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division for an air 

movement from Phuoc Long Province to Thua Thien Province by the end of 

the month, leaving only the division’s 3d Brigade in Phuoc Long Province to 

conduct the anti-infiltration mission known as San Angelo for the remainder of the dry season.19

As Westmoreland shored up his position in northern I Corps, President 

Johnson sought reassurance that the United States would be able to hold 

Khe Sanh. General Wheeler conveyed the questions that had been expressed 

“in high non-military quarters” to the MACV commander on 11 January. 

Westmoreland replied the following day, noting that he had just returned 

from a visit with General Cushman where the two commanders had discussed 

contingency plans for reinforcing Khe Sanh if the need arose. The 3d Brigade 

of the 1st Cavalry Division was now on alert to fly from the Que Son Valley 

to northern I Corps on short notice. The South Korean 2d Marine Brigade 

was finishing its move from Quang Ngai Province to the area south of Da 

Nang, permitting III Marine Amphibious Force to relieve five Marine infantry battalions from the 1st Marine Division for employment north of the Hai 

Van Pass by 31 January. As for Khe Sanh, Westmoreland expressed his firm 

conviction that it could be held, and said that to relinquish the post would 

deliver “a major propaganda victory for the enemy.” He also shot down the 

notion that interservice tensions had emerged between himself and General 

Cushman, calling the notion “absurd.”20

In the days that followed, Admiral Sharp seconded Westmoreland’s confidence about Khe Sanh. With both CINCPAC and MACV squarely in favor 

of staying put, General Cushman moved forward with preparations to withstand a possible siege. On 16 January, he sent the 2d Battalion, 26th Marines, 

to Khe Sanh to join the 1st and 3d Battalions, 26th Marines, and a U.S. 

Army Special Forces detachment. The regimental commander, Col. David 

E. Lownds, put the newly arrived battalion in the surrounding hills to reinforce several companies from the 3d Battalion that were already stationed 

there. This gave him the better part of two full battalions on the commanding 

terrain north and northwest of Khe Sanh, which he believed would be the 

enemy’s main avenue of approach.21

On the nineteenth of January, Colonel Rattan flew his 1st Brigade, 1st 

Cavalry Division, from An Khe airfield in Binh Dinh Province to Phu Bai, 

just south of Hue, with orders to continue on to Quang Tri City as soon as 

19 Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, p. 107; MFR, Ch of Staff, MACV, 14 Jan 68, 

sub: CIIB Meeting, 13 January 1968, pp. 1–2, Historians files, CMH. 20 First quote from Msg, Wheeler JCS 00343 to Westmoreland, 11 Jan 68, p. 1. Second quote 

from Msg, Westmoreland MAC 00547 to Wheeler, 12 Jan 68, p. 4. Both in Westmoreland Msg 

files, CMH. 21 Capt Moyers S. Shore, The Battle for Khe Sanh (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Marine Corps, 

Historical Branch, 1969), pp. 30–33; Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, p. 69.
Staying the Course

268

possible to relieve the 3d Marines of the 3d Marine Division for duty farther 

north. Since the airfield at Phu Bai could not accommodate the swarm of over 

one hundred helicopters, Colonel Rattan landed his aircraft in a nearby field, 

situated on the edge of a vast cemetery that became known as Landing Zone 

El Paso. Seeing how unprepared the marines were to accommodate an airmobile unit, Westmoreland instructed General Tolson to keep his 3d Brigade 

in the Que Son Valley a few days longer so that the 1st Cavalry Division commander could find a suitable location near Hue to house his unit.22

Westmoreland’s concern about the situation in northern I Corps 

increased on 20 January when General Davidson returned from an inspection trip to Khe Sanh. The pessimistic report he submitted on the conditions at the base—“unprotected installations,” a “general lack of preparation 

to withstand heavy concentrations of artillery and mortar fire”—and the 

skepticism that the base commander, Colonel Lownds, allegedly expressed 

when Davidson told him that his garrison faced two reinforced enemy divisions, raised doubts in Westmoreland’s mind about the ability of III Marine 

Amphibious Force to control the coming battle on the Demilitarized Zone 

while still handling all of its other responsibilities in I Corps. The MACV 

commander resolved to establish an Army forward headquarters as soon 

as possible to give him maximum control over the 1st Cavalry Division and 

other Army units that were operating in northern I Corps.23

Meanwhile, more evidence arrived at MACV headquarters indicating 

enemy offensives in II and III Corps. On the twentieth, South Vietnamese 

soldiers in Darlac Province captured a notebook that described an upcoming 

attack on Ban Me Thuot. That same day in Binh Dinh Province, the South 

Vietnamese 22d Infantry Division obtained a Viet Cong document that mentioned an operation soon to take place in Qui Nhon. General Weyand continued to see evidence of an imminent offensive in III Corps. Reflecting his 

concerns, II Field Force issued a report on 20 January that warned that “[the 

enemy] will attempt to achieve a victory during the Tet period . . . and will 

aim at targets of political as well as military significance.”24

Later that day, General Westmoreland sent an update to General Wheeler 

that cautioned that “the enemy is presently developing a threatening posture 

in several areas” and that “he may exercise his initiatives prior to, during, 

or after Tet.” He also informed the chairman of the Joint Chiefs that he had 

asked President Thieu to cancel the 48-hour holiday truce in northern I Corps 

and to shorten it elsewhere in the country, but the South Vietnamese leader 

had demurred, fearing a popular backlash.25

22 Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, p. 107. 23 Quote from Davidson, Vietnam at War, p. 556. 24 Quote from Periodic Intel Rpt no. 3, II FFV, 14–20 Jan 68, 20 Jan 68, pp. 4–5. Periodic 

Intel Rpt no. 4, II FFV, 21–27 Jan 68, 27 Jan 68, p. 5. Both in Historians files, CMH. Hoang 

Ngoc Lung, General Offensives of 1968–1969, Indochina Monographs (Washington, D.C.: U.S. 

Army Center of Military History, 1981), p. 35. 25 Quote from Msg, Westmoreland MAC 12397 to Wheeler, 20 Dec 67, p. 1. Pearson, War in 

the Northern Provinces, 1966–1968, p. 35.
269

The Gathering Storm

Khe Sanh Besieged

On the morning of 21 January, North Vietnamese gunners began pounding the Khe Sanh combat base with a sustained barrage of rocket, mortar, 

and artillery fire. As Davidson had warned, Colonel Lownds’ supply and 

ammunition dumps soon went up with a roar. Drums containing tear gas 

also caught fire. Pushed by the wind, the resulting fumes soon pervaded 

the bunkers and trench lines of the complex. Although the defenders of the 

base donned gas masks and remained in their bunkers where they were safe 

from everything but a direct hit, most everything else at Khe Sanh was open 

season to the enemy’s gunners. Exploding rounds soon destroyed seven helicopters, flattened a mess hall, riddled trucks and tents, and set the base’s 

fuel depot ablaze. Fourteen marines died in the attack and forty-three more 

were wounded. The only confirmed enemy casualties were fourteen North 

Vietnamese sappers killed while trying to infiltrate the western end of the 

airfield (Map 24).26

As the attack unfolded against the Marine combat base, a battalion from 

the 304th Division and a squad of sappers attacked the district headquarters 

in the village of Khe Sanh, four kilometers to the south of the base. The 

26 Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, pp. 258–61; Shore, The Battle for Khe Sanh, 

pp. 42–45. 

Supplies are dropped from a C–130 at the Khe Sanh base.
Map 24

Hill 689

Hill 471

Hill 1015

Hill 881N

325C

PAVN

X X

304

PAVN

X X

95C

PAVN

III

29 8

PAVN

I I

USMC

26

III

ARVN

37 RGR (Arrived 27 Jan)

I I

USMC

26 1

I I

USMC

9 (Arrived 22 Jan) 1

I I

USMC

13 1

I I

USMC

26 2

I I

USMC

3-26 I

I

USMC

2-26 E

I

USMC

A/1-26 2

KHE SANH

Hill 881S

Hill 861A

Hill 558

Hill 950

Rao Quan

9

9

Lang Vei

Huong Hoa

Thuong Van

Khe Sanh

SITUATION

KHE SANH AREA

January 1968

0

0 2 1 Kilometers

Miles 2 1

Military Installation

0 300 800 and Above

ELEVATION IN METERS
271

The Gathering Storm

defenders, two platoons of South Vietnamese irregulars, two platoons of U.S. 

marines, and a handful of U.S. Army advisers, beat back the initial assault. 

When Lownds sent a Marine company to relieve the headquarters, however, 

strong enemy resistance forced the group to turn back. A second relief effort 

ended in disaster. Helicopters deposited a Regional Forces company from 

Quang Tri City at the wrong location, right next to a North Vietnamese 

bunker complex. At least twenty-five Americans and seventy or more South 

Vietnamese irregulars perished in the wayward rescue attempt.27

The attacks at Khe Sanh on 21 January strengthened Westmoreland’s 

conviction that Quang Tri Province was the central focus of the enemy’s 

winter-spring offensive. He initiated Niagara II, the bombing campaign 

to defend Khe Sanh, and diverted more C–130 flights to support the base. 

General Lam sent a South Vietnamese ranger battalion to join Colonel 

Lownds’ 26th Marines at Khe Sanh, and General Vien placed two 

South Vietnamese airborne battalions on standby in Saigon for possible 

deployment to Quang Tri Province to reinforce the three airborne 

battalions already there. Although Westmoreland issued a nationwide 

bulletin warning about the possibility of “simultaneous, widespread 

offensive activity” in the near future, he remained convinced that such 

attacks would only be “an attempt to divert and disperse our strength.” 

Feeling that he had seen through the enemy’s ruse, he remained focused 

on the battle for Quang Tri Province, which, in his view, “may well be the 

decisive phase of the war.”28

Westmoreland renewed his appeal to Thieu to cancel the Tet truce 

entirely or at least to reduce it to thirty-six hours. This time President Thieu 

agreed to cancel the truce in northern I Corps and to reduce it to thirty-six 

hours elsewhere in the country, though he insisted on waiting until the morning of 29 January to announce the change. He also pledged that half of the 

South Vietnamese Army would remain on duty during the week-long holiday 

instead of the usual retention rate of about 20 percent.29

Back in Washington, President Johnson kept close tabs on the fighting 

at Khe Sanh and demanded assurances from General Wheeler and the other 

service chiefs that the Marine base could be held. Mindful of the crushing 

defeat suffered by French troops in another Vietnamese valley in 1954, he 

warned Wheeler: “I don’t want any damn Dinbinphoo.” General Wheeler 

soothed the president’s concerns, pointing out that Westmoreland had taken 

every step possible to ensure victory. With the chairman’s approval, MACV 

staffers were even developing contingency plans for the use of tactical nuclear 

weapons in the Khe Sanh area. In the end, Johnson accepted the judgment of 

27 304th Division, p. 64; Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, pp. 261–63. 28 Quote from Msg, Westmoreland MAC 01060 to Sharp, 23 Jan 68, Westmoreland Msg 

files, CMH. 29 MFR, 16 Jan 68, sub: Meetings with President Thieu, 0900, and Gen. Vien, 1500, 15 

January, Historians files, CMH. Based on studies of previous cease-fires of differing lengths, 

U.S. intelligence had determined that during a 36-hour cease-fire, the enemy could move 3,300 

tons; in a 48-hour truce, he could move 14,400 tons (much of it by coastal shipping). Msg, 

Wheeler to Westmoreland, 19 Jan 68, sub: Tet Stand-Down, Historians files, CMH.
Staying the Course

272

Westmoreland and the Joint Chiefs that Khe Sanh must be held, and more to 

the point, could be held no matter what the enemy chose to do.30 

The MACV commander moved quickly to shore up his position in 

northern I Corps. On 21 January, Westmoreland ordered General Tolson 

to move the 1st Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division from Landing Zone El

Paso some fifty kilometers northwest to Quang Tri City in order to relieve 

the 3d Marines. He also gave Tolson the green light to move his 3d Brigade 

from the Que Son Valley to Camp Evans, a firebase on Highway 1 some 

fifteen kilometers north of Hue, to relieve the 1st Marines. Since the 2d 

Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division was presently tied down to Operation 

Pershing in Binh Dinh Province, Westmoreland gave Tolson operational 

control of the 2d Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division, which flew north 

to Phu Bai from III Corps via C–130 transports over the next few days. 

When all three brigades had arrived in their new tactical sector between 

Quang Tri City and Hue, the MACV commander instructed Tolson to commence Operation Jeb Stuart with the goal of locating and destroying the 

North Vietnamese main force units that operated from the hills to the west 

of both provincial capitals.31

30 Quote from Msg, Westmoreland MAC 01164 to Sharp, 24 Jan 68, Westmoreland Msg 

files, CMH. Graham A. Cosmas, MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of Withdrawal, 

1968–1973, United States Army in Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military 

History, 2007), p. 41; Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (New York: Penguin Books, 1997), p. 

541; Memo, JCS for President Lyndon B. Johnson, 29 Jan 68, sub: The Situation at Khe Sanh, 

Historians files, CMH. 31 Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, p. 118.

A UH–1D helicopter prepares to land at Camp Evans during airlift 

operations to move elements of the 1st Cavalry Division.
273

The Gathering Storm

With Westmoreland’s instructions in hand, General Tolson immediately dispatched a forward liaison group to Quang Tri City to prepare its C–130 airfield 

and nearby landing zones for the arrival of the 1st Brigade. The commander of 

the 1st Brigade, Colonel Rattan, flew his troops and equipment in by helicopter 

over the next three days. After establishing his headquarters at Landing Zone 

Betty on the southern outskirts of the city, Colonel Rattan immediately commenced search-and-destroy missions against Base Area 101 to the southwest from 

Landing Zone Betty and an adjacent camp known as Landing Zone Sharon. 

Now with Rattan’s brigade in place, the 3d Marines relinquished its control over 

the area and moved north to join the fighting near the Demilitarized Zone.

Beginning on 23 January, the 2d Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, commanded by Col. John H. Cushman, began traveling by C–130 from Cu Chi 

to Landing Zone El Paso, where Cushman established his temporary headquarters. All three battalions arrived within two days. At the instruction 

of General Tolson, Colonel Cushman sent his 1st Battalion, 502d Infantry, 

to Landing Zone Betty on 27 January to defend the facility, while Colonel 

Rattan’s 1st Brigade was out on search-and-destroy missions. Three days 

later, Cushman sent the 1st Battalion, 501st Infantry, to Landing Zone Jane, 

located ten kilometers southeast of Quang Tri City near Highway 1 and Hai 

Lang District town, to assist Rattan with his sweep into Base Area 101. The 

2d Battalion, 502d Infantry, remained behind to defend El Paso. Meanwhile, 

General Tolson’s 3d Brigade, commanded by Col. James O. McKenna, 

flew from the Que Son Valley to Landing Zone El Paso between 25 and 27 

January, stopping only briefly before moving on by truck and helicopter to 

Camp Evans, a base fifteen kilometers north of Hue and next to Highway 1 

that had just been vacated by the 1st Marines.32

As the 1st Cavalry Division was getting settled into northern I Corps, 

Westmoreland authorized on 26 January the formation of a new provisional 

corps headquarters, MACV Forward, under the command of his deputy, General 

Abrams. The new organization would be staffed mostly by Army personnel 

drawn from MACV headquarters and a smaller number of marines drawn from 

III Marine Amphibious Force. When MACV Forward became operational at 

Phu Bai sometime in early February, Abrams would take control over all the 

combat units in I Corps so General Cushman’s headquarters, soon to be elevated 

to the status of a field army, could focus on the advisory, logistical, and support 

needs of the theater. Westmoreland expected MACV Forward to evolve by March 

into a more permanent and robust headquarters to be known as the Provisional 

Corps, Vietnam. He knew that the creation of an Army-led headquarters in the 

middle of Leatherneck country would not go down easily with the Marine chain 

of command; nevertheless, he felt that the tactical situation trumped service 

pride, and whatever friction developed between III Marine Amphibious Force 

and MACV Forward could be resolved when the crisis abated.33

32 Interv, Capt Joseph W. A. Whitehorne with Maj Gen John J. Tolson, p. 2, VNIT 207, 

CMH. 33 Cosmas, The Joint Command in the Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973, p. 47; Msgs, 

Westmoreland MAC 1233 to CINCPAC, 26 Jan 68; COMUSMACV 1011 to Combined JCS 
Staying the Course

274

Allied Expectations

Whatever the enemy had in mind, Westmoreland doubted that the 

Communists were going to strike during the upcoming Tet Mau Than holiday, a celebration of the new lunar year that was the most important cultural 

event in Vietnamese society. Based on the cycle of the moon rather than on 

the sun, the date of the Tet holiday varied on the solar calendar each year 

between 20 January and 20 February. In 1968, Tet began on the night of 

30–31 January. Saigon and Hanoi had agreed to observe a 48-hour cease-fire, 

and South Vietnamese officials expected that the enemy would continue to 

honor the traditional truce. Moreover, allied leaders found it hard to imagine that the Communists would bring the war into the homes of millions of 

civilians at a time traditionally set aside for family gatherings and the veneration of ancestors. Only the South Vietnamese commanders in northern I 

Corps and western II Corps, areas where an enemy threat seemed imminent, 

severely curtailed holiday leaves for their soldiers. In southern I Corps, eastern II Corps, and in III Corps, regional commanders allowed an average of 

50 percent of their troops to go on leave, while officers in IV Corps permitted 

three-quarters of their soldiers to go home for the holiday. President Thieu 

planned to spend the holiday with his wife’s family in the Mekong Delta city 

of My Tho. As head of the intelligence office of the South Vietnamese Joint 

General Staff, Col. Hoang Ngoc Lung, would later recall, “Nobody was convinced that the communists would launch a concerted offensive against cities 

and towns across the country during the Tet holidays.”34

Allied officials had seen clues over the last few months that indicated that the 

enemy might attack urban areas in early 1968, but no hard evidence regarding the 

objectives or timing of such attacks. On 23 October 1967, for example, a South 

Vietnamese unit in the Mekong Delta captured the notebook of an enemy officer, 

which described the war as entering a new and decisive phase: “Our present strategy consists of an all out attack on the enemy. . . . [W]e should attack everywhere 

on the battlefield while the general uprising takes place in the cities.” Two days 

later, the allies captured a second document in Tay Ninh Province that referred 

to the coming winter-spring offensive as the tong cong kich/tong khoi nghia (general offensive–general uprising) in which Communist forces would target “enemy 

rear bases and installations” and “motivate the people to rise up and destroy the 

enemy’s oppressive machinery.”35

Allied units captured similar documents in southern I Corps and II 

Corps in the weeks that followed. On 19 November, soldiers from the 101st 

Airborne Division captured a note in Quang Tin Province that read, “The 

Central Headquarters of the Party and Uncle Ho have ordered the Party 

Committee in South Vietnam and the entire army and people of South 

(CJCS), 22 Jan 68, sub: Visit to Washington by Richard E. Cabazos, Lt Col, Inf, U.S. Army. 

Both in Westmoreland Msg files, CMH. 34 Lung, General Offensives of 1968–1969, p. 37. 35 Intel Rpt, DoD, DIA, no. 6027908967, 21 Nov 67, sub: Memorandum, p. 10, Historians files, 

CMH; U.S. Mission Saigon, “The New Situation and Mission,” VDRN, no. 20, Mar 68, pp. 5, 10.
275

The Gathering Storm

Vietnam to implement a General Offensive and General Uprising in order 

to achieve a decisive victory for the revolution within the Winter and 1968 

Spring and Summer.” The document mentioned plans for strong military 

attacks in coordination with “uprisings of the local population to take over 

towns and cities . . . [and to liberate] the capital city.” The document did 

not specify when the offensive would start but predicted that “Region 5 will 

be completely liberated during the 1967–1968 Winter-Spring Campaign.” 

Likewise, on 11 December, soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division captured 

a North Vietnamese Army bulletin in Binh Dinh Province that exhorted 

“the entire army and the entire people of South Viet Nam to carry out the 

General Offensive and the General Uprising . . . during the 1968 WinterSpring-Summer phase.”36

By the middle of January 1968, Westmoreland was convinced that the 

enemy had indeed embarked on a campaign of unusual size and ambition. Nevertheless, he expected the main blow to land in northern I Corps, 

most likely at Khe Sanh where the Communists enjoyed short supply lines 

and a favorable ratio of forces, and doubted that the enemy would risk 

his forces in an all-out offensive that stretched the length and breadth of 

South Vietnam. Many Communist units seemed to be suffering from poor 

morale, manpower shortages, and inadequate food supplies. The outcome 

of the recent Loc Ninh battle made him even more skeptical. COSVN had 

employed the better part of a division to attack a single, remote district 

capital. The enemy had managed to hold the town for only a few hours, and 

his losses had been enormous. Westmoreland and his subordinates found 

it inconceivable that the enemy would fight a hundred or more of such 

battles across the country at once. As Westmoreland’s chief of intelligence, 

General Davidson, explained, “Even had I known exactly what was to take 

place, it was so preposterous that I probably would have been unable to sell 

it to anybody.”37 He would later write: 

Although United States intelligence had dredged up several reports 

dealing in exhortative terms with the “Great Uprising,” no responsible 

American or South Vietnamese official believed that the enemy would 

throw himself at the heart of Allied strength: the cities. The result of such 

rashness, a devastating enemy defeat, was predictable, and thus, intellectually unacceptable to General Westmoreland and to the other military 

professionals on his staff.38

36 First three quotes from Rpt, MACV, Asst Ch of Staff, Intel, J–2, 15 Dec 67, sub: Translation 

Report, p. 10, box 153; Intel Rpt, DoD, DIA, no. 6027038468, 12 Jan 68, sub: Notes on a Political 

Meeting; A Resolution and an Order by Ho Chi Minh, p. 22, doc. 4, box 154. Both in NSFVietnam Country Files, LBJL. Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, p. 316. 37 Msg, Westmoreland MAC 12397 to Wheeler, 20 Dec 67; Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, 

p. 321 (quote); Pearson, The War in the Northern Provinces, 1966–1968, p. 30; Shore, The Battle 

for Khe Sanh, pp. 29–30; Eric Hammel, Khe Sanh: Siege in the Clouds (New York: Crown 

Publishers, 1989), pp. 11–21, 22; Davidson, Vietnam at War, p. 105. 38 Davidson, Vietnam at War, p. 479.
Staying the Course

276

In his own postwar memoir, Westmoreland admitted that he could not 

imagine the enemy pursuing a strategy that would “invite catastrophic losses 

and certain defeat.”39

In fairness to Westmoreland and his staff, the bits of information that foreshadowed the Tet offensive were all but swallowed up in an ocean of data, much 

of it irrelevant but still time-consuming to process. The clues also had to compete 

with other data that supported alternative theories of what the enemy was likely 

to do, most of which seemed more credible than a putative general offensive and 

general uprising. Even under the best of circumstances, analysts found it hard 

to separate the enemy’s rhetorical flourishes from his actual intentions. Most 

Communist publications were filled with boilerplate slogans predicting victory 

in the South and wildly inaccurate reports that claimed one battlefield success 

after another. The talk of a popular uprising, in particular, seemed more like 

boastful propaganda than a real strategy considering the strongly anti-Communist sentiments of the urban population. MACV described one such document that talked about a general 

uprising as “not the actual policy 

of the Communist Party command 

but rather an internal propaganda 

version designed to inspire the 

fighting troops.” What is more, 

the enemy had been talking about 

a general offensive and general 

uprising in theoretical terms since 

1964. Although allied leaders had 

no reason to doubt that the enemy 

looked forward to the day when 

such an attack would be possible, 

he seemed to be in no position at 

the moment to consider that option 

seriously.40

In the wake of the Tet offensive, an intelligence study that 

included representatives from 

the Central Intelligence Agency, 

the Defense Intelligence Agency, 

the Department of State, the 

National Security Agency, and the 

Joint Chiefs of Staff concluded 

that MACV had not been taken 

completely by surprise by the Tet 

offensive, though it had failed to 

appreciate the true scope of the 

39 Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, p. 316. 40 Quoted words from Press Release, United States Mission in Vietnam, 5 Jan 68, box 152, 

NSF-Vietnam Country Files, LBJL.

General Davidson

(shown as a major general)
277

The Gathering Storm

attacks. General Westmoreland had issued a string of warnings starting in 

mid-December that had alerted his superiors in Hawaii and Washington that 

the enemy was planning a winter-spring offensive of unusual size and ambition. Though he had continued to believe that the main blow would land in 

northern I Corps, he had told his superiors on 23 January that “it is prudent to 

expect that enemy activities may be initiated simultaneously elsewhere in RVN 

[South Vietnam] in an attempt to divert and disperse our strength to levels 

incapable of country wide success.” He had tried to get President Thieu to curtail or cancel holiday leaves, and had kept U.S. and Free World forces troops 

on full alert going into the Tet holiday. Armed with the most specific warnings, 

the South Vietnamese units in northern I Corps and western II Corps were 

relatively well prepared for the fighting that ensued. At the other end of the 

spectrum, a lack of danger signs in IV Corps had left the South Vietnamese 

units there woefully unprepared. The study group credited the enemy with 

maintaining a high degree of operational security, a feat accomplished at the 

expense of coordination, since North Vietnamese leaders had waited until the 

last moment to reveal the details of the offensive to local commanders.41

The failure of allied intelligence before Tet, to the extent that there had 

been a failure, was one of imagination. U.S. and South Vietnamese officials 

had assumed that the enemy would respect the holiday because of its deep 

cultural importance. The allies were aware that the enemy had the capability 

to mount a complex, coordinated attack, but found it difficult to imagine 

that he would willingly expose himself to concentrated allied firepower for 

objectives that seemed infeasible: the destruction of the South Vietnamese 

government and the instigation of an uprising. After years of following 

a strategy of protracted warfare designed to wear down and outlast their 

opponents, the enemy had suddenly changed course, seeking a decisive victory in a short period of time, and for this the allies were unprepared. They 

were in for a rude awakening.42

41 Quote from Msg, Westmoreland MAC 01060 to Sharp, 23 Jan 68, p. 2. Interim Rpt, CIA, 

8 Apr 68, sub: Intelligence Warning of the Tet Offensive in South Vietnam, Historians files, 

CMH. 42 Interim Rpt, CIA, 8 Apr 68.

Part Two

The General 

Offensive Begins

9

Tet Unleashed

On the morning of 28 January, the North Vietnamese Ministry of 

Defense notified its southern front commands via an encrypted radio 

transmission that the general offensive was to begin at midnight “between 

the first and second days of Tet.” COSVN and the other headquarters relayed 

the message to their subordinate units, and when evening came, tens of thousands of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers began moving by foot and 

by truck, by bicycle and by sampan, toward their designated targets.1

At some point during the next few hours, General Dung’s staff became 

aware of a problem that threatened to throw the plan into chaos. Most of the 

southern commanders, it appeared, were using the solar or Western calendar 

issued by the South Vietnamese government, a legacy of French colonial rule, 

rather than the lunar-based calendar used in North Vietnam and many other 

Asian countries. Hanoi intended the offensive to begin at midnight of 30–31 

January, but “between the first and second days of Tet” translated into the 

night of 29–30 January for those who used a solar calendar. General Dung 

sent an urgent message to clarify his intent.2

For some the message came too late. General Man from Military Region 

5 reported that he could not get the message out to most of his units since 

they had already turned off their radios to prevent allied signal experts 

from triangulating their positions. Grimly, he informed General Dung that 

his attacks were going to take place one day early in southern I Corps, the 

Central Highlands, and the central coast of II Corps.3

First Strikes on the Central Coast

On the north-central coast of Military Region 5, the sector in II Corps 

that included Binh Dinh, Phu Yen, and Khanh Hoa Provinces, General 

Man sent all five of his North Vietnamese infantry regiments into action as 

well as two Viet Cong local force battalions and seven sapper companies. 

The attack force that marched on Nha Trang on the night of 29–30 January 

1

 Tran Van Tra, “Victory and Thoughts about Victory,” p. 13. 

2 Lich Su Cuc Tac Chien 1945–2000 [History of the Combat Operations Department, 1945–

2000] (Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1980), p. 14, copy in Historians files, CMH.

3

 Man, Time of Upheaval, p. 478. According to captured enemy officers, main force units 

normally shut down their radios seventy-two hours prior to launching a major attack to ensure 

that they would not be detected by electronic interception. If they observed “radio silence” 

(receiving but not transmitting), a message to delay might have reached some units, but those 

involved in the “general uprising” behind allied lines probably were unreachable. 
Staying the Course

282

consisted of two understrength battalions from the 18B Regiment and four 

district-based sapper companies. At Tuy Hoa, one battalion from the 95th 

Regiment and one Viet Cong infantry battalion comprised the assault 

force, while at Qui Nhon, the attackers consisted of just one Viet Cong 

infantry battalion and three district-based sapper companies. All told, the 

strike force came to just over a thousand men, more than half of them Viet 

Cong. As for his main combat force, the 3d Division, Man ordered elements 

from the 2d and 22d Regiments to attack Phu My and elements of the 18th 

Regiment to attack An Nhon, two district capitals in central-south Binh 

Dinh (Map 25).4

General Man’s principal target in Khanh Hoa Province, the city of Nha 

Trang, was situated at the northern end of an island six kilometers long and 

three kilometers wide, bounded on the east by the South China Sea, by estuaries to the north and south, and by a river to the west. Highway 1 entered 

the city from the west, passing through a corridor of farmland sandwiched 

between coastal hills to the north and to the south of Nha Trang. Almost 

all of the usable land south of the metropolitan area had been taken over by 

U.S. military installations, principally a C–130-capable airfield and Camp 

McDermott, which contained the headquarters of the U.S. 5th Special Forces 

Group and the South Vietnamese Special Forces Command.5

The allied forces in Nha Trang, like those in most South Vietnamese cities, 

had a joint defense plan that defined security responsibilities, command and 

control arrangements, and intelligence-sharing procedures. The head of the 

South Vietnamese Special Forces, Brig. Gen. Doan Van Quang, held the dual 

positions of Nha Trang garrison commander and Nha Trang Special Zone commander. The commander of the U.S. 5th Special Forces Group, Col. Jonathan F. 

Ladd, served as the U.S. Installation Defense commander. Finally, the province 

chief, Lt. Col. Le Khanh, controlled the territorial units in neighboring districts. 

He coordinated their operations with the South Korean 9th “White Horse” 

Division, headquartered at Ninh Hoa twenty kilometers to the north. 

The allies had rehearsed the joint defense plan on 26 January, but no 

system was perfect. On the twenty-eighth or twenty-ninth of January, 

Vietnamese policemen learned from a captured Viet Cong agent that the 

enemy intended to attack the city at some point in the near future. Urgently, 

they prepared a report and delivered it to their American liaison. He passed 

it on, but someone further up the chain who did not understand the significance of the report left it on his desk, only to be delivered to Colonel Ladd’s 

headquarters after the battle was over. As a result of that oversight, the U.S. 

installations in Nha Trang remained on normal alert when the Tet truce 

began at midnight, 29–30 January.

Forty minutes later, six 82-mm. mortar rounds exploded near the western 

side of the airfield. Colonel Ladd issued a yellow alert. Flare ships lumbered 

4

 Intel Rpt, MACV, Asst Ch of Staff, Intel, 31 Jan 68, sub: Monthly Order of Battle Summary, 

pt. IV, sec. 1b, Historians files, CMH. 5

 Rpt, MACV, 15 Jan 68, sub: Construction Program South Vietnam, sec. 9, p. 1, Historians 

files, CMH.
CAP ROK

X X

ARVN

22

X X

2 1 Cav

X

4(-)

X X

XXX

II

ARVN

ARVN

23

X X

173

X

9 ROK

X X

XXX

I FF

XXX

ROK

2 7 Cav

I I

OASIS

PLEIKU

KONTUM

PHU CAT

LZ ENGLISH

PHU MY

TAN CANH

QUI NHON

AN KHE

TUY HOA

BAN ME THUOT

NINH HOA

NHA TRANG

PHAN THIET

DA LAT

30 Jan

30 Jan

30 Jan

30 Jan

30 Jan

30 Jan

30 Jan

31 Jan

31 Jan

30 Jan

30 Jan

30 Jan

1 Feb

III CTZ

I CTZ

SOUTH CHINA SEA

14

14

20

21

19

1

1

1

1

11

14

Dao Phu Qui

QUANG TIN

QUANG NGAI

KONTUM

BINH DINH

PLEIKU

PHU BON

PHU YEN

DARLAC

KHANH HOA

QUANG DUC

TUYEN DUC

Cam Ranh

BINH THUAN

PHUOC

LONG

LAM DONG

BINH TUY

LONG

KHANH

PHUOC TUY

NINH

THUAN

CAMBODIA

LAOS

Enemy Attack 

Corps Tactical Zone Boundary

Military Installation

30 January–1 February 1968

II CORPS TACTICAL ZONE

TET OFFENSIVE

0 50 Miles

0 50 Kilometers

Map 25
Staying the Course

284

into the sky to look for the gunners, but the hissing lights they dropped onto 

the suspected enemy position revealed nothing. After the passage of thirty 

uneventful minutes, Ladd rescinded the yellow alert.

Unknown to him, South Vietnamese installations on the western side of 

the city were already under attack. After quietly occupying Buddha Statue 

Hill, famous for the large white Buddha that sat on its peak, the 1st Company

of the 7th Battalion, 18B Regiment, and the 88th Sapper Company assaulted 

the Nha Trang radio station. The twenty-one Regional Forces soldiers inside 

the walled compound found they could not call for help because the enemy 

had cut their telephone line. A second battle raged several hundred meters 

to the south as the T89 Sapper Company tried to fight its way into a South 

Vietnamese signal facility and the city jail.6

Another hour passed before Ladd’s headquarters learned that the city 

was under attack. At 0140, a group of taxis and minibuses pulled up to 

Khanh Hoa Sector Command, a joint tactical center that was located across 

the street from MACV Advisory Team 35 and a block south of the provincial 

administration office. Approximately sixty Viet Cong from the K90, K91, 

and K92 Sapper Companies piled out of the vehicles and charged into the 

6

 Pham Van Son, ed., Viet Cong “Tet” Offensive (1968) (Saigon, 1968), p. 362; CDEC, Intel 

Bull 12,982, 3 Jun 68, p. 2, box 36, CDEC Bulls, Asst Ch of Staff, Intel, G–2, RG 472, NACP; 

Rpt, Interv no. TET-VC-76, Rand Corporation, 28 May 68, p. 3, Historians files, CMH.

South Vietnamese sector headquarters (left) and the MACV compound 

(right) in Nha Trang
285

Tet Unleashed

provincial administration and Sector Command compounds. MACV 

Advisory Team 35 radioed a warning to Camp McDermott. General Quang 

immediately dispatched his ready reserve, a mobile strike force company 

under the control of U.S. Army Special Forces Detachment A–503, which 

headed out of the Special Forces compound on foot a few minutes later.

By that time, the fight at the Sector Command and the provincial administration office was already over. Fifteen South Vietnamese soldiers had lost 

their lives trying to protect the two compounds; another three dozen had 

been injured. Among those taken prisoner by the sappers were three U.S. 

advisers who had been working at the Sector Command. Colonel Khanh and 

his family escaped detection only because the attackers did not search his 

home for they considered it too small to belong to anyone important.7

Fifteen minutes later, Colonel Ladd received another warning, this time 

from I Field Force headquarters. Enemy soldiers had been spotted near the 

Roberts Compound, a billeting and mess facility for U.S. and South Korean 

officers. The enemy force, approximately fifty North Vietnamese soldiers 

from the 1st Company of the 7th Battalion, 18B Regiment, had been headed 

for the provincial administration office when it had unknowingly passed by 

the compound. The U.S. and South Korean guards immediately engaged the 

enemy troops. Finding their way forward blocked, the North Vietnamese 

sought cover in a building that happened to be next to the villa where the 

chief of staff of the South Korean Expeditionary Force lived. Allied troops 

surrounded the building, and the battle continued.

News reached Camp McDermott that Ninh Hoa, twenty kilometers to 

the north, was also under attack, but that the district chief seemed to have 

the situation under control. The assault force, later determined to be the 11th 

Company of the 18B PAVN Regiment and the H71 Local Force Company, 

withdrew from town later that morning when helicopters brought several 

companies from the South Korean 29th Infantry Regiment back to their base 

in the city.8

General Quang’s ready reaction force led by U.S. Army Special Forces 

Detachment A–503 arrived at the Sector Command compound around 0230. 

After rescuing the three soldiers from Advisory Team 35, whose nearby compound the enemy had not attacked, the Montagnard soldiers and their advisers retook the South Vietnamese sector headquarters after an intense firefight. 

The remaining sappers fell back to the province headquarters one block to 

the north. This position proved to be too strong for the Montagnard troops 

to overcome. Determined to let none of the sappers escape, General Quang, 

sent two companies from the South Vietnamese 91st Ranger Battalion, a unit 

that had been resting and refitting at the Special Forces compound, to finish 

the job.9

7

 Son, ed., Viet Cong “Tet” Offensive (1968), p. 367; AAR, 1968 Tet Offensive, I FFV, 9 Apr 

68, p. 3, Encl 5. All in Historians files, CMH. 8

 AAR, Tet Offensive in the II Corps Zone, pp. 2–3, Encl 1.

9

 AAR, Tet Offensive Actions in the II Corps, I FFV, p. 3, Encl 5; Son, ed., Viet Cong “Tet” 

Offensive (1968), p. 368.
Staying the Course

286

To deal with the Viet Cong on the western side of the city, General Quang 

recalled a pair of Montagnard light infantry companies that were on patrol 

in the countryside northwest of Nha Trang. As they neared the outskirts of 

town, the Montagnards ran into a blocking force from the 8th Battalion, 18B 

Regiment. A few well-placed air strikes and some aggressive maneuvering 

soon convinced the enemy to abandon his position. Instead of falling back 

into the city to join their comrades, the North Vietnamese troops opted for 

self-preservation by heading west toward the hills. 

The two light infantry companies entered Nha Trang as the sun began to 

rise. After linking up with a mobile strike force company led by U.S. Army 

Special Forces Detachment A–502 that had just flown in from Dong Ba Thin, 

twenty kilometers to the south, the column surrounded the neighborhood at 

the base of Buddha Statue Hill and then began hunting down the more than 

200 enemy soldiers who remained on the loose there.10

While the fighting continued on the western edge of the city, the allies 

mopped up the last intruders in downtown Nha Trang. A combination of 

South Korean and American troops cleared the enemy-held building next 

to the Roberts Compound, nearly wiping out the 1st Company of the 7th 

Battalion, 18B Regiment. Eight blocks to the north at the provincial administration compound, South Vietnamese rangers closed in on the remaining 

10 Son, ed., Viet Cong “Tet” Offensive (1968), p. 370.

A view of the Roberts Compound (foreground) in Nha Trang
287

Tet Unleashed

sappers from the K90 and K91 Sapper Companies. At around 0900, Colonel 

Khanh took advantage of the enemy’s shrinking perimeter to sneak out of 

his house, whereupon he commandeered an armored personnel carrier—

principally so he could use the vehicle’s .50-caliber machine gun—and from 

there directed the battle until the last sapper went down around noon. For 

the rangers, the victory had not come cheaply; eighteen of their men had 

been killed, including the battalion commander, his deputy, and a company 

commander.11

After taking a short break to reorganize, the two ranger companies joined 

the fight for Buddha Statue Hill. The enemy abandoned the hill later that 

evening, returned to it the following night, and then was chased off for good 

by South Vietnamese infantry and U.S. helicopter gunships on the morning 

of 1 February. Afterward, Colonel Khanh sent the Montagnard units and a 

South Korean infantry company on a careful sweep through Nha Trang. The 

search turned up only a few stragglers. On 4 February, the province chief 

declared the city secure. 

The battle for Nha Trang claimed the lives of seventy-four allied soldiers, 

nearly all of them South Vietnamese. The enemy lost 274 men killed and 

another 76 taken prisoner. The 7th Battalion, 18B Regiment, had been gutted; 

the K90 and K91 Sapper Companies ceased to exist. Using tips from civilians 

and information obtained from prisoners, government authorities managed to 

identify and then arrest nearly everyone in the Nha Trang Party Committee.12

General Man’s next target up the coast was Tuy Hoa, a small fishing village at the intersection of Highway 1 and the Da Rang River that served as 

the capital of Phu Yen Province. A small airfield known as Tuy Hoa North 

lay just north of town on the west side of Highway 1. Five kilometers down 

the road on the far side of the Da Rang River was a second and larger airfield, 

Tuy Hoa South, which served as the base of operations for the 268th Aviation 

Battalion and four helicopter assault companies.

The province chief, Lt. Col. Nguyen Van Ba, looked after the defense of the 

city from his headquarters in the center of town. His main source of combat 

power came from the South Vietnamese 47th Infantry Regiment, which was 

headquartered there along with one battalion. The only U.S. combat installation in town was a I Field Force artillery firebase positioned just west of 

Tuy Hoa North. The men of Battery C of the 6th Battalion, 32d Artillery, 

used their two 8-inch howitzers and two 175-mm. guns to support Operation 

Bolling, presently being conducted west of Tuy Hoa by the headquarters of 

the 173d Airborne Brigade and its 4th Battalion, 503d Infantry. The gunners 

were also equipped with a pair of M42 Duster self-propelled vehicles, each 

mounted with a 40-mm. cannon for base defense.13

11 Ibid., pp. 2–4; Rpt, Interv no. Tet-VC-11, Rand Corporation, 16 Apr 68, p. 11, Encl 5, 

Historians files, CMH. 12 Rpt, Interv no. Tet-VC-11, Rand Corporation, 16 Apr 68, p. 4, Encl 5; Son, ed., Viet Cong 

“Tet” Offensive (1968), p. 375. 13 AAR, D Co, 4th Bn, 503d Inf, 173d Abn Bde, n.d., VNIT 31, CMH; AAR, 1968 Tet 

Offensive, I FFV, 9 Apr 68, Encl 2, Historians files, CMH.
Staying the Course

288

When the camp of the South Vietnamese 47th Infantry came under mortar 

attack at 0130, the province adviser, Lt. Col. Vernon J. Walters, alerted the 

173d Airborne Brigade that the city was under assault. The shelling lasted for 

twenty minutes. When it ended, the defenders braced themselves for a ground 

attack, but instead there was only a strange, pregnant silence.

Just west of the city, around 300 soldiers from the 5th Battalion, 95th 

PAVN Regiment, waited in a rice field for the arrival of the 85th Local Force 

Battalion. The plan was for the Viet Cong unit to attack the provincial headquarters, radio station, and other government buildings in Tuy Hoa, while 

the North Vietnamese unit hit the airfield complex and a prisoner of war 

compound just north of town. Unknown to the North Vietnamese battalion 

commander, the Viet Cong troops had turned back for home after getting 

ambushed on their way to the staging area. The anxious commander waited 

for two hours, and then proceeded with the attack. 

Three of his companies headed for the U.S. artillery base while the 

remaining company veered south to attack the prisoner of war compound. 

The main assault group penetrated the western side of the artillery base and 

overran one of the 175-mm. guns. The men of Battery C created a new defensive line to contain the enemy within a thirty-meter pocket. Two hundred 

meters to the south, the remaining company from the 5th Battalion attempted 

to liberate the Communist fighters that were being held as prisoners of 

war, but failed to overcome the South Vietnamese guards. Hoping that the 

85th Battalion would still make its appearance, the commander of the 5th 

Battalion, 95th Regiment, decided to keep fighting where he was rather than 

abandon his small foothold north of the city.14

That decision proved costly. Shortly after first light, a flight of Huey helicopters brought Companies C and D from the 4th Battalion, 503d Infantry, 

and a command group led by the battalion commander, Colonel Johnson, 

to the Tuy Hoa North airfield. More helicopters ferried in a pair of companies from the South Korean 28th Infantry Regiment. As Colonel Johnson 

readied his men for an attack, a battalion from the South Vietnamese 47th 

Infantry Regiment formed a blocking position to the west of the airfield, and 

the two South Korean companies formed another blocking position to the 

north. When they were in place, Colonel Johnson sent his paratroopers into 

the artillery base to eliminate the North Vietnamese salient, which they did 

after a fierce thirty-minute firefight. Surrounded on three sides, the enemy 

hurried south to a circular, palm-shaded settlement on the edge of Tuy Hoa 

named Binh Tin. 

The allies established a cordon around the hamlet, while Colonel Johnson 

discussed the situation with Colonel Ba and with General Schweiter, who had 

just arrived by helicopter. From what the province chief could determine, the 

North Vietnamese were preventing many residents of the hamlet from leaving because their presence discouraged air and artillery strikes. Colonel Ba 

needed to find a way to get those civilians out.

14 Intel Rpt, Intel Team 28, Phu Yen Province, 26 Jan 68, p. 1, Historians files, CMH.
289

Tet Unleashed

An aerial view from the subsector headquarters looking south toward Binh 

Tin hamlet with the U.S. artillery base and the prison in the middle ground

An aerial view of Binh Tin hamlet after the defeat of Viet Cong forces
Staying the Course

290

When South Vietnamese psychological warfare troops failed to convince 

the enemy to surrender or to release their hostages, U.S. aircraft doused 

the hamlet with tear gas and smoke. Johnson sent a company of gas-maskwearing paratroopers into Binh Tin, but the attack bogged down when their 

eye pieces fogged up. Nevertheless, the smoke and gas distracted the enemy 

long enough for dozens of civilians to flee the hamlet. When the paratroopers withdrew to reorganize, Colonel Ba agreed that the time had come for 

stronger measures.

As the ring of allied soldiers around Binh Tin looked on, a flight of five 

U.S. Air Force F–100 Super Sabres pulverized the hamlet with 500-pound 

bombs and burned it to ash with napalm. The aerial strike devastated the 

North Vietnamese battalion, killing or wounding everyone in the command 

group along with dozens of other soldiers. Artillery took over when the jets 

departed. The remains of Binh Tin burned throughout the rest of the day and 

well into the night. 

When three companies from the 4th Battalion, 173d Airborne Brigade, 

entered the hamlet the next morning, they found a profusion of mangled 

bodies and a few dazed survivors. All told, at least 189 members of the 5th 

Battalion, 95th Regiment, had been killed in the fight for Tuy Hoa and another 

31 had been captured. The U.S. unit that had seen the most action, Company 

D of the 4th Battalion, 173d Airborne Brigade, had lost fourteen soldiers 

killed and forty wounded. Civilian casualties were not recorded. 

After letting several days go by so that the defenders might relax their 

vigilance, the enemy returned to Tuy Hoa on the morning of 5 February. The 

tactic worked. The 85th Local Force Battalion and a composite company from 

the 95th Regiment sneaked into the western part of the city without being 

detected. Despite having the element of surprise, the enemy failed to overrun 

any of his intended targets, chiefly the police station and several government 

buildings, and the defenders, once alert to the danger, responded quickly and 

effectively. The security troops held on until daylight when two battalions 

from the South Vietnamese 47th Regiment launched a counterattack that 

drove the enemy from the city after a few hours of fighting.15 

Clashes in Binh Dinh

General Man’s third major target on the night of 29–30 January was 

Qui Nhon, the capital of Binh Dinh Province and the most important allied 

port between Cam Ranh Bay and Da Nang. Located on a peninsula that 

resembled a duck’s head, the city and its dock facilities filled the narrow beak 

that pointed east toward the South China Sea. The eye of the duck, Ba Hoa 

Mountain, rose more than 300 meters above the peninsula’s otherwise flat 

landscape. Route 441 ran like a stripe along the top of the duck’s head, going 

northwest into the rich farmlands of An Nhon District, and eventually terminating at the town of Ba Gai where Highway 1 intersected Highway 19. An 

15 AAR, 1968 Tet Offensive in the II Corps Zone, I FFV, pp. 2–4, Encl 2.
291

Tet Unleashed

airfield and U.S. logistical facilities adorned the region of the throat and a 

series of rolling hills the base of the neck. 

The joint defense plan for the city, last rehearsed on 1 January, placed the 

province chief, Lt. Col. Phan Minh Tho, in charge of the defense of Qui Nhon. 

He used a combination of Regional and Popular Forces units and police to 

guard the city. The commander of the U.S. Army Support Command, Qui 

Nhon, Brig. Gen. George H. McBride, relied primarily on the 93d Military 

Police Battalion to protect the U.S. installations in town.16

On the morning of 29 January, agents from the Military Security Service, 

the counterespionage branch of the South Vietnamese Army, captured a 

high-ranking member of the Qui Nhon City Committee and ten of his associates in a safe house on the outskirts of town. In their possession were two 

propaganda audiotapes that announced the liberation of Qui Nhon, Da 

Nang, and other cities on the central coast. When asked about the recordings, the prisoners said that the cities mentioned on the tapes were going to 

be attacked later that night.17

Colonel Tho and General McBride issued a citywide alert. The province 

chief imposed a curfew and banned the use of firecrackers. Qui Nhon was 

placed off-limits to U.S. personnel. Tho made sure that all of the security 

checkpoints and outposts that screened the approaches to the city were fully 

manned.18 

Despite all of the precautions, the enemy still managed to seize one of 

his major objectives. At 0400, 30 January, approximately twenty commandos 

from the D10 and D20 Sapper Companies stormed the headquarters of the 

Military Security Service where the eleven members of the Qui Nhon City 

Committee were being held for interrogation. They killed or captured the 

twelve South Vietnamese soldiers who were on duty in a matter of minutes. 

One block away, a group of around fifty sappers charged into the city’s radio 

station where they killed nine of its guards and wounded thirty more. When 

the enemy failed to locate the confiscated propaganda tapes that they had 

intended to play on the radio—Colonel Tho had them at his headquarters, 

several blocks to the south—the sappers hunkered down and waited for the 

rest of the Qui Nhon attack force to complete its job.

The province chief was in the midst of organizing a counterattack to 

retake the radio station when he learned that U.S. Navy patrol boats in the 

harbor had intercepted and sunk several sampans loaded with enemy soldiers. Those men later turned out to belong to the D30 Sapper Company. 

Their mission had been to land on the beach just south of the provincial 

administration office and then overrun Colonel Tho’s headquarters. 

Around that same time, the commander of the South Vietnamese 2d 

Railway Security Battalion reported that more than a hundred Viet Cong 

soldiers—the E2B Local Force Battalion—had captured the train station and 

16 Ibid., pp. 2–3, Encl 4.

17 Son, ed., Viet Cong “Tet” Offensive (1968), p. 383. 18 AAR, Tet Offensive in the II Corps Zone, p. 2, Encl 4; Son, ed., Viet Cong “Tet” Offensive 

(1968), p. 383.
Staying the Course

292

railway yard on the western side of Qui Nhon, just a few blocks north of the 

radio station. Some of the Viet Cong soldiers were roaming the surrounding 

neighborhood, yelling for residents to join a popular uprising, though no one 

appeared to be responding to their calls.

Colonel Tho asked General Hieu of the South Vietnamese 22d Infantry 

Division and General Quang of the South Vietnamese Special Forces 

Command to send reinforcements as soon as possible. General Hieu dispatched his reconnaissance company. When it ran into a blocking force from 

the 18th Regiment on the way to Qui Nhon, the general sent one of his infantry battalions to the city by another route. It reached the train yard around 

0800. As for General Quang, he presently had his hands full defending Nha 

Trang but promised to send a pair of CIDG companies later that afternoon.19

With the situation at the train yard under control, Colonel Tho turned 

his attention to the sappers in the radio station. He surrounded the concrete, 

two-story building with Regional Forces soldiers, National Police, and staff 

from his headquarters and then had them batter the structure with machine 

guns and recoilless rifles until it was nothing more than a hollowed-out 

19 AAR, Tet Offensive in the II Corps Zone, pp. 2–5, Encl 4; Rpt, Interv no. Tet-VC-80, Rand 

Corporation, 6 Jun 68, pp. 3, 10, folder 14, box 10, Douglas Pike Collection: Unit 02–Mil Opns, 

The Vietnam Center and Archive, TTU; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 5-68, I FFV, 28 Jan–3 Feb 68, 3 

Feb 68, p. 11, box 2, Periodic Intel Rpts, Asst Ch of Staff, G–2, I FFV, USARV, RG 472, NACP.

The radio station complex at Qui Nhon
293

Tet Unleashed

wreck. Every man in the D10 and D20 Sapper Companies was either killed 

or captured. 

The infantry battalion from the South Vietnamese 22d Division, meanwhile, hunted the troops from the E2B Local Force Battalion in the grease 

pits and machine shops of the train yard. The enemy withdrew from the 

city late in the afternoon when a pair of CIDG companies sent by General 

Quang joined the clearing operation. Two infantry companies and a mechanized company from the South Korean Capital Division moved into the city 

that evening to bolster Colonel Tho’s security troops, but the enemy did not 

return to Qui Nhon.20

Although the attackers had destroyed most of the files in the Military 

Security Services building, thereby wiping out a great deal of intelligence 

that government officials had gathered about Viet Cong activities in recent 

months, the battle had been a disaster for the enemy. The allies reported killing 161 Viet Cong soldiers and capturing another 45. South Vietnamese losses 

came to thirty-five killed and seventy-six wounded, almost half of them at 

the radio station or the Military Security Services building in the first ten 

minutes of the battle.21

20 AAR, Tet Offensive in the II Corps Zone, pp. 2–5, Encl 4; Rpt, Interv no. Tet-VC-80, Rand 

Corporation, 6 Jun 68, p. 11. 21 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 5-68, I FFV, p. 7.

The railroad station at Qui Nhon
Staying the Course

294

Thanks to U.S. operations over the preceding months, the 3d PAVN 

Division entered Tet badly battered. Determined to preserve the division no 

matter how the general offensive turned out, General Man ordered its infantry regiments to strike the district capitals of An Nhon and Phu My, which 

were closer to their mountain hideaways than Qui Nhon, and to use only part 

of their strength in each attack. The B1 Front commander hoped that the 3d 

Division would tie down the 2d Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, and a portion 

of General Hieu’s 22d Infantry Division during the critical opening hours of 

battle, thereby giving his attack forces in Qui Nhon a better chance at success. 

The 18th PAVN Regiment, the division’s weakest unit, used a battalion 

to block the road between An Nhon and Qui Nhon on the morning of 30 

January. This prevented General Hieu’s ready reaction force, the reconnaissance company from the South Vietnamese 22d Division, from reaching the 

besieged port city that day. That minor success proved to be its most significant contribution of the offensive. The regiment’s lowest point came on 6 

February when its 8th Battalion attacked An Nhon itself, only to be repulsed 

by four Popular Forces platoons after losing forty-one killed. 

The 3d PAVN Division’s 2d PLAF and the 22d PAVN Regiments joined forces 

in the central part of the province to attack the district capital of Phu My, some 

fifty kilometers north of Qui Nhon. Both units were in poor shape. The 22d 

Regiment had been decimated at the battle of Tam Quan in December, while 

the 2d Regiment had lost at least a quarter of its strength fighting in the Cay 

Giep–Nui Mieu Mountain region in late December and early January. To make 

matters worse, the allies had spotted the 2d Regiment on 23 January as it moved 

into a staging area several kilometers east of town. Two mechanized companies 

from the 1st Battalion, 50th Infantry, and South Vietnamese irregulars had killed 

142 soldiers from the regiment’s 95th and 97th Battalions that day.22

After that engagement, the two mechanized companies and a mechanized 

troop from the 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry, had set up camp in Phu My, waiting for 

the 2d Regiment to make another appearance. They were rewarded on the night 

of 30–31 January when the allies spotted the 2d Regiment approaching the town 

from the east. The U.S. troops pounced on the attack party and drove it off. Over 

the next few nights, the 2d Regiment and the 22d Regiment took turns attacking 

Phu My, but the 1st Cavalry Division’s mechanized units rebuffed them. The 

North Vietnamese withdrew on 6 February, leaving behind 200 dead.23

Hard Fighting in the Highlands

Unlike General Man who was required to attack over a dozen cities on 

the central coast, General Thao had just four major targets in the B3 Front, 

22 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 6-68, I FFV, 4–10 Feb 68, 10 Feb 68, p. 8, box 2, Periodic Intel Rpts, 

Asst Ch of Staff, G–2, I FFV, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 23 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 4-68, I FFV, 21–27 Jan 68, 27 Feb 68, p. 5, box 2, Periodic Intel Rpts, 

Asst Ch of Staff, G–2, I FFV, USARV, RG 472, NACP; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 5-68, I FFV, p. 

4; 3d Division, pp. 74–76.
295

Tet Unleashed

allowing him to achieve a higher concentration of forces than the B1 Front

commander. Commencing his attack on the night of 29–30 January, Thao 

sent a total of four infantry regiments, four sapper battalions, three local 

force infantry battalions, two artillery battalions, and at least nine local 

force companies to seize the provincial capitals of the western highlands—

Kontum City, Pleiku City, and Ban Me Thuot. He ordered two more regiments, the 66th and the 174th of the 1st Division, to continue their siege of Ben 

Het and Firebase 25, and to attack the nearby town of Tan Canh in order to 

cut Highway 14 between Dak To and Kontum City.24 

The capital of Darlac Province, Ban Me Thuot, was the linchpin of 

the allied defenses in the southern highlands. The mixed Montagnard and 

Vietnamese community of some 67,000 people lay near the southern end of 

Highway 14, approximately forty kilometers from the Cambodian border. Tea 

plantations and scrub forests covered the surrounding, mostly flat landscape. 

Highway 14 ran past the lower edge of the city, traveling from northeast to 

southwest. Just north of town, Highway 21 branched away from Highway 14, 

heading east toward the coast and eventually terminating at the district town 

of Ninh Hoa.

General An, the commander of the South Vietnamese 23d Infantry 

Division, was responsible for defending the provincial capital. His headquarters was situated on the southern edge of town. The city also contained the 

base camps of the South Vietnamese 45th Infantry Regiment and the South 

Vietnamese 8th Armored Cavalry Squadron as well as a MACV compound. 

An airfield known as Camp Carroll lay on the eastern side of town, on the 

northern shoulder of Highway 14. It contained the only U.S. combat force in 

the city, the 155th Assault Helicopter Company. 

Officials in Ban Me Thuot had not received any specific intelligence suggesting the enemy might attack the city during the Tet holiday. As a consequence, General An did not recall any of the three battalions from the South 

Vietnamese 45th Infantry Regiment that were in the field, and he permitted 

the units in the city to grant leave to two-thirds of their men.25

The attack began at 0130 on 30 January when four battalions from the 

33d PAVN Regiment, the 301st and the 401st Local Force Battalions, and four 

local force companies—approximately 3,000 soldiers in all—swarmed into 

Ban Me Thuot from the south. Their main targets were General An’s headquarters, a South Vietnamese artillery base on the western side of town, the 

provincial administration office, and the National Police Station. The enemy 

penetrated the last two of those targets, and also overran the treasury office 

and imperial palace, which became the enemy’s bases of operations for the 

remainder of the battle.26

24 Special Rpt, CMIC, no. 2714, 9 Apr 68, sub: Medical Organization and Activities of 

Agricultural Site 1, B.3, p. 16, box 65, CMIC Interrogation Dossiers, Asst Ch of Staff, Intel, 

MACV, J–2, RG 472, NACP. 25 Son, ed., Viet Cong “Tet” Offensive (1968), p. 330. 26 AAR, Tet Offensive in the II Corps Zone, pp. 3–4, Encl 7.
Staying the Course

296

As those attacks were getting under way, a battalion from the 33d PAVN 

Regiment peeled away to assault the city’s radio station in the southwestern 

part of town. The Regional Forces troops who were guarding the facility 

held out for several hours before they were finally overwhelmed. Heavy fire 

prevented a group of irregulars from a nearby Montagnard training center 

from coming to their rescue. Once in possession of the station, the enemy 

broadcast a message ordering the residents of Ban Me Thuot to evacuate the 

city. Their mission accomplished, the North Vietnamese troops destroyed the 

radio tower and then laid siege to the Montagnard training center.27

Throughout the morning, light tanks and armored personnel carriers 

from the South Vietnamese 8th Armored Cavalry Squadron raced back and 

forth to break up enemy attacks around town. Rocket-propelled grenades 

disabled or destroyed four of their vehicles, but the South Vietnamese cavalrymen kept the enemy off balance until the 2d and 3d Battalions from the 

South Vietnamese 45th Infantry Regiment returned to the city around noon. 

General An’s counterattack gained strength later in the day when four of his 

reconnaissance companies and a Regional Forces company came in from the 

27 Ibid.

A MACV compound in the foreground and Camp Coryell in the background 

at Ban Me Thuot
297

Tet Unleashed

field. By nightfall, the enemy’s foothold had shrunk to several square blocks 

around the treasury building and imperial palace.28

Heavy fighting continued throughout the next day, 31 January. Possession 

of the treasury building and the imperial palace went back and forth several 

times, with the enemy regaining control of them in the evening. Worried by 

the slow pace of the clearing operation, General An asked the corps commander, General Vinh Loc, for additional troops.

At his behest, the South Vietnamese 23d Ranger Battalion flew into 

Camp Carroll shortly after midnight and then joined the clearing operation when it resumed at daybreak. Even with those extra soldiers, progress 

remained slow. Snipers seemed to be everywhere, sometimes popping up in 

areas that had once seemed secure. The Communists still appeared to have 

plenty of machine gun ammunition and rocket-propelled grenades. The 

South Vietnamese used their heavy weapons sparingly, so as to not cause 

more damage to the city than was necessary. 

The enemy made a last bid to regain the initiative on the morning of 2 

February when he plastered the South Vietnamese artillery camp with tear 

gas and then sent a wave of infantry to capture the howitzers. At 0300 a group 

28 Ibid., pp. 3–5; Intel Cable, CIA, 1 Feb 68, sub: II Corps Situation Report as of 1800 Hours 

1 February 1968, p. 4, document 17, Vietnam-Memo dated 6 Feb 68, box 187, NSF-Vietnam 

Country Files, LBJL. 

A South Vietnamese Army M24 Chaffee light tank at Tan Son Nhut
Staying the Course

298

of attackers broke through the perimeter. U.S. helicopter gunships swooped 

in to machine-gun the invaders by the light of parachute flares and burning 

ground fires. The North Vietnamese troops gave up their toehold and ended 

their assault twenty minutes later. 

Resistance in the city began to crumble on 3 February. General An’s soldiers recaptured the radio station, imperial palace, and treasury building. 

Resistance waned as the enemy began filtering out of the city. The allied situation further improved that afternoon when the 1st Battalion, 503d Infantry, 

landed at the airfield. The following morning, the American paratroopers 

went in search of the enemy as he retreated south, but found only an abandoned camp littered with equipment.29

The four-day battle had devastated much of Ban Me Thuot, damaging 

or destroying 3,300 homes and leaving some 20,000 people, over one-third of 

the population, temporarily without shelter. Approximately 560 civilians had 

been killed in the fighting and another 800 had been wounded. The South 

Vietnamese had lost seventy-four soldiers killed in action. The enemy lost as 

many as 900 soldiers dead or severely wounded.30

General Thao’s second target in the western highlands was Pleiku City, 

the capital of Pleiku Province. The mixed Vietnamese and Montagnard community of some 33,000 people, situated at the intersection of Highway 14 and 

Highway 19, was the most important military center in the western highlands. 

The South Vietnamese II Corps commander, General Vinh Loc, maintained 

his headquarters just north of town near a host of other military facilities, 

including the New Pleiku airfield, the main base of the 52d Artillery Group, 

the headquarters of the South Vietnamese 2d Ranger Group, a Montagnard 

training center, and a U.S. Special Forces cantonment. The South Vietnamese 

3d Armored Cavalry Regiment was stationed just east of town, and beyond it 

was Camp Holloway, an airfield complex that contained the headquarters of 

the 52d Aviation Battalion and four assault helicopter companies, the 119th, 

the 170th, the 179th, and the 189th. The closest U.S. ground combat units 

were located nine kilometers to the south at Camp Enari, home of the 4th 

Infantry Division.31

The allies had received multiple indications throughout the month that 

the enemy intended to attack the city right before Tet. Nevertheless, the II 

Corps commander, General Loc, had gone to Saigon. The man he left in 

charge of defending Pleiku City, Maj. Le Than, the deputy province chief for 

security, took the warning signs seriously. He ensured that Regional Forces 

soldiers and troops from the South Vietnamese 11th Ranger Battalion were 

on full alert, and placed armored vehicles from the South Vietnamese 3d 

Armored Cavalry around the II Corps headquarters. The senior adviser at 

the II Corps headquarters, Col. John W. Barnes, arranged for a platoon of 

29 ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, 4th Div, 21 May 68, p. 7, Historians files, CMH.

30 AAR, Tet Offensive in the II Corps Zone, I FFV, pp. 4–8, Encl 7, tab E.

31 AAR, Tet Offensive in the II Corps Zone, I FFV, pp. 1–3, Encl 8.
299

Tet Unleashed

tanks from the 1st Battalion, 69th Armor, to be stationed at Camp Holloway 

as a ready reserve force.32

Ninety minutes past midnight in the early hours of 30 January, the K31 

Battalion, 40th Artillery Regiment, opened fire on the two airfields, the artillery firebase, and the ranger compound. The ground attack got under way 

ninety minutes later when Viet Cong sappers probed the Montagnard training center on the north side of Pleiku City. Soon the entire city and both airfields were under attack by the 408th Sapper Battalion, half of the H15 Local 

Force Battalion, elements of the 407th Sapper Battalion, a company from the 

28th Sapper Battalion, and over a hundred local guerrillas. Alert and wellprepared, the defenders proved equal to the challenge; none of the facilities 

fell into enemy hands. A group of sappers tried to enter General Vinh Loc’s 

house, only to be repulsed by his security detail. The South Vietnamese 3d 

Armored Cavalry, acting as a mobile fire brigade, proved especially effective in blunting the Communist attack. Always in the thick of fighting, the 

squadron lost three M41 tanks and two other armored vehicles in the first 

several hours of combat.33 

The allies went on the offensive at first light. At 0715, two companies 

of Montagnard irregulars began fighting their way from the training center 

into the heart of the city. At the same time, the platoon of U.S. tanks drove 

from Camp Holloway to the artillery camp southwest of town to make sure 

the howitzers did not fall into enemy hands. Thirty minutes later, the South 

Vietnamese 11th Ranger Battalion entered the city from the east and moved 

to the center of town before initiating a house-to-house sweep. Later in the 

morning, the South Vietnamese 22d Ranger Battalion and the command 

element of the South Vietnamese 2d Ranger Group entered the city from 

the west and joined the clearing operation in downtown Pleiku. As evening 

approached, two companies from the U.S. 4th Engineer Battalion landed 

by helicopter on the southern outskirts of town to prevent the enemy from 

escaping in that direction. 

After nightfall, most of Viet Cong retreated to the southwestern corner of 

town where allied forces were thinnest. Some hid themselves in ruined buildings and in piles of debris hoping to escape notice, while others discarded 

their weapons and put on civilian clothes in hopes of passing as refugees. 

The evasion techniques were not particularly successful, but they did force 

the South Vietnamese soldiers to backtrack and reexamine areas that had 

previously been cleared.34

32 Debriefing, Maj Gen Charles P. Stone, 15 Nov 68, pp. 8–9, Historians files, CMH; Intel 

Sum 4, I FFV, 17–23 Jan 68, 23 Jan 68, box 1, AARs, Asst Ch of Staff, G–3 Adviser, Second 

Regional Assistance Command (SRAC), USARV, RG 472, NACP. 33 AAR, Tet Offensive in the II Corps Zone, pp. 2–3, Encl 8; Interv, Lt Col Jim Breen and 

Lt Col Charlie Moore with Lt Gen William R. Peers, former CG, 4th Div, and CG, I FFV, 13 

Apr 77, p. 71, Senior Ofcr Oral Hist Program, U.S. Army Military History Institute (MHI), 

Carlisle Barracks, Pa.; Bfg, Maj Angelo Theofanous, G–2 Adviser, II Corps, and Maj Richard 

W. Prengergast, Deputy G–3 Adviser, II Corps, p. 5, Historians files, CMH. 34 AAR, Tet Offensive in the II Corps Zone, pp. 2–4, Encl 8; Special Joint Narrative Rpt, RD, 

Pleiku Province, Feb 68, n.d., p. 5, Historians files, CMH.
Staying the Course

300

Allied troops continued their slow squeeze of the North Vietnamese sappers and Viet Cong fighters the next morning, 31 January. The makeshift 

force from the 4th Engineer Battalion cleared Pleiku’s main school around 

noon, killing twenty-one enemy soldiers in the process. When darkness fell, 

most of the surviving Communists withdrew from the city. Clearing operations continued the next day but netted only a handful of enemy soldiers, 

so the engineer task force and the tank platoon from the 1st Battalion, 69th 

Armor, returned to Camp Enari.

On the morning of 2 February, just when the battle seemed to be over, 

the allies spotted several companies from the H15 Local Force Battalion digging entrenchments on the western outskirts of town. As it turned out, only 

part of the unit had gotten to the city to participate in the initial attack. The 

remainder of the unit, including its commander, had just shown up. Seeing 

that the city was now in allied hands, the commander had decided to make a 

stand in his present location.35

It was a poor decision. The Viet Cong had yet to finish their work when 

a flight of six helicopter gunships pounced on them. As they scattered, a 

line of tanks and armored personnel carriers from the South Vietnamese 3d 

Armored Cavalry Regiment converged on the scene. Within an hour or so 

35 AAR, Tet Offensive in the II Corps Zone, I FFV, p. 4, Encl 8.

Members of Company E, 4th Engineer Battalion, 4th Infantry Division, 

sweep toward the Chinese school in Pleiku.
301

Tet Unleashed

the Viet Cong unit was all but wiped out. Those losses brought the enemy 

casualty figure to 606 soldiers killed and another 156 captured in the battle 

for Pleiku City. The allies lost twenty-eight dead.36

While the battle for Pleiku City had been under way, General Thao 

had ordered two North Vietnamese units, the 95B Regiment and the 32d 

Regiment, 1st Division, to cut the roads leading into the provincial capital. 

The 95B Regiment, for reasons not entirely clear, had made only a halfhearted attempt to comply with the order. On the morning of 31 January, 

North Vietnamese mortar crews had fired a barrage of shells at a convoy that 

was passing through the Mang Yang Pass, a narrow defile on Highway 19 

east of Pleiku City. A few minutes later, a flight of allied aircraft had bombed 

the gunners into silence. The result of the attack was one damaged truck and 

three wounded Americans. The pass remained open.

The 32d Regiment, 1st Division, showed more determination to cut 

Highway 19 at Thanh An, a district capital some twenty-three kilometers 

southeast of Pleiku City. The headquarters and support area for the 2d 

Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, Camp Oasis, lay just south of town. The mission of the 32d Regiment was to tie up the U.S. brigade for as long as possible.

36 Rpt, Interv no. Tet-VC-41, Rand Corporation, 3 May 68, pp. 4–5, Historians files, CMH; 

Periodic Intel Rpt no. 5-68, I FFV, p. 6.

U.S. tanks and armored personnel carriers from the 4th Infantry Division 

prepare to move out.
Staying the Course

302

The North Vietnamese unit may have had problems during its march 

to Thanh An, for it did not attack the district town until the morning of 1 

February, by which point the battle for Pleiku City was virtually over. The 

South Vietnamese defenders held their ground until helicopter gunships from 

the 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry, and armored personnel carriers from the 

2d Battalion, 8th Infantry (Mechanized), arrived on the scene from Camp 

Oasis. The battle turned into a disaster for the 32d Regiment. The next morning, allied soldiers counted 275 enemy bodies on the battlefield. Allied troops 

went after the retreating 32d Regiment and discovered its base camp on 5 

February. The enemy lost another thirty-five soldiers before he could break 

contact and disappear into the forest.37

The third city in the western highlands to be attacked on the night of 

29–30 January was Kontum City, the capital of Kontum Province. Like the 

other two provincial capitals in the highlands, its population of approximately 27,000 was a mixture of Vietnamese and Montagnards. Located 

approximately fifty kilometers north of Pleiku City, the town was nestled in 

a bend of the Dak Bla, a slow-moving river that shielded the southern and 

eastern approaches to the city. Highway 14 passed through the western edge 

of town, connecting the provincial capital with Pleiku City and Dak To. 

A string of installations lined the northern edge of town. At the eastern end was an airfield complex that housed the 57th Assault Helicopter 

Company; Troop A of the 2d Squadron, 1st Cavalry; Company B of the 299th 

Engineer Battalion; and a company of Montagnard irregulars. A MACV 

advisory compound and a U.S. communications facility stood at the western 

end of the line. Between the airfield and the advisory compound was the 

headquarters of the South Vietnamese 24th Special Tactical Zone, manned 

by elements of the South Vietnamese 2d Battalion, 42d Regiment; the South 

Vietnamese 406th Reconnaissance Company; and a South Vietnamese battery of 105-mm. howitzers. A company of Montagnard soldiers guarded the 

province chief’s headquarters in the center of town.38

The official responsible for managing the security of Kontum City was 

Col. Nguyen Trong Luat, the commander of the 24th Special Tactical Zone, 

which incorporated Kontum Province. The senior adviser attached to his 

headquarters, Col. James P. Cahill, coordinated the American portion of 

the joint defense plan. Reliable intelligence from multiple sources had indicated to them that the city was likely to be attacked at some point during the 

week-long Tet holiday. The two commanders had reviewed and exercised the 

joint defense plan, increased their reconnaissance efforts, and strengthened 

the defenses of several key installations, adding new layers of razor wire and 

37 Man, Time of Upheaval, p. 473; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 5-68, I FFV, p. 3; AAR, Tet Offensive 

in the II Corps Zone, I FFV, pp. 5–6, Encl 7. 38 AAR, Attack on Kontum Provincial Capital, 45th Mil Hist Det, 28 Feb 68, pp. 1–2, box 

29, AARs, Asst Ch of Staff, J–3, MACV, RG 472, NACP; Son, ed., Viet Cong “Tet” Offensive 

(1968), p. 316.
303

Tet Unleashed

minefields outside the perimeter of the airfield. Colonel Luat also kept half 

of his troops on duty through the holiday.39

The attack on Kontum City began at 0212 on 30 January, when a company from the 406th PAVN Sapper Battalion and a company from the 304th 

Local Force Battalion approached the city from the northeast and then 

assaulted the airfield. As the Communists struggled through the new fields of 

razor wire and took casualties from antipersonnel mines, American security 

guards opened fire, and gunships from the 57th Assault Helicopter Company 

scrambled aloft. Using the illumination provided by searchlights at the airfield to pick out their targets, the helicopters blasted the enemy with rockets 

and machine guns, stopping his advance fifty meters short of the main landing strip. 

The enemy made a second and even stronger push toward the airfield a 

short time later when the K6 Battalion of the 24th PAVN Regiment joined 

the assault. Emerging from their compound with a roar of engines and the 

bark of machine gun fire, two M48 tanks and four M113 armored personnel 

carriers from Troop A, 2d Squadron, 1st Cavalry, plowed into the right flank 

of the advancing North Vietnamese. The sudden attack threw the enemy into 

disarray, but when the Communists recovered from their initial surprise, 

the cavalrymen went from being the hunters to being the hunted. Rocketpropelled grenades flared out at them, hitting at least one of the vehicles, and 

the U.S. vehicles began a fighting retreat back to their compound.40

As the attack against the airfield was getting under way, several companies from the K4 and K5 Battalions, 24th Regiment, and two companies from 

the 304th Battalion assaulted the compound of the 24th Special Tactical Zone 

several hundred meters to the west. When enemy troops penetrated the facility, Colonel Luat retreated to his private residence with one of his infantry 

companies, effectively abdicating his command duties. Fortunately for the 

defenders, the attackers seemed disorganized. The enemy overran a pair of 

105-mm. howitzers, for example, but made no attempt to use or to disable 

them. They also ignored the headquarters of the 24th Special Tactical Zone 

and the home of the deputy province chief, two buildings that ought to have 

been on their target list.41

At the same time the enemy attacked the tactical zone headquarters, several companies from the K4 and K5 Battalions struck the advisory compound 

several hundred meters to the southwest. A combination of advisers, signal 

personnel, and Montagnard scouts repulsed the assault, but the enemy overran an interrogation center and a language school just north of the compound. 

In the center of town, approximately eighty men from the 406th Sapper 

Battalion who had infiltrated the city in ones and twos in the days leading up 

to Tet, donned South Vietnamese uniforms before emerging from their safe 

39 AAR, Tet Offensive in the II Corps Zone, I FFV, p. 2, Encl 9.

40 “Battle for Vietnam: Defense of a provincial capital during the Tet Offensive, 29 January–2 

February 1968,” p. 6, VNIT 202, CMH; ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 52d Combat Avn Bn, 6 

Feb 68, p. 1, Encl 4, box 98, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 41 “Battle for Vietnam,” p. 6, VNIT 202, CMH.
Staying the Course

304

houses to attack the province chief’s headquarters. The Montagnard defenders repulsed the sappers. 

As the fight raged, the province chief, Lt. Col. Nguyen Hop Doan, 

spotted a group of men crouched in a nearby trench, dressed as Regional 

Forces soldiers but wearing the kind of packs that only Viet Cong soldiers used. Doan pointed the group out to one of his soldiers who was 

armed with a M79 grenade launcher. The soldier fired, and the resulting 

explosion killed everyone in the group; it later turned out that those killed 

were the Viet Cong province chief and several members of his shadow 

government. However, their deaths had no immediate effect on the battle, 

and for the next several hours the enemy continued a furious siege of the 

province headquarters.42

The fighting in the city tapered off to occasional rifle shots when the 

sun rose. Most enemy fighters went into hiding to avoid the helicopter gunships that prowled overhead. The first American reinforcements arrived in 

the midst of this eerie calm. Task Force Delta, composed of two helicopterborne rifle platoons and Company D of the 7th Squadron, 17th Air Cavalry, 

4th Infantry Division, landed at the airfield around 0930. After getting orga42 AAR, Tet Offensive in the II Corps Zone, p. 4, Encl 9; Rpt, Interv no. Tet-VC-1, Rand 

Corporation, 9 Apr 68, p. 2; Rpt, Interv no. Tet-VC-13, Rand Corporation, 18 Apr 68, pp. 2, 4. 

Both in Historians files, CMH.

A view of the province chief’s headquarters in Kontum City
305

Tet Unleashed

nized and studying the latest reports, the force moved into the northern part 

of the city shortly after noon. Resistance was light at first but grew exponentially the closer Task Force Delta got to the MACV advisory compound in 

the northwestern part of town. More troops would be needed to lift the siege.

Help arrived that afternoon when the commander of the 4th Infantry 

Division’s 1st Battalion, 22d Infantry, Lt. Col. William P. Junk, flew into 

the city with his staff and two infantry companies. He sent Company A 

to join Task Force Delta in the northern part of town and Company B to 

the southern edge of the city to secure the main bridge over the Dak Bla. 

Once the colonel had established his command center near the bridge, he 

assumed tactical command over all U.S. ground troops in the city. As far 

as he could tell, there were probably several hundred enemy soldiers in the 

heart of the city and perhaps two or three times that number on its northern 

outskirts. The situation was still precarious at the advisory compound in 

the northwestern part of town and at the province chief’s house. As evening 

fell, U.S. and South Vietnamese soldiers braced themselves for another long 

night of battle.43

Under cover of darkness, the Communists tried and failed once again 

to seize the airfield. Then, just after midnight on 30–31 January, the 24th 

Regiment resumed its attack against the advisory compound. After several 

hours of intense gunfire, the U.S. advisers and their Montagnard troops began 

to run low on ammunition. When several enemy soldiers wormed their way 

through the outer wire at 0415 on 31 January, the Americans started burning 

their sensitive papers. It was a prudent but unnecessary act. The defenders 

quickly eliminated the handful of attackers who had gotten through the wire 

and then effectively plugged the gap with small arms fire. As for the ammunition shortage, a low-flying U.S. Air Force plane dropped new stores into the 

compound a short time later. Now with plenty to go around, the defenders 

held on until sunrise when the enemy called off the attack.

Allied troops poured into Kontum City on the second day of battle. A 

company of Montagnard soldiers landed by helicopter at the advisory compound and Company D, 1st Battalion, 22d Infantry, from the 4th Infantry 

Division manned positions around the airfield. A battery of 105-mm. howitzers went into action near Colonel Junk’s command post on the southern 

outskirts of town. Later that afternoon, nine M48 tanks from Company C, 

1st Battalion, 69th Armor, drove up Highway 14 and into the provincial capital. The tanks split into groups of twos and threes so they could protect key 

installations around the city. After Task Force Delta finished a long sweep 

through the city, it retired to the advisory compound for the night. 

As the allies had expected, the 24th Regiment resumed its attack against 

the advisory compound on the morning of 1 February. North Vietnamese 

troops knocked out a generator at the compound that provided power for the 

perimeter lights, but the enemy could not turn the resulting darkness to his 

advantage. Once again, the defenders ran low on ammunition after several 

hours of intense fighting, but a few daring helicopter pilots eventually got 

43 Rpt, Interv no. Tet-VC-13, Rand Corporation, 18 Apr 68, pp. 5–6, Historians files, CMH.
Staying the Course

306

through to deliver much-needed supplies. Meanwhile, North Vietnamese 

gunners bombarded the airfield with 122-mm. rockets. One of the exploding 

warheads ignited a large fuel truck that burned furiously but otherwise did 

no appreciable damage to the facility.

When daylight came, Colonel Junk began a coordinated, citywide clearing operation. Company C from the 1st Battalion, 22d Infantry, and Task 

Force Delta swept through the main part of Kontum City, flushing out 

Communist soldiers in ones and twos from many of the houses. Meanwhile, 

the colonel sent Company D to recapture the prisoner interrogation center 

and the language school in the northwestern corner of the city near the 

U.S. advisory compound. A hail of gunfire raked the lead platoon from 

Company D as it approached the buildings, wounding at least a dozen men. 

Junk immediately committed his Company C as well as a pair of tanks and 

an M113 from Troop A, 2d Squadron, 1st Cavalry, which had just arrived in 

the city. The combined force overpowered a company of North Vietnamese 

soldiers from the 24th Regiment that had fortified the area, killing an estimated forty-seven of them. Around one hundred Communist soldiers fled 

north across an open field. Most were cut down by American weapons 

before they reached the concealing brush on the other side. 

Colonel Junk got more good news later that evening when two companies 

from the 4th Infantry Division’s 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry, flew in from Dak 

U.S. soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 22d Infantry, 4th Infantry Division, 

battle the enemy in Kontum City.
307

Tet Unleashed

To. They set up night defense positions just north of the airfield. The colonel 

now had a sizable force interposed between the city and the 24th Regiment on 

its northern outskirts.

That night, for the first time since 29 January, the provincial capital was 

almost completely quiet. The troops from the 24th PAVN Regiment, the 304th 

Local Force Battalion, and the 406th PAVN Sapper Battalion began withdrawing from the city. By allied estimates the enemy had lost 753 killed in 

action, a large number of his original attack force.44

U.S. forces spent the third and fourth of February sweeping up enemy 

stragglers in Kontum City, and then initiated a pursuit of the 24th Regiment

on the fifth. Colonel Junk had sufficient troops at his disposal—two artillery 

batteries, one armored company, one armored cavalry squadron, and five 

infantry battalions—to overwhelm the North Vietnamese unit if it chose to 

stand and fight, so he released the two companies from the 1st Battalion, 12th 

Infantry, which returned to Dak To.45

Meanwhile the 24th Regiment was reorganizing itself on Hill 684, a woodcovered slope some five kilometers northeast of town. The hill had served as 

a forward base for the unit in the days before Tet, so it was already fortified 

with bunkers, trenches, and supply caches. Now the hill would become a 

defensive stronghold for one final battle.

The first contact occurred some 1,500 meters south of Hill 684 when 

enemy scouts clashed with the lead elements of the 1st Battalion, 22d 

Infantry. The skirmishing lasted until nightfall. The next morning, 6 

February, Company A from the 1st Battalion, 22d Infantry, pushed through 

the enemy screen and assaulted Hill 684. On the right flank, Company B 

assaulted a neighboring peak, Hill 721. When Company A encountered 

strong resistance, Company B changed its azimuth and came up the eastern 

side of Hill 684. The North Vietnamese used their advantages in elevation 

and cover to good effect. After being pinned down for most of the day, 

the Americans eventually retired with four killed and seventeen wounded. 

General Peers dispatched Company A from the 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry, 

to reinforce Colonel Junk.

On the morning of 7 February, air and artillery strikes blanketed the 

hill. After the dust settled, Companies A and B from the 1st Battalion, 

22d Infantry, and Company A from the 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry, went 

straight up the hill, while Company D, 1st Battalion, 22d Infantry, and some 

tanks went around the western base of the hill, and Company C from the 1st 

Battalion, 22d infantry, hooked around it from the east. The trap closed on 

air; the enemy had gone. With that, the battle for Kontum had effectively 

come to an end.

The only other major battle of the Tet offensive to take place in the 

western highlands took place at Tan Canh District town, just east of Dak 

To. One battalion from the 174th Regiment occupied part of the city on the 

morning of 30 January, but before the day was over a battalion from the 

44 AAR, Tet Offensive in the II Corps Zone, I FFV, p. 8, Encl 9.

45 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 5-68, I FFV, p. 6.
Staying the Course

308

South Vietnamese 42d Regiment chased the enemy back into the hills. On 8 

February, the 174th Regiment returned to attack Tan Canh with even greater 

numbers, but the South Vietnamese defenders, having had a full week to 

improve their positions, stopped the enemy from entering the city. The North 

Vietnamese unit lost about 150 soldiers in the second attack. Afterward, the 

174th and 66th Regiments withdrew to refit in Cambodia.46

Initial Fighting in Southern I Corps

General Man’s B1 Front extended into the three provinces of southern I 

Corps—Quang Nam, Quang Ngai, and Quang Tin. Man planned to strike 

the capital cities of each of these provinces. On 29 January, he was able to 

contact his forces in Quang Ngai and Quang Tin to clarify the time the offensive was to begin, thereby delaying the attacks in those areas until the morning of 31 January as the North Vietnamese high command had intended. He 

was less successful in communicating with the troops in Quang Nam, with 

the result that the attack on Quang Nam’s capital of Hoi An began twentyfour hours ahead of time, during the early morning of 30 January (Map 26).

Hoi An contained about 44,000 people and was relatively well defended 

for its size. The province chief, Lt. Col. Le Tri Tin, relied on Regional Forces 

units to defend the city. Troops from the South Korean 2d Marine Brigade 

manned several firebases on the outskirts of town, while the city itself contained the headquarters of the South Vietnamese 51st Regiment and a government engineer battalion. Although allied intelligence had not received 

a specific warning about an attack, the senior U.S. adviser to Quang Nam 

Province had ordered a higher state of readiness due to the many unusual 

signs of enemy activity in southern I Corps.47

Shortly before 0330 on 30 January, troops from the V25 Local Force 

Battalion and the Q12 Local Force Company assaulted the headquarters 

of the South Vietnamese 51st Regiment as well as the engineer compound. 

The Communists seized about half of the engineer compound until heavy 

defensive fire, including point-blank blasts from South Vietnamese 105-mm. 

howitzers, stopped their advance. 

When daylight came, the Viet Cong pulled back to a civilian housing area, 

now abandoned, that belonged to the families of South Vietnamese soldiers. 

When helicopter gunships failed to drive the enemy out, South Vietnamese 

artillerymen blasted apart the homes, including many of their own. A South 

Korean infantry company and several U.S. Marine tanks then moved in to 

46 Ibid., pp. 8–9; AAR, Opn MacArthur, 3d Bn, 12th Inf, 4th Inf Div, n.d., pp. 5, 26, box 4, 

Hist Background files, 13th Mil Hist Det, USARV, RG 472, NACP; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 5-68, 

I FFV, p. 6; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 6-68, I FFV, p. 6. 47 AAR, Enemy Tet Offensive and Allied Reaction, Ofc of the Senior Adviser, Quang Nam 

Sector, Advisory Team 1, n.d., p. 3, and an. A, p. 1, contained in Rpt, III MAF, 3 Aug 68, sub: 

Enemy’s Tet Offensive, Encl 2, box 30, AARs, Asst Ch of Staff, J–3, MACV, RG 472, NACP; 

AAR, Opn Dinosaur, South Korean 2d Marine Bde, n.d., p. 1. Both in box 30, AARs, Asst Ch 

of Staff, J–3, MACV, RG 472, NACP.
309

Tet Unleashed

finish the job. Afterward, government officials estimated that the enemy had 

lost as many as 300 soldiers, some of whom appeared to be no more than ten 

years old.48

48 Rpt, III MAF, 9 Aug 68, sub: Enemy’s Tet Offensive, p. 3, Encl 1, box 30, AARs, Asst Ch 

of Staff, J–3, MACV, RG 472, NACP; AAR, Enemy Tet Offensive and Allied Reaction, Ofc of 

the Senior Adviser, Quang Nam Sector, Advisory Team 1, pp. 3–4, and an. A, pp. 1–2; Son, ed., 

Viet Cong “Tet” Offensive (1968), p. 305.

ARVN

1

X X

USMC

TF X-RAY

X

Marine

2 ROK

X X

XXX

I

ARVN

XXX

III MAF

USMC

USMC

1

X X

3 1 Cav

X

1 Cav

X X

196

X

11

X

198

X

3 4

X

ARVN

2

X X

Americal

X X

607

114

112

117

121

609

613

614

101

DA NANG

QUANG NGAI

BA TO

CHU LAI

TAM KY

HILL 35

HOI AN

DUC PHO

HUE

CAMP EVANS

PHU BAI

LZ BALDY

II CTZ

SOUTH CHINA SEA

1

1

1

14

14

QUANG

TRI

THUA THIEN

QUANG NAM

QUANG TIN

QUANG NGAI

KONTUM

BINH DINH

Da Nang

LAOS

CAMBODIA

Fireght

Corps Tactical Zone Boundary

Military Installation 

30–31 January 1968

SOUTHERN I CORPS TACTICAL ZONE

TET OFFENSIVE

0 50 Miles

0 50 Kilometers

Map 26
Staying the Course

310

Thanks to the confusion in the enemy’s ranks over the timing of the Tet 

offensive, allied forces in Quang Ngai and Quang Tin had twenty-four hours 

to prepare for attacks in their sectors. They made the most of it.

The acting commander of the South Vietnamese 2d Infantry Division, 

Col. Nguyen Van Toan, led the defense of the capital of Quang Ngai Province, 

Quang Ngai City. The town, which held 41,000 people, sat between the Tra 

Khuc River to the north and the smaller Ve River to the south, eight kilometers from the coast. Fields of sugar cane covered the land west and east 

of town. Two hills, Mont Ong north of town and Mong to the south, offered 

excellent points of observation over the city and surrounding farmland. 

Highway 1 ran through the heart of town. 

Colonel Toan situated his headquarters in a stone citadel on the northeastern side of town. The bastion measured some 500 meters on each side and 

was defended by an infantry battalion and an armored cavalry troop. Several 

Regional Forces companies and Popular Forces platoons guarded government facilities deeper in town. Two kilometers west of the city was an airfield that contained the headquarters of the South Vietnamese 4th Infantry 

Regiment. One battalion defended the headquarters while a second battalion 

was camped near the Tra Khuc Bridge two kilometers north of Quang Ngai 

City. Four kilometers north of town, two platoons of irregulars guarded a 

Popular Forces training center.49

The attack against Quang Ngai City commenced at 0405 on 31 January. 

A barrage of mortar, recoilless rifle, and automatic weapons fire swept the 

city as elements of the 406th Sapper Battalion, the 506A Sapper Company, 

and the C19 Local Force Company attacked the southern wall of the citadel. 

Viet Cong troops destroyed an armored personnel carrier and damaged a 

second with rocket-propelled grenades but could not overcome the heavy fire 

that rained down on them from the government soldiers manning the parapet. In the end, only a single five-man sapper team was able to scale the walls. 

They destroyed an empty building with their satchel charges before South 

Vietnamese troops killed them. 

Having blunted the attack against the citadel, the government counterattacked at 0530. Armored personnel carriers from the Vietnamese 1st 

Squadron, 4th Armored Cavalry, and soldiers from the Vietnamese 3d 

Battalion, 4th Infantry, sallied out to confront the besiegers. The Viet Cong 

withdrew to a more defensible location, a cluster of villages east of the citadel. 

Backed by U.S. helicopter gunships, the South Vietnamese regained contact 

with the enemy around 1500. The battle for the villages lasted for three hours 

until the defenders slipped away. All told, 128 Viet Cong and 31 government 

troops had died in the fighting around the citadel.50

While the struggle for the citadel was under way, a second battle was 

taking place in the heart of Quang Ngai City. The 409th Sapper Battalion, the 

81st Local Force Battalion, and the C95 Sapper Company fought a Regional 

49 Rpt, I Corps Advisory Gp, Advisory Team 1, 9 Apr 68, sub: After Action Report of the 

Enemy’s Tet Offensive, pp. 7–8, Encl 5, Historians files, CMH. 50 Ibid., p. 8.
311

Tet Unleashed

Forces company for control of the province and the sector headquarters, a 

large hospital, and the city’s jail. The attackers overran the hospital and the 

jail, releasing about 900 prisoners. According to standing Communist orders, 

anyone who had once been a Viet Cong soldier was supposed to pick up arms 

and join the attack. How many did so is uncertain. 

Perhaps bolstered by dozens or even hundreds of new fighters, the Viet 

Cong maintained their foothold in Quang Ngai City throughout the day and 

night of 31 January. It was not until 0800 on the following morning that South 

Vietnamese troops finally recaptured the town center. The enemy had paid a 

high price for his fleeting success. Viet Cong losses came to 161 killed while 5 

South Vietnamese soldiers had died.51

Meanwhile, a third Viet Cong force hit the western side of Quang Ngai 

City on the night of 30–31 January. The 407th Sapper Battalion, the 20th 

Montagnard Battalion, the 107th Anti-Aircraft Battalion, and eight local 

force companies converged on the airfield and the adjacent headquarters 

of the South Vietnamese 4th Infantry Regiment. The defenders from the 

South Vietnamese 2d Battalion, 4th Regiment, may have been outnumbered 

by two or three to one, but they refused to surrender an inch of territory. 

When dawn came, the government troops went on the attack. Despite the 

reported presence of the 107th Anti-Aircraft Battalion, low-flying helicopter gunships rained destruction on the Viet Cong. The South Vietnamese 

infantry mopped up behind them, and by 0900 on 31 January most of the 

Viet Cong had fled the field. Enemy losses came to 209 killed while the 

South Vietnamese lost 6 dead.52

At roughly the same time that the enemy launched his three-pronged 

assault against Quang Ngai City, the 48th Local Force Battalion embarked on 

a mission to cut Highway 1 some four kilometers north of town. Its objective 

was to destroy the main bridge over the Tra Khuc River. Rather than fight a 

confusing night battle with the Regional Forces company that guarded the 

bridge, the enemy unit decided to overrun a Popular Forces training center 

situated on a hill overlooking the bridge. They then planned to destroy the 

span with mortars once there was enough daylight to see. When the Viet 

Cong attacked the training center, the defenders sent a warning to the South 

Vietnamese 4th Battalion, 4th Regiment, which was bivouacked nearby. 

Accompanied by two platoons of armored personnel carriers and supported 

by artillery and helicopter gunships, the government troops drove the 48th 

Local Force Battalion from the hill before the Viet Cong gunners could 

destroy the bridge. When the fighting ended around 1035 on 31 January, the 

allied troops counted 144 enemy bodies in the area. South Vietnamese losses 

came to nine killed. 53

All told, the Communists had lost at least 639 dead as well as 190 individual weapons and 52 crew-served weapons in the four separate but related 

battles in and around Quang Ngai City. The enemy remained in the area for 

51 Ibid.

52 Ibid.

53 Ibid., p. 9.
Staying the Course

312

the next week, harassing installations with mortar and long-range weapons 

fire and occasionally clashing with allied patrols, but the city itself did not 

again come under ground attack. Having lost another 120 or so men in the 

week’s fighting, the Viet Cong withdrew in the second week of February to 

rest and refit.54

The final provincial capital to be hit in southern I Corps was Tam Ky, 

the seat of Quang Tin Province. The city of approximately 38,000 people was 

home to the South Vietnamese 6th Infantry Regiment and the headquarters 

of the South Vietnamese 22d Artillery Battalion. The two compounds contained a total of three infantry companies, two 105-mm. artillery batteries, 

and one 155-mm. battery. Four companies of irregulars guarded the sector 

and provincial headquarters in the northern part of the city. The province 

chief, Lt. Col. Hoang Dinh Tho, commanded the garrison. The only U.S. 

troops in Tam Ky were a handful of advisers.55

Tam Ky’s defenders were on high alert because a Viet Cong soldier captured near the city on 27 January had revealed that the town would be assaulted 

within the next few days. Sure enough, at 0400 on 31 January, mortar and 

recoilless rifle fire began to slam into Tam Ky. A short time later, the 72d and 

105th Local Force Battalions and three local force companies emerged from 

the east and attacked the South Vietnamese compounds. Heavy defensive 

fire and point-blank salvos from the South Vietnamese 105-mm. howitzers 

shattered the attacks. 

A second assault developed from the north. The 70th and the 74th Main 

Force Battalions and three local force companies entered the city after punching through a company from the South Vietnamese 6th Regiment. Enemy 

troops occupied the province headquarters and a nearby hospital. The victory was short-lived; at first light, South Vietnamese troops retook those 

buildings with help from American helicopter gunships.

A search of the battlefield on the morning of 1 February revealed no less 

than 486 enemy bodies, which was approximately one-third of the attacking 

force. From captured prisoners, the allies discovered that many of the Viet 

Cong soldiers were youths between the ages of fourteen and nineteen who 

had been recruited only a few weeks before the offensive.56

The Viet Cong hovered near Tam Ky for the next several days, looking for 

another opportunity to attack. With five South Vietnamese infantry battalions sweeping the countryside, the best the enemy could manage was to burn 

down part of a refugee camp that lay just north of the airfield. After that raid, 

the enemy withdrew into the western hills.57

The only other significant action to occur in Quang Tin took place at the 

Chu Lai complex, thirty-five kilometers south of Tam Ky. The air base was 

too well defended for the enemy to assault with ground forces, so he resorted 

54 Ibid., p. 13.

55 Ibid., p. 3, Encl 4.

56 ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 23d Inf Div, 8 Feb 68, pp. 13–14, Historians files, CMH; Rpt, 

I Corps Advisory Gp, Advisory Team 1, 9 Apr 68, pp. 6, 9, Encl 5. 57 Rpt, I Corps Advisory Gp, Advisory Team 1, 9 Apr 68, pp. 11–12, Encl 5.
313

Tet Unleashed

to shelling it with 122-mm. rockets on the night of 30–31 January. The 

impacting rounds destroyed three fixed-wing aircraft and damaged another 

twenty-three. The losses did not significantly affect the performance of the 

14th Aviation Battalion or the two U.S. Marine combat wings stationed at 

Chu Lai.58

The Thrust at Da Nang 

Far more important than any of the other targets in southern I Corps was 

the autonomous city of Da Nang. A port whose landward approaches resided 

in Quang Nam Province, Da Nang was South Vietnam’s second largest city. 

The B1 Front planned to commit the entire 2d Division, a pair of North 

Vietnamese rocket artillery regiments, and several local force battalions to 

conquering it. To reach the city, those forces had to penetrate a security zone 

that was nearly twenty kilometers deep and manned by five Marine infantry 

battalions and one Marine tank battalion from the 1st Marine Division, two 

battalions from the South Korean 2d Marine Brigade, and two battalions 

from the South Vietnamese 51st Regiment. Backing those maneuver units 

were two artillery battalions from the 11th Marines and a three-battalion 

reserve force from the Vietnamese 1st Ranger Group. 

Any attacking force that broke through that screen then had to contend 

with an additional layer of security. The 1st Marine Military Police Battalion 

guarded the enormous air base on the southwestern edge of the city, home 

to the U.S. Army 16th Aviation Group and the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing. 

Additional troops protected the headquarters of III Marine Amphibious 

Force, situated on the eastern side of the city across the Han River. General 

Lam’s I Corps headquarters, protected by an infantry company, lay on the 

western side of the Han River adjacent to the air base.

The first sign of trouble came early on 30 January when South Vietnamese 

sentries noticed a pair of Viet Cong frogmen in the water near the main 

bridge over the Han River. The alert guards shot dead one of the sappers and 

captured the other. When no further incidents materialized elsewhere in the 

city, the abortive bridge attack looked to be an isolated event. That theory 

was put to rest two hours later when a salvo of 122-mm. rockets hit the III 

Marine Amphibious Force logistical complex and the Da Nang Air Base.59

Shortly after the bombardment began, the R20 and V25 Local Force 

Battalions and two local force companies entered the southern outskirts of 

the city. Regional and Popular Forces soldiers stopped most of the enemy 

troops in a village named Hoa Vang that was about two kilometers south of 

the air base. However, around a hundred Viet Cong fighters slipped through 

and made their way to the nearby I Corps headquarters. The attackers were 

58 Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, pp. 155, 747; Rpt, III MAF, 3 Aug 68, sub: 

Enemy’s Tet Offensive, pp. 45–46, Encl 1, box 30, AARs, Asst Ch of Staff, J–3, MACV, RG 

472, NACP. 59 AAR, Tet Offensive, 1st Marine Div, 25 May 68, pp. 24–25, Historians files, CMH.
Staying the Course

314

too few in number to overcome the South Vietnamese infantry company that 

was stationed there. General Lam, who was still at home, responded in disbelief and then fury when his chief of staff telephoned him with the news. Lam 

ordered an immediate counterattack, and four armored personnel carriers 

and a reconnaissance squad soon drove the Viet Cong off.60

The defeated group withdrew to Hoa Vang to rejoin their comrades, now 

heavily engaged with South Vietnamese rangers and mechanized troops from 

the South Vietnamese 4th Cavalry Regiment. When dawn came and the enemy 

still held part of the village, General Lam gave III Marine Amphibious Force 

permission to employ fixed-wing aircraft and helicopter gunships against the 

village. Under that pressure, the enemy abandoned the village and headed 

south, leaving around 125 of his dead in the ruins of Hoa Vang. U.S. Marines 

and South Vietnamese troops killed or captured most of the 200 or so survivors the following day.61

In truth, the enemy had not intended to attack Da Nang with only two 

reinforced infantry battalions. The mission of the Viet Cong troops had been 

60 AAR, Enemy’s Tet Offensive, I Corps Advisory Gp, 9 Apr 68, pp. 1–3, Encl 3, box 30, 

AARs, Asst Ch of Staff, J–3, MACV, RG 472, NACP; Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in 

Vietnam, pp. 144–46; Man, Time of Upheaval, p. 477. 61 AAR, Enemy’s Tet Offensive, I Corps Advisory Gp, 9 Apr 68, pp. 1–3, Encl 3.

An aerial view of the Da Nang Air Base
315

Tet Unleashed

to act as a spearhead for the 2d Division, but on the morning of 30 January the 

North Vietnamese division was still twenty-five kilometers to the south. The 

division commander, Colonel Cuong, had decided that the original plan to 

reach the city by a forced march at night was too risky. He had opted instead 

for a methodical approach that would take longer to accomplish, so that he 

would not be in position by the night of 29–30 January. Cuong may have been 

able to radio his decision to B1 Front headquarters, but at that late stage the 

information likely never reached the R20 and V25 Local Force Battalions, 

which also had not received Man’s revised instructions to delay all attacks 

until the night of 30–31 January. As a result, the Viet Cong troops who fought 

so tenaciously for Hoa Vang went to their deaths in vain.62

When the residents of Da Nang emerged from their homes on the morning of 31 January, life quickly assumed its normal rhythms. There were few 

visible signs of destruction because most of the fighting had been confined to 

the I Corps headquarters area, to Hoa Vang Village, and to the area south of 

the Cau Do River. South Vietnamese authorities immediately began clearing 

away the detritus. Several rockets slammed into the air base that morning, 

but citizens returned to the streets as soon as the warning sirens stopped 

wailing.63

As the inhabitants of Da Nang went about their daily routines, they were 

unaware that Colonel Cuong was bringing his 2d Division north to attack the 

city. One element, the 31st Regiment, was already less than ten kilometers 

southwest of Da Nang in a region where three rivers—the Tuy Loan, the Cau 

Do, and the Yen–formed a T-intersection. The III Marine Amphibious Force 

knew of its general location because Marine patrols had recently clashed with 

North Vietnamese scouts, resulting in seventeen American deaths and thirtyseven confirmed enemy killed.

General Cushman was not overly worried about the safety of Da Nang. 

The 2d Division had many obstacles to overcome before it could strike the 

city. Troops from the 1st and 3d Battalions, 7th Marines, patrolled the lowlands southwest of Da Nang out to a depth of some twenty kilometers. The 3d 

Battalion, 5th Marines, and the 2d Battalion, 3d Marines, guarded the southern and southeastern approaches. Tanks from the 1st Marine Tank Battalion 

and armored tractors from the 3d Marine Amphibious Battalion stood by 

as a ready reaction force. Assisting the Americans were two battalions from 

the South Vietnamese 51st Regiment, whose main headquarters was near the 

village of Bo Mung twelve kilometers south of Da Nang. The enemy would 

also need to cross one or more large rivers before he could enter the city. It 

was a tall order even for a highly experienced unit such as the 2d Division.

64

Colonel Cuong also had to worry about preserving a line of communications back to his base on Go Noi Island. Perhaps for that reason, or perhaps 

to divert allied attention, he decided to attack a pair of district capitals that 

lay along his axis of advance. Shortly after midnight on 31 January, ele62 2d Division, pp. 91–92. 63 AAR, Enemy’s Tet Offensive, I Corps Advisory Gp, 9 Apr 68, p. 3, Encl 3.

64 Rpt, III MAF, 3 Aug 68, pp. 31–33, Encl 1.
Staying the Course

316

ments of the 10th Sapper Battalion attacked the district headquarters town of 

Duy Xuyen, Quang Nam Province, some seven kilometers southwest of Hoi 

An. The South Vietnamese district chief rallied the Regional Forces troops 

defending the headquarters and requested variable time fuse artillery fire, 

which used shells that exploded at a predetermined height above ground to 

increase their fragmentation effect. The fire lasted until dawn, killing over 

one hundred enemy troops. The sappers sought concealment when daylight 

came but stayed within weapons range of the headquarters. 

When an infantry company from the 2d Division and a local force company joined the siege, the district chief decided to abandon his headquarters. 

At 1600 on 31 January, he marched his soldiers four kilometers east to the 

safety of a South Korean firebase. Meanwhile that day, the 8th Battalion, 31st 

Regiment, attacked the district capital of Dien Ban, which lay six kilometers 

north of Duy Xuyen. That attack was less successful; troops from the South 

Vietnamese 51st Regiment held on to the city with help from South Korean 

marines stationed east of town.65

Two more days passed before the 2d Division made its next move. On the 

night of 2–3 February, North Vietnamese gunners sent twenty-eight 122-mm. 

rockets slamming into the Da Nang Air Base. The explosions destroyed one 

aircraft and damaged six others. Enemy mortar crews also lobbed shells at 

the I Corps headquarters. The same night, fifteen kilometers south of the 

city, sapper teams destroyed two culverts and damaged a bridge on Highway 

1 near the village of Thanh Quit, effectively cutting the road between Da 

Nang and Hoi An.

When troops from the South Vietnamese 51st Regiment swept through 

Thanh Quit around noon that day, they stumbled onto a battalion from the 

31st Regiment that had chosen to hide there. The enemy stood his ground 

even when a company from the 3d Battalion, 5th Marines, joined the firefight 

later that afternoon. The North Vietnamese finally broke contact when night 

fell. The marines found only three bodies when they swept the village the next 

morning but believed the enemy had carried off as many as fifty dead.66

During the next three days, the allies lost track of the enemy. Marine 

intelligence believed that the 31st and 1st Regiments were still south of the 

Tuy Loan and the Cau Do Rivers. Reports indicated that the division’s headquarters had moved six kilometers north from Go Noi Island to a spot above 

Route 4, a lateral branch of Highway 1 that terminated in the western hills. 

The 21st Regiment, they believed, still had not left the Go Noi area.67

As it turned out, the 2d Division was closer to Da Nang than the allies 

knew. The 21st Regiment and two battalions from the 31st Regiment were 

north of Hoi An near Thanh Quit, while the bulk of the 1st Regiment was 

approaching the Cau Do River. Before the 2d Division crossed that river, however, Colonel Cuong planned to take out several allied outposts that would 

threaten his rear if left untouched. Once those targets had been neutralized, 

65 Ibid., an. A, p. 3; Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, p. 158. 66 Rpt, III MAF, 3 Aug 68, pp. 33–34, Encl 1.

67 Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, p. 159.
317

Tet Unleashed

he would send his division forward to seize the Cam Le Bridge and enter the 

city.68

The enemy opened the second phase of his offensive against Da Nang in 

the early morning hours of 6 February. Between 0100 and 0500, the North 

Vietnamese mortared Marine positions southwest of Da Nang. Enemy gunners also hit the 1st Cavalry Division helicopter landing area near the Marine 

logistics complex northwest of Da Nang, destroying two helicopters and 

damaging eight others.69

Simultaneously, North Vietnamese troops attacked several hamlets in 

the lowlands south of Da Nang that contained Combined Action Platoons. 

Despite having superior numbers, the North Vietnamese were unable to 

destroy any of the platoons because allied reinforcements arrived in the nick 

of time. In one particularly fierce fight that took place in the hamlet of Duong 

Lam just south of the Tuy Loan River, two companies from the 3d Battalion, 

31st Regiment, were on the verge of overrunning a Combined Action Platoon 

when a force of Marine infantry and tanks showed up to save the day.70

The largest battle initiated by the 2d Division on 6 February took place some 

twelve kilometers south of Da Nang at the base camp of the South Vietnamese 

51st Regiment. North Vietnamese mortars and recoilless rifles started pounding the compound at around 0300. As the bombardment got under way, a 

battalion from the 21st Regiment attacked the base from the east, while the 

regiment’s remaining two battalions charged from the west. Unbeknownst to 

the enemy, two battalions from the South Vietnamese 51st Regiment had set 

up night defense positions outside of the base, one to the east and one to the 

west. The advancing enemy soldiers were surprised to find their way blocked 

by layers of dug-in South Vietnamese troops. The enemy attacked time and 

again but to no avail. Artillery and an AC–47 Spooky fixed-wing gunship tore 

up his rear staging areas while his frontline troops fell into confusion.

The 21st Regiment kept fighting even when daylight came, a clear sign 

that Colonel Cuong wanted the compound captured at nearly any cost. He 

could ill afford leaving a major allied base at his rear while he advanced 

on Da Nang. The odds of success became miniscule as the day progressed 

and more allied troops began to arrive on the scene. At 0900, a company 

of Marine infantry accompanied by several amphibious tractors and tanks 

counterattacked the 21st Regiment from the south. By the end of the day, 

elements from four companies—two each from the 2d and 3d Marines—

had joined the battle. Heavy fighting continued through the night and all 

day on 7 February. When the enemy finally broke contact around dusk, the 

marines estimated they had killed at least 320 North Vietnamese. The South 

Vietnamese claimed to have killed an additional 266 enemy soldiers.71

68 2d Division, pp. 95–97. 69 Rpt, III MAF, 3 Aug 68, p. 34, Encl 1.

70 Ibid., pp. 34–35.

71 AAR, Enemy Tet Offensive and Allied Reaction, Ofc of the Senior Adviser, Quang Nam 

Sector, Advisory Team 1, an. G, app. 5, pp. 1–2, contained in Rpt, III MAF, 3 Aug 68, Encl 2; 

Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, pp. 159–60.
Staying the Course

318

On 6 February, the same night that the 2d Division began its big push 

toward Da Nang, Colonel Cuong dispatched the 60th Battalion, 1st Regiment, 

to assault the engineer compound in Hoi An. Likely a diversion to keep the 

allies guessing about Cuong’s ultimate goals, the effort fared badly. The 

attackers failed to penetrate the compound and were later chased off by a 

combination of South Vietnamese infantry and tanks. Two prisoners later 

revealed that they had been given orders to attack Hoi An as many as five 

times if necessary, but no further assaults came after 6 February.72

The surge in activity near Da Nang prompted Westmoreland to send 

more troops to the area. On 7 February, he instructed the commander of the 

23d Infantry Division, General Koster, to redeploy two of his battalions to 

support the thinly stretched 1st Marine Division. After conferring with Maj. 

Gen. Donn J. Robertson and the III Marine Amphibious Force headquarters, General Koster decided to send reinforcements into the northern part 

of the sector held by the 3d Battalion, 5th Marines, which was south of the 

Cau Do River near Highway 1. Task Force Miracle led by Colonel Gelling 

from the 196th Infantry Brigade consisted of the 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry, 

72 AAR, Enemy Tet Offensive and Allied Reaction, Ofc of the Senior Adviser, Quang Nam 

Sector, Advisory Team 1, an. A, p. 3, contained in Rpt, III MAF, 3 Aug 68, Encl 2; 2d Division, p. 95.

Marines of Company L, 3d Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division, 

move down a road near Da Nang accompanied by amphibious tractors.
319

Tet Unleashed

and the 2d Battalion, 1st Infantry. It would operate under the command of 

the 1st Marine Division. 

General Westmoreland also took steps to intercept the 2d PAVN 

Division should it fall back from Da Nang. The 1st Battalion, 14th Infantry, 

from the 3d Brigade, 4th Division, established Landing Zone Hardcore

on a hill just south of Go Noi Island. On 9 February, General Koster sent a 

second unit from the brigade, the 1st Battalion, 35th Infantry, to reinforce 

the blocking effort.73

Meanwhile, allied units began to search the area south of Da Nang for 

the elements of the 2d Division that had escaped detection so far. On the 

afternoon of 7 February, the 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry, disembarked from 

Marine helicopters at Duong Son (1), a hamlet some 1,500 meters west of 

Highway 1 and an equal distance south of the Cau Do River. The night 

passed in relative quiet until 0345 when a Combined Action Platoon in Lo 

Giang (1), a hamlet two kilometers to the northeast, reported coming under 

heavy mortar, automatic weapons, and small arms fire. The commander 

73 AAR, Opn Engagements Around Hardcore, 1st Bn, 14th Inf, 13 Apr 68, p. 2, box 13, 

AARs, 1966–1971, Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP; Shulimson et al., U.S. 

Marines in Vietnam, p. 162.

Men from the 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry, 198th Infantry Brigade,

 move out in search of units from the 2d PAVN Division.
Staying the Course

320

of the 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry, Lt. Col. William J. Baxley, immediately 

marched his unit to the rescue. 

When Colonel Baxley’s battalion reached Lo Giang around 0700, it 

found the village under siege by the 90th Battalion, 1st Regiment. The North 

Vietnamese troops kept the attack going even as they turned to face the 1st 

Battalion, 6th Infantry. Unknown to Baxley at the time, the North Vietnamese 

had orders to overrun the hamlet and secure the nearby Cam Le Bridge so the 

entire division could cross into Da Nang. When the fighting dragged on without a decision, General Robertson reinforced the 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry, 

with two Marine companies. Even that was not enough to break the enemy 

circle around Lo Giang. Finally, later that afternoon, Marine helicopters 

braved heavy fire to evacuate the Combined Action Platoon from Lo Giang. 

When the fighting finally died down that evening, the Americans estimated 

that they had killed at least 150 North Vietnamese soldiers.74

Colonel Gelling, who had just arrived at Duong Son with his task force 

headquarters and the 2d Battalion, 1st Infantry, immediately went after the 

21st Regiment. If the unit was willing to stand and fight, Gelling would pile 

on with everything he had. The next morning, 8 February, he used the 1st 

Battalion, 6th Infantry, to attack the enemy position from the north, while the 

2d Battalion, 1st Infantry, enveloped it from the south. The latter unit immediately collided with the 3d Battalion, 21st Regiment, resulting in a day-long 

battle. The enemy broke contact shortly before dark, leaving behind forty-six 

bodies. Meanwhile troops from the 2d Battalion, 3d Marines, clashed with 

several companies from the 1st Regiment on the eastern side of the Vinh Dien 

River. The fighting resulted in ninety enemy dead. Those battles confirmed 

that all three of the 2d Division’s regiments had reached the southern bank of 

the Cau Do River.75

Colonel Cuong, however, decided not to risk any further advance. On 

the night of 7–8 February, he began to withdraw the 2d Division to its mountain camps in the northern Que Son Valley. The 4th Infantry Division’s 1st 

Battalion, 14th Infantry, and the 1st Battalion, 35th Infantry, intercepted 

some of those troops while operating out of Landing Zone Hardcore, positioned on a mountain spur just north of the Que Son Valley. The Americans 

killed a reported 236 enemy soldiers near Goi Noi Island on 9 February and 

several dozen more over the next several days. By 12 February, the same day 

General Robertson returned Task Force Miracle to the control of the 23d 

Division, the fighting around Goi Noi Island had come to an end as the last 

elements of the 2d Division disappeared into the neighboring hills.76

All told, the North Vietnamese division had lost between 1,200 and 1,400 

soldiers in the period from 29 January to 14 February. The Army units of 

Task Force Miracle inflicted a quarter of those losses. As for the allies, the 

74 ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, 23d Inf Div, 7 May 68, p. 12, box 66, ORLLS, 1966–1971, Cmd 

Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP; Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, p. 162. 75 Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, p. 163. 76 ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, 23d Inf Div, p. 12; AAR, Opn Engagements around Hardcore, 

1st Bn, 14th Inf, 13 Apr 68, pp. 9–15.
321

Tet Unleashed

marines sustained 124 killed and the Army 18 killed, while approximately two 

dozen South Vietnamese soldiers died during the fighting. The performance 

of the 2d Division must have been a disappointment for the enemy. According 

to General Man’s plan, Da Nang had been the third most important target in 

the country behind Saigon and Hue. However, the 2d Division had not been 

in position to support the initial Viet Cong attack and never got within striking distance of the city. As a consequence, Da Nang was spared much of the 

damage that other cities endured during Tet.77

Conclusion

The general offensive in II Corps and southern I Corps had exacted a 

heavy toll on both sides. Between 29 January and 17 February, the units of 

the B1 and B3 Fronts had lost 5,405 soldiers killed in action, as well as 1,327 

small arms and 127 crew-served weapons. Another 704 soldiers had become 

prisoners of war. Allied losses had not been as steep, though they were still 

significant: 471 killed, 1,746 wounded, 71 vehicles damaged or destroyed, and 

49 aircraft damaged or destroyed. The cost to the civilian population had 

been especially severe. A total of 814 civilians had been killed and another 

2,919 wounded; over 97,000 inhabitants had been left homeless and over 

10,000 homes destroyed.78

Disaffection ran high in the enemy’s ranks after the failed offensive. Not 

even senior officers were immune to criticism. Two high-ranking officials 

in the B1 Front accused General Man of gross incompetence. The general 

they said with bitterness had not accomplished a single objective during 

the offensive. Losses had been heavy. Morale had plummeted. The whole 

enterprise had been a fiasco. A little over a month later, however, both men 

recanted after the Politburo praised Man. Still, as the B1 Front commander 

would acknowledge in his postwar memoir, he felt partly responsible for the 

debacle, for he had not spoken out against a plan that in his mind “had no 

foundation in reality.”79

77 Rpt, III MAF, 3 Aug 68, sub: Enemy’s Tet Offensive, Encl 4 to Press Bfg, Tet Offensive, 

date?, p. 5, Historians files, CMH; Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, p. 163. 78 ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, I FFV, 15 May 68, pp. 13–14, Historians files, CMH.

79 Man, Time of Upheaval, p. 479.

10

Saigon Embattled

I

n the early morning of 30 January, President Thieu was asleep at his 

family home in the Mekong Delta city of My Tho when Communist 

troops stormed more than a dozen regional capitals in II Corps and southern I 

Corps. Like many other government officials, he had taken a few days of holiday leave to be with his family, safe in the assumption that North Vietnamese 

leaders would abide by the traditional cease-fire. Roused from bed, the South 

Vietnamese president reviewed the situation by phone with General Vien and 

General Westmoreland back in Saigon. Thieu agreed to cancel the cease-fire 

and return to the capital as soon as possible.

The South Vietnamese government and the U.S. Mission Council jointly 

announced the cancellation of the truce at 0945 on 30 January. General Vien 

and his staff worked the phones to notify regional commanders and through 

them the nearly 400,000 South Vietnamese soldiers who were on leave. Some 

returned to their units quickly, but others did not get the message right away 

or else had problems getting back to their units. 

The Capital Military Region on Alert

Westmoreland, meanwhile, issued a nationwide alert to all U.S. personnel warning them to prepare for enemy attacks that night. He was confident 

in their readiness, since all U.S. and Free World forces units had remained 

at full operational status going into the Tet holiday. In recent weeks, MACV 

had issued numerous bulletins alerting U.S. personnel that enemy attacks 

were likely to occur at various locations around the country. Now, given the 

wave of attacks that had hit allied targets across the upper midsection of 

South Vietnam, anticipation of more attacks elsewhere ran high.1

At II Field Force headquarters in the Long Binh military complex, General 

Weyand spent the balance of 30 January conferring with his senior commanders 

and his III Corps counterpart, General Khang, to ensure the optimum 

placement of allied forces to protect Saigon. Weyand had at his disposal the 1st 

1

 Rpt, 1st Avn Bde, n.d., sub: Participation in the Initial Phase of the Tet Offensive - 29 

Jan–8 Feb 68, p. 225, box 3, Rcds of U.S. Forces, Mil Personnel Div, Presidential Unit Citation/

Distinguished Unit Citation (PUC/DUC), USARV, RG 472, NACP; Rpt, III MAF, 8 Aug 68, 

sub: Enemy’s Tet Offensive, p. 3, Encl 4, box 30, AARs, Asst Ch of Staff, J–3, MACV, RG 

472, NACP; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 5-68, I FFV, 28 Jan–3 Feb 68, 3 Feb 68, pp. 4, 11, box 2, 

Periodic Intel Rpts, Asst Ch of Staff, G–2, I FFV, USARV, RG 472, NACP; Don Oberdorfer, 

Tet! (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), pp. 131–32; Davidson, Vietnam at War, 

p. 471. 
Staying the Course

324

and 2d Brigades of the 25th Infantry Division in eastern Hau Nghia Province; 

the 2d Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, in southern Binh Duong Province; the 

199th Infantry Brigade (Light) and the 1st Brigade, 9th Infantry Division, 

in western Bien Hoa Province; and the 3d Brigade, 9th Infantry Division, 

in northern Long An Province. Deployed alongside the Americans were the 

South Vietnamese 5th, 18th, and 25th Infantry Divisions, north, east, and west 

of the capital, respectively. Weyand ordered his reconnaissance elements—

scout helicopters, observation aircraft, and long-range infantry patrols—to 

focus their attention on the approaches to Saigon. The USARV commander, 

Lt. Gen. Bruce M. Palmer Jr., stationed more troops from the 720th Military 

Police Battalion at the massive prisoner-of-war facility at Bien Hoa and at the 

nearby II Field Force headquarters at Long Binh. Extra helicopter gunship 

teams at Bien Hoa and Tan Son Nhut were placed on standby. 

South Vietnamese authorities took additional precautions within the 

Capital Military District, the special security zone that included Saigon and 

the five adjacent districts of Gia Dinh Province. The district commander, Col. 

Nguyen Van Giam, ordered the four ranger battalions, one marine battalion, 

and one Regional Forces reconnaissance battalion under his command to 

establish night ambush positions on likely infiltration routes around the capital. The chief of Gia Dinh Province, Maj. Bui The Cau, ordered all 30 of his 

Regional Forces companies and all 144 Popular Forces platoons to remain on 

duty at their highway checkpoints and hamlet guard posts. Commanders at 

other military installations also went on alert. The head of the Tan Son Nhut 

Sensitive Area, Lt. Col. Luu Kim Cuong, directed the Vietnamese 2d Service 

Battalion to place extra guards on duty that night and to have reaction teams 

waiting in reserve. Likewise, the senior officers at the various training facilities in the Capital Military District, including the Marine Corps School, 

the Reserve Officer School, the Armored Training Command, the Artillery 

Training Command, the Engineer Training School, and the Quang Trung 

Infantry Center, instructed all of the military personnel who were on those 

posts to participate in their defense.

Metropolitan Saigon was already on maximum alert because the director 

of the National Police, Brig. Gen. Nguyen Loan, had received reports on 29 

January indicating that Viet Cong special action units had infiltrated the city. 

The police director had wasted no time distributing more ammunition and 

machine guns to the South Vietnamese 1st Service Battalion and the South 

Vietnamese 5th and 6th Military Police Battalions, which guarded installations and checkpoints throughout the city. He put more patrols out on the 

streets and ordered the 6,000 municipal policemen in the city to remain on 

duty at their precinct stations overnight. 

From his headquarters on the southeastern edge of Tan Son Nhut, the 

chief of the South Vietnamese Joint General Staff, General Vien, directed 

the Vietnamese 8th Airborne Battalion to remain at Tan Son Nhut instead 

of flying to northern Quang Tri Province as previously directed. He made 

arrangements to fly back the two Marine battalions currently in Binh Dinh 

Province and the two Marine battalions operating in the northern delta. He 

also obtained authority to use President Thieu’s palace guard, the South 
325

Saigon Embattled

Vietnamese 1st Airborne Battalion, which was headquartered at Camp Le 

Van Duyet in the heart of Saigon.2

The only U.S. ground unit in Saigon that had any combat capability 

was the 716th Military Police Battalion, commanded of Lt. Col. Gordon D. 

Rowe. The battalion’s primary role was law enforcement—few of its 1,300 

military policemen had seen combat and none had received urban warfare 

training. Armed with M16s and a few light machine guns, the battalion’s only 

heavy weapons were a handful of 90-mm. recoilless rifles, for which it had 

no ammunition. Colonel Rowe had never developed a tactical plan for his 

battalion because the South Vietnamese were responsible for defending the 

city. The crisis now forced him to improvise.3

After consulting with his superior, the chief of the U.S. Army Headquarters 

Area Command, Brig. Gen. Albin F. Irzyk, Colonel Rowe doubled his mobile 

patrols on the streets of Saigon and placed extra guards at likely targets such 

as MACV headquarters, General Irzyk’s headquarters, and the provost marshal’s office. General Irzyk also mobilized volunteers from his headquarters 

to guard other installations around the city. Mechanics and drivers secured 

the Phu Tho Motor Pool in the western part of the city, while clerks and food 

storage specialists picked up weapons to defend the nearby commissary and 

post-exchange compound.4

On the evening of 30 January, Westmoreland sent a cable to his superiors 

in Honolulu and Washington describing the attacks that had hit II Corps and 

southern I Corps. The heaviest fighting during the past eighteen hours, he 

said, had occurred in the western highlands, where a major B3 Front offensive 

had long been expected. Westmoreland believed the enemy had accomplished 

little, characterizing the attacks as “desperation tactics” designed to “terrorize populated areas.” He described the allied military response as “generally good;” fighting continued in many cities, but the enemy had already lost 

some 700 soldiers killed in action and another 300 captured. Based on that 

sample of prisoners, some of the attackers appeared to be civilians whom the 

Viet Cong had pressed into service, rather than dedicated fighters. While he 

expected more attacks to occur in the coming days, Westmoreland reported 

that his senior commanders all felt they had “the situation well in hand.”5

Attacks Downtown

The battle for Saigon began at 0245 on 30 January when three automobiles pulled up to the south vehicle gate of the six-acre park that enclosed 

the Independence Palace and President Thieu’s private residence. Fourteen 

2

 Biographical Sketch, DIA, Maj Gen Nguyen Ngoc Loan, n.d., document 1g, box 176, 

NSF-Vietnam Country Files, LBJL. 3

 Albin F. Irzyk, Unsung Heroes, Saving Saigon (Raleigh, N.C.: Ivy House Publishing, 2008), 

p. 35. 4

 Ibid., pp. 60–61; Transcript, VNIT 199, p. 2, Encl 19, CMH.

5

 Msg, Westmoreland MAC 01438 to Wheeler, 30 Jan 68, Westmoreland History files, CMH. 
Staying the Course

326

Viet Cong agents from the F100 Special Action Group, one of them a woman, 

spilled out of the vehicles dressed in normal civilian attire but wielding 

AK47 assault rifles and B40 grenade launchers. Their small arms fire drove 

away the security guards who were standing by the closed metal-lattice gate. 

Sprinting forward, they could see the illuminated palace building through 

the iron bars as one of the sappers began to affix an explosive charge to the 

lock. Before the agent could finish his work, small arms and machine gun fire 

tore through the sapper squad as a platoon of South Vietnamese soldiers and 

a pair of M41 tanks counterattacked from inside the palace grounds. Four 

Viet Cong soldiers fell dead or dying, and the remainder retreated across the 

street where they took refuge in an unfinished high-rise apartment building 

(Map 27). 

Climbing to its upper stories, the sappers continued the fight, even firing 

several rocket-propelled grenades at the Independence Palace, but the grenades all fell short. They held out against South Vietnamese soldiers and 

policemen for some thirty hours, finally surrendering when the seven still 

alive (including the female sapper) ran out of ammunition.6

6

 Intel Cable, CIA, 6 Feb 68, sub: Experiences of a Viet Cong Soldier Who Participated in 

the Attack on Saigon, p. 4, box 240 (2 of 2), document 148, NSF-Vietnam Country Files, LBJL; 

Transcript, VNIT 199, pp. 3, 14, Encl 11; Lung, General Offensives of 1968–1969, pp. 57–58; 

U.S. Embassy in Saigon (shown here in 1974 with the addition of corner 

guard towers)
Map 27

D16

PAVN

I I

267

PLAF

I I

2 Go Mon

PLAF

I I

273

PLAF

III

101

PAVN

III

2 271

PLAF

I I

6 Binh Tan

PLAF

I I

269

PLAF

I I

5 Nha Be

PLAF

I I 508

PLAF

I I

3 Di An

PLAF

I I

4 Thu Duc

PLAF

I I

F100

PLAF

I I

56

PLAF

I I

Tan Son Nhut

Air Base

JGS Compound

Song Sai Gon

Song Sai Gon

1

1

1

1

13

25

15

5A

4

4

Quan Tre

Phu Dinh

Ba Queo

Khanh Hoi

Phu Lam

Hoc Mon

Thu Duc

Gia Dinh

Lai Thieu Di An

SAIGON

TET OFFENSIVE

SAIGON

31 January 1968

Enemy Axis of Attack

0

0 1 2 3 4 5 Kilometers

3 Miles 1 2 4 5
Staying the Course

328

Thirty minutes into the battle for the Independence Palace, more fighting 

broke out at the U.S. Embassy three blocks to the east. The state-of-the-art 

compound, completed in September 1967, was built to withstand the kind 

of terrorist bombing that had partly destroyed the previous embassy site, a 

downtown office building, in 1965. The facility was ringed by a two-meter 

concrete wall, pierced on the southern side by a pedestrian entrance and on 

the western side by a vehicle gate. The chancery building stood at the center 

of the compound, a six-story, rectangular building crowned with a helicopter 

pad. The building was encased with a white honeycomb shell designed to 

absorb mortar and rocket blasts. The main door on the ground floor was a 

thick slab of teakwood, fronted by a sturdy iron gate that could deflect grenades thrown at the door. A row of concrete planters dotted the front lawn, 

while a two-story villa stood just east of the chancery building. The north 

side of the compound was a parking lot, presently empty save for several limousines and their Vietnamese drivers who were spending the night on call.7

The chancery was nearly deserted this evening, manned by three U.S. 

Marine guards, one of them positioned on the roof with a shotgun, and a 

handful of embassy staffers. A pair of soldiers from the 716th Military 

Police Battalion stood watch by the vehicle gate. Several South Vietnamese 

policemen from the nearby precinct station usually stood guard outside the 

embassy, but tonight they were absent, likely on account of Tet. Ambassador 

Bunker was asleep at his private residence, eight blocks to the north; in his 

absence, the senior embassy official in the compound that night was the CIA 

station chief, Col. George D. Jacobson, who lived in the villa next to the 

chancery building.

Shortly after 0300, a taxi and a truck rolled up to the southeastern corner 

of the compound. Fifteen sappers armed with AK47 rifles, B40 grenade 

launchers, and Chinese-made pistols jumped out. Their orders were to seize 

the embassy grounds, break into the chancery building, and take hostage 

the people inside. It was a dangerous mission but not suicidal by design. 

The sappers had been told by the Sub-Region 6 headquarters that hundreds 

of antiwar and antigovernment university students would converge on the 

embassy that morning to stage a sit-down strike. The sappers also expected 

one or more local force battalions to relieve them at some point during the 

next twenty-four hours.8

As the taxi and truck drove away from the corner, the pair of U.S. military 

policemen who were standing watch at the vehicle gate opened fire on the sapSpecial Rpt, CMIC, no. US 06-027-68, 6 Jul 68, sub: The Attack on the President’s Private 

Home on Truong Minh Giang Street and on the House of Mr Kieu (Kieeur) (the President’s 

Elder Brother), box 73, CMIC Interrogation Dossiers, Asst Ch of Staff, J–2 MACV, RG 472, 

NACP. 7

 Thomas L. Johnson and Mary R. Himes, Historical Account of the Military Police Corps 

Regiment: Assault on the American Embassy: TET-68 (Fort McClellan, Ala.: Department of the 

Army, 1983), pp. 1–2. 8

 Special Rpt, CMIC, no. US 538-68, 12 Mar 68, sub: Attack on the US Embassy, box 63, 

CMIC Interrogation Dossiers, Asst Ch of Staff, J–2, MACV, RG 472, NACP.
329

Saigon Embattled

pers and then ducked into the compound. After locking the metal gate behind 

them, they radioed their headquarters that the embassy was under attack. 

Moments later, the sappers blew a hole in the southeastern corner of the 

wall. The Americans shot the first two who crawled through, killing the Viet 

Cong commander and badly wounding his executive officer. The Marine 

guard on the roof tried to fire his shotgun, but it jammed. As he tried to clear 

the weapon, a man armed with an AK47 rifle emerged from the rear parking 

lot, shooting the two military policemen in the back and killing them both. A 

second man carrying a rifle came around the building, and the two figures—

later determined to be a pair of embassy drivers, secretly recruited by the Viet 

Cong—joined the other enemy soldiers on the front lawn.9

The sappers launched a rocket-propelled grenade at the front entrance to 

the chancery building. The warhead blew a small hole in the heavy teak door 

and shattered the glass that adorned the interior reception area, injuring several embassy personnel hunkered down near the front desk. The sappers fired 

several more rocket grenades at the upper floors of the chancery, but they 

barely chipped its honeycomb carapace. Deciding to conserve their remaining rocket grenades or to deal with allied armor should that be necessary, the 

sappers crouched behind the concrete planters in the front yard and waited 

for help to arrive.

When Colonel Rowe received the distress call from the embassy, he dispatched several jeep patrols to find out what was going on. The first two patrols 

both took routes that passed by the south vehicle gate of the Independence 

Palace. As they came up to the unfinished high-rise building, the enemy 

sappers inside destroyed both vehicles in turn, killing two Americans and 

wounding three. A third jeep patrol reached the U.S. Embassy without incident, but unaware of the danger, the soldiers pulled up to the lattice-gate 

pedestrian entrance and were gunned down by the sappers crouched on the 

embassy’s front lawn.10

Subsequent patrols, warned of the fate that befell the first three teams, 

took greater care in approaching the embassy compound and parked their 

vehicles a block away before proceeding on foot. Joined by a squad of marines 

from the embassy guard unit, the ad hoc task force cordoned off the area. 

A UH–1 helicopter loaded with soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division 

tried to land on the chancery roof. Peppered with bullets, the aircraft veered 

away and made an emergency landing in a rice paddy. Knowing that the sappers had failed to enter the chancery building and possessed only a limited 

amount of ammunition, Colonel Rowe decided to wait until full daylight 

before mounting an assault. In the meantime, American troops continued 

to snipe at the enemy soldiers on the front lawn, killing or wounding several 

during the next few hours and preventing the survivors from obtaining food, 

water, or rest.11

9

 Johnson and Himes, Historical Account of the Military Police Corps Regiment, pp. 5–7. 10 Irzyk, Unsung Heroes, Saving Saigon, p. 86. 11 Johnson and Himes, Historical Account of the Military Police Corps Regiment, pp. 7–8; 

Joseph L. Dees, “The Viet Cong Attack that Failed,” U.S. Department of State Newsletter, May 
Staying the Course

330

Commencing the attack at around 0800 against an opposing force now 

reduced to six or eight able-bodied fighters, a group of military policemen 

and marines forced their way through the main gate, while a second team 

stormed the rear parking lot. The two groups secured the embassy grounds 

after a sharp firefight that resulted in several Americans being wounded 

or killed. All but three of the sappers perished, including the two turncoat 

embassy drivers. Two more embassy drivers, innocent bystanders it would 

seem, were also killed in the rear parking lot during the morning counterattack. The wounded sappers, two of them unconscious, were taken to a U.S. 

military hospital. At 0900, the embassy staff declared the facility secure.

Fifteen minutes later, General Westmoreland and his security detail 

arrived by car just as two UH–1 helicopters landed on the roof, discharging 

a platoon from the 101st Airborne Division that checked and secured all 

six levels of the chancery building. Ambassador Bunker and his entourage 

drove up a few minutes later. Taken on a short tour of the grounds, the two 

leaders could see that the chancery had suffered little more than cosmetic 

damage. Ambassador Bunker ordered the building reopened for business 

later that afternoon. 

68; Interv, Capt Oliver Rose with Rick L. McAlister, 4 Dec 02. Both in Historians files, CMH.

U.S. Ambassador Bunker (partially obscured by a rifle) and a security team 

assess the damage to the embassy compound after it had been attacked during 

the lunar new year offensive.
331

Saigon Embattled

Following the assaults on the presidential palace and the U.S. Embassy, 

the third target of the F100 Special Action Group that night was the 

Vietnamese Navy headquarters, located on the Saigon River waterfront 

a few hundred meters southeast of the U.S. Embassy. At 0250, a pair of 

automobiles deposited twelve sappers a block away from the headquarters. 

The sappers charged the front gate, firing their weapons at the two guards 

who were standing there. The shots missed, and as the guards returned fire, 

more armed South Vietnamese Navy personnel spilled out of the building 

and joined the fight. Several sappers fell dead or wounded, but the remainder pressed forward. Two reached the outer wall of the Navy complex and 

breached it with explosives. Both were killed by security guards when they 

tried to crawl through the hole. When the shooting ended a few minutes 

later, only two sappers were still alive, both wounded. Among the dead was 

the commander of the F100 Special Action Group.

12

At roughly the same time that the Navy headquarters came under 

attack, another battle began two blocks to the northeast at the National 

Broadcasting Station. A pair of South Vietnamese Army trucks stopped on 

the street in front of the main entrance and around thirty men wearing South 

Vietnamese military police uniforms jumped out. The leader of the group 

strode up to the guard at the front entrance as if to speak with him, and then 

drew his pistol and killed the man. Their pretense no longer necessary, the 

Viet Cong commander and his men from the E2 Water Engineer Company

rushed into the building and either killed or subdued the staff inside. The 

E2 Water Engineer Company now had complete control of the station and its 

broadcasting equipment.13

Jubilation turned into frustration as one of the sappers tried to play a 

prerecorded propaganda tape. The broadcast studio, it appeared, had lost 

the connection to its transmission tower on the outskirts of town. Unknown 

to them, a quick-witted South Vietnamese political warfare officer who was 

on duty at the transmitter station had cut the line once he realized that the 

broadcast studio in Saigon was under attack.14

The sappers expected to be reinforced, but that help would never come. As 

the 3d Di An Battalion approached a bridge over the Nhi The River northeast 

of Saigon, it got bogged down in a fight with South Vietnamese policemen. 

That gave General Vien a chance to recall the South Vietnamese 30th Ranger 

Battalion, which was operating in the countryside to the east. The rangers 

reached the bridge ahead of the Viet Cong soldiers. After intense fighting 

12 Son, ed., Viet Cong “Tet” Offensive (1968), pp. 129–31; Oberdorfer, Tet!, p. 143; Special 

Rpt, CMIC, no. US 04-030-68, 17 May 68, sub: C.10 Special Action Units Attack on RVN 

Navy HQ, pp. 2–3, box 61, CMIC Interrogation Dossiers, Asst Ch of Staff, J–2, MACV, RG 

472, NACP; Le Quang Tuan, Huang Tien Cong Saigon-Gia Dinh (Nam 1968) [The Saigon-Gia 

Dinh Offensive Sector, 1968] (Hanoi: Vietnamese Institute of Military History, 1988), p. 23. 13 Oberdorfer, Tet!, p. 144; Special Rpt, CMIC, no. US 03-118-68, 3 May 68, sub: Sub-Region 

1 and the Water Engr (Engineer) Sect, MR-4, pp. 3–5, box 21, CMIC Special Rpts, Asst Ch of 

Staff, J–2, MACV, RG 472, NACP; Tuan, Saigon-Gia Dinh Offensive Sector, 1968, p. 30. 14 Son, ed., Viet Cong “Tet” Offensive (1968), p. 133.
Staying the Course

332

that left the surrounding neighborhood in flames, the 3d Di An Battalion

broke contact and headed back into the countryside.15

The withdrawal of the 3d Di An Battalion sealed the fate of the E2 Water 

Engineer Company and the other sappers in downtown Saigon. At 0630, a 

company of South Vietnamese paratroopers and several M41 tanks closed in 

around the radio station. The sappers held out for another three hours before 

all were either killed or captured.16

The Battle for Tan Son Nhut Air Base

Encompassing sixteen square kilometers of land on the northwestern outskirts of Saigon, the Tan Son Nhut Sensitive Area contained some of the most 

important military facilities in the country. The U.S. Seventh Air Force and 

the South Vietnamese Air Force both maintained their headquarters at Tan 

Son Nhut Air Base, which also served as the country’s main international 

airport. The Davis Station on the southern edge of Tan Son Nhut was home 

to the Army Security Agency’s 509th Radio Research Group, an administrative headquarters that supervised and supported the various Army signal 

intelligence units that operated throughout South Vietnam. General Vien’s 

Joint General Staff compound was located on the southeastern side of the 

air base; immediately to its north was the MACV headquarters complex, 

built on land that was once a golf course. The Go Vap Logistical Area lay 

at the northeastern corner of the air base, a shipping and storage center that 

contained the U.S. Red Ball Express compound, designed to handle highpriority items, as well as the South Vietnamese Armor and Artillery training 

centers, which also doubled as repair and maintenance facilities.17

This evening, the Tan Son Nhut Sensitive Area was defended by its regular 

security group, three allied battalions and a helicopter gunship platoon. The 

South Vietnamese 53d Regional Forces Battalion, an elite reconnaissance unit 

composed of six companies, screened the countryside to the north and west of 

the air base. The South Vietnamese 2d Service Battalion, a security unit that 

specialized in air base defense, and the U.S. Air Force 377th Security Police 

Squadron shared responsibility for manning the watchtowers and bunkers 

that dotted the perimeter of the base. Four pairs of UH–1 gunships from the 

15 AAR, Tet Offensive, II FFV, n.d., p. 19, Historians files, CMH; Son, ed., Viet Cong “Tet” 

Offensive (1968), p. 87. 16 Lung, General Offensives of 1968–1969, p. 59; Son, ed., Viet Cong “Tet” Offensive (1968), 

pp. 84–87; Tuan, Saigon-Gia Dinh Offensive Sector, 1968, p. 34; Transcript, VNIT 199, p. 4, Encl 

11.17 The following section is based on AAR, Mortar, rocket, automatic/small arms, and ground 

attacks against Tan Son Nhut Air Base and the Tan Son Nhut Sensitive Area, 377th Combat 

Support Gp, n.d., box 25, AARs, Asst Ch of Staff, J–3, MACV, RG 472, NACP. Rpt, 3d Sqdn, 

4th Cav, 25th Inf Div, n.d., sub: Recommendation for the Presidential Unit Citation, box 6, 

Presidential and Distinguished Unit Citations, Adjutant General sec., RG 472, NACP; AAR, 

Tet Offensive, II FFV, pp. 12–13; AAR, Task Force Ware, II FFV, n.d., box 34, AARs, 1965–

1971, Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP.
333

Saigon Embattled

4th Platoon, 120th Assault Helicopter Company, waited on the tarmac, fully 

loaded with ammunition and fuel, their crews ready to lift off within minutes 

of being alerted. In addition, the South Vietnamese 8th Airborne Battalion 

waited in reserve at the South Vietnamese Airborne Division headquarters, 

General Vien having canceled its deployment to northern I Corps earlier 

that day. 

At 0320, the American-manned bunkers near Gate 51 at the western 

entrance to Tan Son Nhut began receiving .50-caliber machine gun, 82-mm. 

mortar, and 75-mm. recoilless rifle fire from the Vinatexco textile factory, 

500 meters to the north on the opposite side of Highway 1. The Air Force 

guards responded with M16 and M60 machine gun fire, but their weapons 

had little effect at that range. Enemy fire also raked the South Vietnamese 

watchtowers on the western side of Tan Son Nhut, forcing their occupants to 

take cover (see Map 28).

The torrent of bullets and shells prevented the defenders from engaging a 

minitruck that raced down Highway 1 and stopped at a point roughly halfway 

between the western gate and the clothing factory. A Viet Cong sapper team 

climbed out and sprinted over to the outer perimeter fence, placing an explosive charge that blew a gap once the sappers had retreated. As the dust settled, 

a phalanx of soldiers from the 267th PLAF Battalion who had been hiding in 

a nearby field rose to their feet and charged across Highway 1, some heading 

for the breach and others moving south to attack Bunker 51, which protected 

An aerial view of Tan Son Nhut
Staying the Course

334

the western gate. Pinned down in their bunker, the U.S. security personnel 

could do little to slow the onrushing tide. Before being overwhelmed, they 

radioed a warning: hundreds of enemy soldiers were inside the perimeter and 

advancing toward the western end of the Tan Son Nhut runway.18

More bad news reached the South Vietnamese air base commander, 

Colonel Cuong, from a patrol from the 53d Regional Forces Battalion, 

which was attempting to reconnoiter the enemy force at the Vinatexco factory. The patrol had spotted a battalion of Viet Cong soldiers, perhaps two, 

waiting in a field near the factory, apparently preparing to follow the battalion that was already streaming through the gap in the outer fence. The 

opposing force was too large for the patrol to engage unaided. The U.S. 

adviser attached to the patrol requested assistance from the helicopter gunship platoon at Tan Son Nhut. 

Cuong also learned that the enemy had entered the Go Vap Logistical 

Area, outside the northeastern corner of the air base perimeter. Three battalions from the 101st PAVN Regiment and a battalion from the 165th PAVN 

Regiment had already overrun the Phu Dong Armored Training Center and 

the Co Loa Artillery Training Center. Fortunately, the first of those facilities 

did not presently contain any tanks or armored personnel carriers that the 

18 Tuan, Saigon-Gia Dinh Offensive Sector, 1968, p. 32.

A crewman from the 4th Platoon, 120th Aviation Company, checks the twin 

side-mounted M60 machine guns on his Huey gunship at Tan Son Nhut.
D16

PAVN

I I

267

PLAF

I I

269

PLAF

I I

101(-)

PAVN

III

2 Go Mon

PLAF

I I

SAPPERS

PLAF

Go Vap Complex

Vinatexco Complex

1

Main Gate

2 Gate

058 Gate

055 Gate

051 Gate

MACV Compound

Tan Son Nhut Air Base

JGS Compound

Rach

B

e

n

C

a

t

Do Sau Tinh Ra Met

A B A N D O N E D 

A B A N D O N E D 

SAIGON

Gia Dinh

TET OFFENSIVE

TAN SON NHUT AIR BASE

31 January-18 February 1968

Enemy Axis of AttackEnemy Small Arms FireEntrenchments

0

0 1 Kilometer

Mile 1

Map 28
Staying the Course

336

enemy might appropriate for his own use, while the South Vietnamese artillerymen at the second facility had removed the breechblocks from their howitzers before retreating from the compound, rendering all twelve 105-mm. 

weapons useless. Part of the 101st Regiment had tried to enter Gate 10 on the 

eastern side of Tan Son Nhut Air Base, but troops from the South Vietnamese 

2d Service Battalion and a group of armed volunteers raised from the nearby 

MACV headquarters appeared to have the situation under control.19

Recognizing the western thrust as the greatest threat, Colonel Cuong 

brought his reserve force, around one hundred security personnel and four 

M41 light tanks, out to meet the enemy. As he led his troops forward, a bullet 

struck the colonel in the leg. Though the wound was serious, Cuong refused 

to leave the battle at such a critical juncture.

Outnumbered, outgunned, and with two of their tanks destroyed by 

rocket grenades, the thin line of security troops held the 267th Battalion

in check long enough for two pairs of Huey gunships to get airborne. The 

helicopters made an immediate impact. As they commenced their strafing 

runs, Viet Cong soldiers scrambled to find concealment in the knee-high 

grass that grew between the fence and the runway. Making their passes 

from east to west, the gunships also tore into a second Viet Cong unit, 

the D16 PAVN Battalion, which had just begun to cross Highway 1 with 

the intention of entering the air base, as well as a third enemy unit, the 

269th PLAF Battalion, which was waiting for its turn in a field farther 

west. With all three Viet Cong battalions pinned in place by the gunships, 

Colonel Cuong reorganized his troops, a mixture of American and South 

Vietnamese personnel, some who were trained security guards and others 

from rear support units who had picked up weapons. When daylight came, 

the ad hoc security group, reinforced by two companies from the South 

Vietnamese 8th Airborne Battalion, began reducing the enemy salient like 

hunters flushing quail from a grassy field.20

Meanwhile, General Westmoreland ordered General Weyand to organize 

a task force that would help the South Vietnamese restore security in the 

Capital Military District. At 0530, the II Field Force commander directed 

his deputy, Maj. Gen. Keith L. Ware, to establish a tactical command post at 

Camp Le Van Duyet next to the Capital Military District headquarters. Once 

operational, Hurricane Forward would assume tactical control over all of 

the U.S. units that entered the Saigon–Gia Dinh zone.

While General Ware made his preparations, General Weyand ordered the 

commander of the 25th Division, General Mearns, to send any mechanized 

19 AAR, Opn Tet Offensive, II FFV, n.d., p. 13; Interv, Maj Lewis P. O’Rourke with Lt Col 

Kenneth E. George, 16 May 68, VNIT 199, CMH; Son, ed., Viet Cong “Tet” Offensive (1968), 

pp. 96, 132; AAR, Opn Attack on Tan Son Nhut, 31 Jan 68, 2d Service Bn Advisory Det, 

Advisory Team 100, 9 Mar 68, p. 1, VNIT 199, CMH. 20 AAR, Mortar, rocket, automatic/small arms, and ground attacks against Tan Son Nhut 

Air Base and the Tan Son Nhut Sensitive Area, 377th Combat Support Gp, pp. 3–7; Rpt, 8th 

Mil Hist Det, 1st Avn Bde, 10 Jul 68, sub: Combat After Action Interviews, Operations of the 

4th Platoon, 120th Aviation Company (Airmobile Light), p. 20, VNIT 199, CMH; Son, ed., Viet 

Cong “Tet” Offensive (1968), p. 83.
337

Saigon Embattled

troops he could spare to join the battle on the western side of Tan Son Nhut. 

The closest available unit was Troop C, 3d Squadron, 4th Cavalry, presently 

guarding a bridge near the town of Hoc Mon twenty kilometers northwest 

of the air base. Mearns instructed the squadron commander, Lt. Col. Glenn 

K. Otis, to leave one platoon at the bridge and to bring the rest of Troop 

C, six M48 tanks, and twelve M113 armored personnel carriers to Tan Son 

Nhut without delay. Colonel Otis led Troop C from his command helicopter, 

dropping flares to guide his troops around ambush sites and roadblocks, and 

bringing his force to within sight of the Vinatexco factory by 0630.

Apparently unaware that the building and its grounds were occupied by 

three Viet Cong heavy weapons companies, Colonel Otis instructed Troop C 

to proceed straight down Highway 1. When the head of the column was only 

about a hundred meters away, a blizzard of rocket grenades erupted from the 

factory grounds, damaging or destroying the four vehicles in front, and killing or wounding every officer in the column. The ranking noncommissioned 

officer, S. Sgt. Gary D. Brewer, quickly restored order. After maneuvering the 

remaining vehicles into positions where all of their weapons could be brought 

to bear on the factory, Sergeant Brewer led an effort to rescue the crews from 

the disabled vehicles who were pinned down by the side of the road.

General Mearns gave Colonel Otis permission to bring up the platoon 

he had left behind in Hoc Mon. By the time it arrived at 0730, Troop C’s 

situation was becoming desperate. Many soldiers were running low on 

ammunition. Viet Cong troops were coming out of the factory to flank the 

American position, some closing 

within hand-grenade range. The 

helicopter gunships from Tan Son 

Nhut were unable to help, kept 

at a respectful distance by the 

.51-caliber antiaircraft machine 

guns that the enemy was operating from the roof of the factory. 

Seeing his position deteriorate, Otis asked for and received 

permission to employ Troop B, 

located at the town of Trang Bang 

some forty kilometers to the north. 

Driving down Highway 1 at top 

speed and smashing through five 

Viet Cong ambushes along the 

way, Troop B arrived on the scene 

at 0800. Coming up to the rear of 

Troop C, the relief force pivoted 

to the right, drove off the road 

into an open field, and then reformed its line to face the factory. 

From the road, Troop C burned 

off its remaining ammunition to General Ware
Staying the Course

338

cover Troop B as it smashed into the enemy’s left flank. Unable to stop the 

armored attack, Viet Cong soldiers began to abandon their fighting pits, and 

one by one the enemy mortars and machine guns fell silent. Colonel Otis, who 

had to change helicopters three times during the course of the engagement 

due to battle damage, would receive the Distinguished Service Cross for his 

leadership that day. 21

The fight was still going on at 1100 when General Ware formally established Hurricane Forward and took operational control over Troops B and 

C of the 3d Squadron, 4th Cavalry. Another unit that Weyand added to Task 

Force Ware, the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry, from the 2d Brigade, 1st Infantry 

Division, joined the battle a short time later. Enemy resistance eventually 

came to an end when a flight of South Vietnamese A–1E Skyraiders and U.S. 

F–100 fighter-bombers reduced the building to a smoking ruin. The allies 

later found over 300 Viet Cong dead in and around the destroyed factory.22

21 Recommendation for Award, CG, 3d Sqdn, 4th Cav, 25th Inf Div, to Department of the 

Army, 13 Apr 68, sub: Brewer, Gary D; Citation, Distinguished Service Cross for Lt Col Glenn 

K. Otis. Both in Historians files, CMH. 22 Bfg, Lt Col David Hughes, 20 Mar 68, sub: II Field Force Press Briefing on VC TET 

Offensive, p. 9, Historians files, CMH; AAR, Tet Offensive, II FFV, p. 19.

Tanks and armored personnel carriers from Troop B, 3d Squadron, 4th Cavalry, 

25th Infantry Division, advance in attack formation across an open field.
339

Saigon Embattled

While American units handled the threat to the western side of Tan Son 

Nhut, General Vien flew in additional South Vietnamese troops from IV 

Corps and II Corps to deal with the enemy who was fighting on the opposite 

side of the air base. Arriving from Binh Dinh Province, the South Vietnamese 

4th Marine Battalion exited the air base through a small northern gate and 

then counterattacked the enemy soldiers who were occupying the Phu Dong 

and the Co Loa bases. Later that afternoon, the South Vietnamese 1st and 

2d Marine Battalions arrived from Dinh Tuong Province, and the South 

Vietnamese 6th Airborne Battalion flew in from Dak To. General Vien sent 

the 1st Marine Battalion to join the fighting in Go Vap. Helicopters transported the two remaining units to the Joint General Staff compound, on the 

southeastern side of the air base, to evict a Viet Cong battalion that had 

seized some of its buildings. Vien also redeployed the South Vietnamese 3d 

Marine Battalion from its present position near Hoc Mon area to the northern edge of Go Vap to block the escape of the 101st Regiment.

23

That afternoon when the fighting ended on the western side of Tan Son 

Nhut, General Ware created a new task force led by the commander of the 2d 

Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, Col. Charles C. Thebaud, that would protect 

the air base until it was out of danger. Task Force Thebaud initially consisted 

of the 1st Infantry Division’s 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry; the 3d Squadron, 

4th Cavalry; plus two more units Weyand had transferred to Hurricane

Forward, the 2d Battalion, 27th Infantry, from the 2d Brigade, 25th Infantry 

Division; and the 2d Battalion, 327th Infantry, from the 1st Brigade, 101st 

Airborne Division. By 1700, all four units and their attached 105-mm. artillery batteries had moved into the perimeter.24

Over the next twenty-four hours, Colonel Thebaud shifted his focus to 

the Go Vap area after concluding that the enemy was unlikely to make new 

attacks against the western side of Tan Son Nhut. On 1 February, Task Force 

Thebaud, reinforced with Troop A from the 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry, from 

the 1st Infantry Division, joined the clearing operation that South Vietnamese 

marines were conducting in Go Vap. Under that pressure, the four enemy battalions broke into small elements on 2 February, each trying to make its way 

back to the countryside, leaving behind approximately 600 of their dead.25

The Joint General Staff Compound

The enemy attack that came closest to succeeding on the morning of 

30 January took place at the Joint General Staff headquarters, located in 

a walled-off enclosure roughly a square kilometer in size that occupied the 

23 Tuan, Saigon-Gia Dinh Offensive Sector, 1968, p. 35; AAR, Tet Offensive, II FFV, an. I-6; 

Transcript, VNIT 199, p. 8, Encl 11. 24 AAR, Mortar, rocket, automatic/small arms, and ground attacks against Tan Son Nhut 

Air Base and the Tan Son Nhut Sensitive Area, 377th Combat Support Gp, pp. 11–12, attachment A; Transcript, VNIT 199, pp. 13, 38, Encl 15. 25 Transcript, VNIT 199, pp. 19–20, Encl 11; Daily Journal, Advisory Team 100, 2 Feb 68, 

pp. 10–11, Historians files, CMH.
Staying the Course

340

southeastern corner of the Tan Son Nhut Sensitive Area. The facility contained General Vien’s headquarters, situated at the western end of the compound, a variety of living quarters occupied by South Vietnamese officers 

and their families, and a collection of administrative buildings and military 

education facilities. Security guards stood watch at the five vehicle gates that 

led into the compound.

At 0300, a government limousine carrying a South Vietnamese general 

turned off of Vo Tanh Street, a major thoroughfare that ran past the southern 

edge of the compound, and drove through Gate 5. At that moment, twentytwo Viet Cong commandos carrying AK47s and three B40 grenade launchers 

appeared in an alleyway that terminated at Vo Tanh Street on the opposite 

side of Gate 5. The South Vietnamese guards managed to close the gate before 

the Viet Cong sappers reached the end of the alleyway; jumping behind cover, 

the guards opened fire on the exposed commandos, killing several and forcing the remainder to seek cover in residential buildings farther down the 

alleyway. An American soldier from the 716th Military Police Battalion who 

was standing guard at Bachelor Officers’ Quarters (BOQ) No. 3, a residence 

for senior U.S. officers that stood on the opposite side of the alleyway facing 

A ready reaction force from Company C, 716th Military 

Police Battalion, heads out in a 21⁄2-ton truck.
341

Saigon Embattled

Gate 5, witnessed the brief firefight. He stepped inside the villa, locked its 

door behind him, and radioed a warning to Colonel Rowe’s headquarters.26

The commander of the 716th Military Police Battalion redirected a pair 

of jeep patrols that were in the area. Arriving a few minutes later, the military policemen learned that more than a dozen heavily armed sappers were 

holed up in some of the buildings along the alleyway, though no one could 

say which ones for sure. The U.S. policemen asked battalion headquarters 

to send more troops, but to avoid using the alleyway during their approach.

As requested, Colonel Rowe dispatched a reaction force, twenty-six men 

from Company C, three soldiers riding in a jeep and twenty-three soldiers 

traveling in a 21⁄2-ton truck. Perhaps unfamiliar with this part of town, a fact 

compounded by the darkness that made street signs hard to see, the reaction force turned into the southern end of the alley as it neared the villa and 

proceeded up its length, the jeep in front and the truck behind. The jeep made 

it through unscathed, but not the truck. As it traveled up the alleyway, a 

rocket grenade slammed into the front end of the truck, destroying its engine 

and shredding the front tires. As dazed military policemen began to climb 

down from the truck, sappers sprayed them with automatic weapons fire. 

The explosion and subsequent bullets killed sixteen of the Americans and 

wounded the remaining seven. Two of the injured men crawled to safety, and 

U.S. military policemen retrieved a third, but enemy fire prevented the rescuers from reaching any of the dead or wounded farther down the alley.27

The standoff continued until an American V100 armored car, driven by a 

crew from the 720th Military Police Battalion at Long Binh, arrived at 1300. 

Using its protective bulk and twin .30-caliber machine guns to cover their 

movement, military policemen dashed into the alley and rescued the four 

soldiers who were lying injured near the demolished truck and retrieved most 

of the dead. The sappers were finally subdued the next morning when South 

Vietnamese troops stormed their position. Ten of the enemy soldiers were 

killed and the remainder became prisoners of war.28

While the battle for the BOQ No. 3 alleyway was unfolding on the morning of 30 January, a second fight was beginning near Gate 2 on the eastern 

side of the Joint General Staff compound. At 0700, close to 200 soldiers from 

the 2d Go Mon Battalion appeared outside Gate 2, having reached their destination by following the railroad track that entered Saigon from the north 

and passed by the Joint General Staff compound. The Viet Cong destroyed 

26 Son, ed., Viet Cong “Tet” Offensive (1968), p. 135. 27 Tuan, Saigon-Gia Dinh Offensive Sector, 1968, p. 31. 28 Special Rpt, CMIC, no. US 341-68, 21 Feb 68, sub: General OB of the J–6 Element, C-10 

Bn, aka T-700, p. 3, box 60, CMIC Interrogation Dossiers, Asst Ch of Staff, J–2, MACV, RG 

472, NACP; Special Rpt, CMIC, no. US 343-68, 22 Feb 68, sub: VC Tet Offensive in Saigon: 

1968, p. 4, box 2, CMIC Interrogation Rpts, Asst Ch of Staff, J–2, MACV, RG 472, NACP; 

Special Rpt, CMIC, no. US 344-68, 22 Feb 68, sub: Recruitment, Explosive Training and the 

Attack on Saigon by the J–6 Squad, pp. 2–3, box 2, CMIC Interrogation Rpts, Asst Ch of 

Staff, J–2, MACV, RG 472, NACP; Transcript, VNIT 264, 31 Jan 68, sub: The Tet Offensive: 

716th MP Battalion & 18th Military Police Brigade, Encl to Interv, Sp4c. Newsom, C Co, 52d 

Infantry, et al., Historians files, CMH; Lung, General Offensives of 1968–1969, pp. 55–57.
Staying the Course

342

Gate 2 with rocket grenades, killing the security guards who had been posted 

there, and then stormed into the southeastern corner of the compound. 

The Viet Cong soldiers occupied a half-dozen empty administrative buildings, fortifying them against an expected South Vietnamese counterattack, 

instead of venturing deeper into the compound to attack the Joint General 

Staff headquarters, some 500 meters to the northwest. 

When General Vien learned that enemy soldiers had penetrated the 

compound, he ordered the South Vietnamese 8th Airborne Battalion, presently assisting Colonel Cuong’s security troops on the western side of Tan 

Son Nhut, to send two companies to the JCS compound by helicopter as 

soon as possible.29

At 0900, a flight of U.S. helicopters deposited the South Vietnamese paratroopers at General Vien’s headquarters. He ordered the pair of companies to 

pin the Viet Cong battalion in place until more reinforcements arrived. The 

resulting skirmish continued for several hours, with neither side trying to 

gain territory, until two more battalions from the South Vietnamese general 

reserve joined the battle. Reinforced by the South Vietnamese 2d Marine 

Battalion, recently arrived from the Mekong Delta, and the South Vietnamese 

6th Airborne Battalion, just flown back from Dak To, General Vien began 

his counterattack in earnest. Facing a superior force on the ground and heli29 Son, ed., Viet Cong “Tet” Offensive (1968), pp. 81, 137.

Soldiers battle Viet Cong sappers near BOQ No. 3.
343

Saigon Embattled

copter gunships overhead, the Viet Cong gave up their foothold later that 

evening and retreated north through the city with South Vietnamese marines 

hot on their heels.30

Cholon and the Phu Tho Racetrack

At 0300 on 30 January, approximately 200 soldiers from the 6th Binh Tan 

Battalion and 100 civilians conscripted to serve as ammunition and stretcher 

bearers, entered the Phu Lam suburb on the western outskirts of Saigon. 

There they met several Viet Cong agents who led the battalion into the city as 

far as the Phu Tho racetrack, a large field containing an oval dirt track and 

a concrete, three-story viewing stadium, in the Chinese district of Cholon 

three kilometers south of Tan Son Nhut and two kilometers west of Camp Le 

Van Duyet. The first set of guides departed, their mission finished, but the 

second set of guides, the ones responsible for leading the 6th Battalion to the 

Chi Hoa prison, some 1,500 meters to the northeast, were nowhere to be seen. 

After some time, the battalion commander sent two of his companies deeper 

into the city, hoping that they would find the way to the prison, while he kept 

the other half of his force at the racetrack.31

The 6th Binh Tan Battalion avoided discovery until 0445 when a two-man 

jeep patrol from the 716th Military Police Battalion sped through the sixway intersection at the southern end of the racetrack where the enemy commander was waiting with two of his companies. Viet Cong troops opened 

fire, killing one of the military policemen; the other soldier had just time 

enough to transmit a distress call on his jeep-mounted radio before he, too, 

was gunned down.

The warning was too brief and cryptic for anyone at Colonel Rowe’s headquarters to understand its meaning. As a result, the 716th Military Police 

Battalion did not warn any of its roving jeep patrols to avoid the six-way 

intersection south of the racetrack. During the next hour, two more patrols 

drove through the same intersection, and each in turn came under enemy 

fire, killing or wounding their occupants.32

30 Lung, General Offensives of 1968–1969, pp. 56–57; Special Rpt, CMIC, no. US 485-68, 5 

Mar 68, sub: OB of 3d Co, 2d Independent Bn, GO MON District Element, pp. 2–5, box 64, 

CMIC Interrogation Dossiers, Asst Ch of Staff, J–2, MACV, RG 472, NACP; Special Rpt, 

CMIC, no. US 02-007-68, 10 Feb 68, sub: Attack on the JGS Compound during TET, pp. 2–4, 

box 21, CMIC Special Rpts, Asst Ch of Staff, J–2, MACV, RG 472, NACP; Son, ed., Viet Cong 

“Tet” Offensive (1968), pp. 135–37. 31 Special Rpt, CMIC, no. US 919-68, 17 Apr 68, sub: OB of the 6th LF Bn and the Binh 

Tan Sub-Region, pp. 4–7, box 4, Asst Ch of Staff, J–2, MACV, RG 472, NACP; Special Rpt, 

CMIC, no. US 1141-68, 4 May 68, sub: 6th VC LF Bn, p. 2, box 4, Asst Ch of Staff, J–2, MACV, 

RG 472, NACP; Lung, General Offensives of 1968–1969, p. 61; Oberdorfer, Tet!, p. 145; Tuan, 

Saigon-Gia Dinh Offensive Sector, 1968, p. 23; Intel Cable, CIA, 14 Feb 68, sub: Experiences of 

(redacted), an ammunition bearer for Company 2, Battalion 6, during the attack on Saigon, p. 

2, box 240 (2 of 2), document 96, NSF-Vietnam Country Files, LBJL. 32 Special Rpt, CMIC, no. US 919-68, 17 Apr 68, p. 12; Tai Nguyen, Ve Voi Voi Nguon: Hoi Ky

[Back to My Roots: A Memoir] (Hanoi: People’s Public Security Publishing House, 1997), p. 203.
Staying the Course

344

After losing contact with those patrols, Colonel Rowe dispatched a truck 

carrying thirteen soldiers to investigate. Heading out at 0600, the reaction 

team found three disabled jeeps, four dead Americans, and two wounded 

military policemen littering the six-way intersection. Dashing through heavy 

enemy fire, the squad rescued both injured policemen and then withdrew to 

a building on the southeastern side of the intersection. Colonel Rowe sent 

a second team to reinforce the first group and a vehicle to pick up the two 

wounded men. Try as they might, the weight of enemy fire prevented them 

from recovering any of the four dead military policemen, who still lay in the 

intersection. This was going to be a job for regular infantry.

Alerted to the presence of the 6th Binh Tan Battalion, General Weyand 

called upon his nearest available unit, the 3d Battalion, 7th Infantry, 199th 

Infantry Brigade, which was stationed in Gia Dinh Province approximately 

ten kilometers to the southwest. Receiving his orders through brigade headquarters, the battalion commander, Lt. Col. John K. Gibler, dispatched 

Company A to the southern edge of Cholon where it met up with eight M113s 

from Troop D, 17th Cavalry, which served as the 199th Infantry Brigade’s 

reconnaissance unit. Now constituted as Task Force Gibler, the U.S. soldiers joined up with two companies from the South Vietnamese 33d Ranger 

Battalion sent by General Vien. The Vietnamese chief also instructed the 

South Vietnamese 38th Ranger Battalion, currently operating in the Phu Lam 

Soldiers from the 716th Military Police Battalion leave their 

compound to conduct a jeep patrol in Saigon.
345

Saigon Embattled

neighborhood, to advance on the racetrack from the west, thereby presenting 

the enemy with a two-front attack.

As Task Force Gibler headed north through the Cholon District, 

a densely populated blue-collar neighborhood where most of the residents lived and worked in two- and three-story row houses, it began to 

receive fire from enemy soldiers belonging to the 6th Binh Tan Battalion

who had positioned themselves in upper windows and on rooftops. The 

allied infantry fanned out through side alleys in hopes of outflanking 

the enemy, but the armored personnel carriers had no choice but to continue down the main avenue. Spraying Viet Cong strong points with their 

.50-caliber machine guns, the vehicles kept going even when a rocket grenade destroyed Troop D’s command vehicle. With help from the South 

Vietnamese rangers, who eliminated several Viet Cong support weapons, 

including a .51-caliber machine gun that the enemy had dragged to the 

roof of a three-story building, the seven armored personnel carriers and 

the infantrymen from Company A inched their way toward the racetrack, 

six blocks away.33

As that battle raged in Cholon, a second fight was developing to the 

east. Two enemy units, the 508th Battalion and the 5th Nha Be Battalion, 

had entered the southern edge of Saigon intent on reaching General Loan’s 

33 Son, ed., Viet Cong “Tet” Offensive (1968), pp. 91–93.

A South Vietnamese ranger sprints across a street during the fighting in Cholon.
Staying the Course

346

National Police headquarters. Local police had blocked their advance long 

enough for General Vien to deploy the South Vietnamese 30th Ranger 

Battalion. The enemy now appeared to be contained within a several-block 

radius and was in no position to aid the 6th Binh Tan Battalion.

By 1100 when Task Force Gibler passed to the control of General Ware 

and Hurricane Forward, the allied force coming from the south and the 

South Vietnamese 38th Ranger Battalion coming from the west had both 

reached the six-way intersection adjacent to the racetrack, where they linked 

up with the platoon from the 716th Military Police Battalion Colonel Rowe 

had dispatched earlier that morning. Deploying several 106-mm. recoilless 

rifles, the soldiers and a pair of helicopter gunships blasted the concrete stadium pavilion where the 6th Binh Tan Battalion was making a stand. The 

enemy abandoned the site later that afternoon and withdrew by twos and 

threes into the residential neighborhood to the west. A combination of South 

Vietnamese rangers and policemen followed in pursuit. The Americans 

established a temporary firebase on the stadium lawn. Just before dark, helicopters flew in the remainder of Colonel Gibler’s 3d Battalion, 7th Infantry, 

as well as its attached howitzer battery.34

On the morning of 1 February, General Ware reinforced Task Force

Gibler with Companies A and B from the 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry, 

a mechanized unit from the 3d Brigade, 9th Infantry Division, stationed 

in Long An Province. The task force spent the day clearing the neighborhood around the racetrack, which was still infested with Viet Cong soldiers. 

Enemy rocket grenades disabled two of the armored personnel carriers, but 

when night came Task Force Gibler was able to declare the neighborhood 

secure. Scattered elements of the 6th Binh Tan Battalion remained in the 

western suburbs of Saigon for another week; in the end, only thirty Viet 

Cong soldiers from the original force made it back to their base camp on 

the Vam Co Dong River.35

Battles on the Periphery of Saigon

After the Capital Military District, the second most important target 

in COSVN’s Tet attack plan was the Bien Hoa–Long Binh military complex, located some twenty kilometers northeast of the capital across the 

Dong Nai River that formed the boundary between Gia Dinh and Bien 

Hoa Provinces. Slightly to the northwest of its neighbor, the Bien Hoa 

Air Base housed fighter-bomber squadrons and armed helicopter companies, and was home to the newly arrived command group from the 

101st Airborne Division. The U.S. Air Force 3d Security Police Squadron 

manned the bunkers and watchtowers that encircled the air base, while the 

34 Rpt, Tet Offensive Bfg-15 Minute Version, 7th Mil Hist Det, n.d., p. 7, box 2, 7th Mil Hist 

Det, USARV, RG 472, NACP; AAR, Long Binh/Saigon Tet Campaign, 199th Inf Bde, 15 Apr 

68, pp. 12–13, box 22, AARs, Asst Ch of Staff, J–3, MACV, RG 472, NACP. 35 AAR, Task Force Ware, II FFV, pp. 3–4.
347

Saigon Embattled

South Vietnamese 57th Regional Forces Battalion screened the adjacent 

countryside. Just south of the air base, General Khang maintained his III 

Corps headquarters in the city of Bien Hoa, also home to his ready reaction 

force, the South Vietnamese 3d Ranger Task Force, consisting of the 35th 

and 36th Ranger Battalions. General Khang’s corps artillery, two 155-mm. 

howitzer battalions, operated from a base near the Dong Nai River on the 

southeastern side of Bien Hoa City.36

Four kilometers east of Bien Hoa Air Base was the Long Binh military 

complex, a thirty-square-kilometer facility that served as the main U.S. 

logistical complex in III Corps and as home to USARV headquarters. An 

important secondary function was its role as a command and control center. 

A compound called the Plantation, which lay on the northern edge of the 

base, contained the headquarters of II Field Force, the headquarters of the 

199th Infantry Brigade, and the headquarters of the 12th Aviation Group. 

The latter provided helicopter support for all of III Corps and controlled 

nine assault helicopter companies stationed at either Bien Hoa or Long Binh. 

The 720th Military Police Battalion provided security for Long Binh, while 

elements of the 199th Infantry Brigade patrolled the surrounding districts to 

discourage rocket and mortar attacks against the two U.S. facilities. As an 

additional precaution, General Weyand instructed the commander of the 9th 

Infantry Division, General O’Connor, to ready a mechanized force from his 

1st Brigade at Bearcat, sixteen kilometers to the south, should Long Binh be 

attacked (see Map 29).

At 0030 on 31 January, a patrol from the 199th Infantry Brigade—

Company E of the 4th Battalion, 12th Infantry—detected a company-size 

enemy force approximately ten kilometers north of Bien Hoa, moving in the 

direction of the air base. The Americans engaged the enemy with the help of 

artillery, killing forty-seven Communists. Thirty minutes later, a long-range 

reconnaissance patrol from the 199th Infantry Brigade spotted enemy soldiers moving through the rubber trees several hundred meters to the north of 

Long Binh. Several helicopter gunships took off from Bien Hoa Air Base to 

investigate, but it was too dark to see much. 

Two uneventful hours passed with no more sign from the enemy. Then at 

0300, the helicopter gunships that had been circling the jungle north of Long 

Binh saw dozens of bright flames as a salvo of 122-mm. rockets streaked 

toward Bien Hoa and Long Binh. Enemy gunners from the 84A PAVN 

Artillery Regiment fired approximately one hundred 82-mm. mortar rounds 

and ninety 122-mm. rockets at Long Binh. Several dozen detonated near 

the headquarters of II Field Force and of the 199th Infantry Brigade in the 

Plantation compound, but none were direct hits. The acting commander of 

the 199th Infantry Brigade, Col. Frederic E. Davison, directed three of the 

four infantry companies that were in the field to converge on the launch area. 

Convinced that a ground attack was imminent, General Weyand ordered 

General O’Connor to dispatch the mechanized task force the 9th Division 

commander had assembled at Bearcat.

36 AAR, Tet Offensive, II FFV, pp. 10–11.
275(-)

PLAF

III 2 275

PLAF

I I

274

PLAF

III

2 506

I I

C 4-12

I

199

X

1 C/4-12

HHC(-) 199

3(-) D/17

A 3-5

I

2 47

I I

XXX

III

ARVN

LONG BINH

BEARCAT

BIEN HOA

POW Camp

AO NORTH UNIONTOWN

AO CENTRAL UNIONTOWN

AO SOUTH UNIONTOWN

Song Dong Nai

Song Dong Nai Song Dong Nai

Bien Hoa

BAT TLE OF 

LONG BINH AND BIEN HOA

31 January 1968

Enemy Axis of Attack

Air Assault

Ground Attack

Operational Boundary

Military Installation

0

0 321 Kilometers

Miles 1 2 3

Map 29
349

Saigon Embattled

The sound of the rockets was the 

signal for the 5th PLAF Division to 

attack. Two battalions of the 274th 

PLAF Regiment emerged from a rubber 

plantation some 500 meters east of the 

Bien Hoa Air Base. The Viet Cong commanders possessed detailed maps of the 

facility given to them by spies who had 

worked there as manual laborers. Armed 

with that information, the enemy had 

a clear idea of how best to destroy the 

dozens of aircraft parked at the air base 

as well as the fuel and ordnance stations 

needed to service them.37

Before it reached the airstrip, the 

274th PLAF Regiment had to overcome 

a line of bunkers manned by a platoon 

of South Vietnamese Regional Forces 

soldiers and security personnel from 

the U.S. Air Force 3d Security Police 

Squadron. The Viet Cong focused their 

assault on the linchpin of the bunker 

line, an old French concrete structure 

named Bunker Hill 10. At least five 

rocket-propelled grenades and dozens of 

mortar shells slammed into the pillbox 

in the opening minutes of the battle. Despite the incoming rounds, the senior 

officer in the bunker, Capt. Reginald V. Maisey Jr., stepped outside between 

breaks in the fire so he could get a better view of the enemy, information he 

relayed by radio to the air control center. His luck ran out at 0430 when he 

was killed by a rocket grenade. The men in Bunker Hill 10 and neighboring positions fought on, and the steady chatter of their M16s and M60s was 

enough to prevent the two Viet Cong battalions from closing the distance and 

knocking out the bunkers.38

Several flights of AH–1 Cobra gunships from the 334th Assault Helicopter 

Company roared aloft as soon as there was enough light to distinguish friend 

from foe on the ground. The sleek Cobras darted back and forth raking the 

Viet Cong soldiers in the grassy field below with their rockets and machine 

guns. The enemy became disorganized in the hazy smoke that rose from the 

field as the dry grass caught fire.39

37 Special Rpt, CMIC, no. US 813-68, 5 Apr 68, sub: Attack on Bien Hoa Air Base, p. 2, box 

3, CMIC Interrogation Rpts, Asst Ch of Staff, J–2, MACV, RG 472, NACP. 38 Captain Maisey received the Air Force Cross posthumously. Recommendation for 

Decoration, 1 Jun 68, sub: The Medal of Honor (Posthumous), Maisey, Reginald V., Jr., box 

14, Mil Personnel Div, Adjutant General sec., USARV, RG 472, NACP. 39 Rpt, Interv no. GE 9, Rand Corporation, n.d., p. 2, Historians files, CMH.

Colonel Davison 

(shown as a brigadier general)
Staying the Course

350

Shortly before noon, the South Vietnamese 57th Regional Forces 

Battalion counterattacked through the bunker line and forced the Viet Cong 

to yield some ground. Meanwhile, a scratch force of cooks, mechanics, 

and clerical personnel from the 145th Aviation Battalion took up positions 

along the bunker line to stiffen the defenses. Bowing to the inevitable, the 

battered 274th PLAF Regiment withdrew back into the rubber plantation. 

When allied infantry searched the hundred or more enemy bodies scattered 

across the battlefield, they found that nearly half carried timer-detonated 

explosives meant to destroy U.S. aircraft. The airfield back in operation, 

a flight of C–130 transports later that day flew in the 2d Battalion of the 

506th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division, from Phuoc Long Province, to 

help South Vietnamese forces that were fighting a Viet Cong battalion in 

the city of Bien Hoa.40

As the 274th Regiment was beginning its attack against the air base on 

the morning of 31 January, its sister unit, the 275th PLAF Regiment, was 

moving into position to attack Long Binh from the northwest. At 0430, two 

40 Special Rpt, CMIC, no. US 813-68, 5 Apr 68, p. 2; AAR, Participation in the Initial Phase 

of the Tet Offensive, 29 Jan–8 Feb 68, 1st Avn Bde, n.d., pp. 14–15, box 3, PUC/DUC Mil 

Personnel Div, Rcds of U.S. Forces, RG 472, NACP; Msg, HQ, USARV, to CG, 1st Avn Bde, 

18 Feb 70, sub: Recommendation for Award of the Valorous Unit Award, p. 5, box 11, Valorous 

Unit Awards, Adjutant General sec., RG 472, NACP.

An AH–1C Cobra gunship
351

Saigon Embattled

of its battalions emerged from a small hamlet known as the Widows’ Village, 

so named because most of its residents were the wives and family members of 

deceased soldiers, just to the west of the Plantation headquarters complex. As 

Viet Cong soldiers poured out of the hamlet, the defenders at the Plantation 

raked them with small arms and machine-gun fire from the protection of 

bunkers and armored personnel carriers. Unwilling to charge into that storm 

of bullets, and clearly illuminated by roving searchlights and descending 

flares, the enemy headed for the concealment of a nearby bamboo grove. 

American bullets inexorably tore the bamboo grove to shreds.41

A short time later, at approximately 0530, the 9th Division reaction force 

arrived from Bearcat. A long column of armored personnel carriers from the 

2d Battalion, 47th Infantry, raced along Highway 1 from the east and then 

formed a line to face the enemy battalions in the bamboo grove. As the mechanized troopers poured fire into the shattered woods, helicopter gunships 

from the 3d Squadron, 17th Cavalry, swooped in to rocket and machine-gun 

the Viet Cong. The punishment went on until around 0800 when the two 

enemy battalions fled back across Highway 1 to the Widows’ Village.

Joining forces with another 9th Division unit that had just arrived by helicopter from Bearcat, Company B of the 2d Battalion, 39th Infantry, the soldiers 

from the 2d Battalion, 47th Infantry, entered the Widows’ Village and cleared 

41 AAR, Tet Offensive, II FFV, p. 10.

Soldiers from the 199th Infantry Brigade defend the Plantation.
Staying the Course

352

it of enemy troops in a battle that lasted most of the day. Retreating north into 

the rubber trees, the 275th Regiment left behind over 200 of its dead.42

The one successful mission that the enemy carried out against Long Binh 

that morning took place at 0400 on the northeastern side of the base when a 

sixty-man sapper team infiltrated the perimeter and then entered the massive 

ammunition dump, the largest in South Vietnam. Pursued by soldiers from 

the 720th Military Police Battalion, the Viet Cong soldiers managed to place 

eighteen satchel charges before retreating. Bomb squads found and disarmed 

seven of the devices, but the remaining charges detonated at around 0730. 

Eight that were faulty or improperly placed did little damage, but the other 

three ignited pallets that were filled with artillery shells and their propellant bags. The resulting mushroom cloud was visible for kilometers, but the 

storage bunkers did their job, absorbing most of the blast and flames and 

preventing the nearby ammunition pits from igniting as well. The lost ammunition represented only a fraction of the total stock, and logisticians made 

good the deficit within a few days.43

The defenders at Bien Hoa and Long Binh recovered a total of 527 enemy 

dead from the battlefield on the morning of 1 February. Many of those killed 

were sixteen- and seventeen-year-old North Vietnamese conscripts who had 

just joined the 5th PLAF Division to bring it up to strength for the Tet offensive. Apart from the half-day suspension of jet aircraft operations at Bien 

Hoa and the destruction of a few ammunition pads at Long Binh, neither 

42 Rpt, Lt Col David Hughes, Ch of G–3, II FFV, 20 Mar 68, sub: II Field Force G–3 

Briefing, p. 21, Historians files, CMH. 43 Rpt, 15th Mil Hist Det, 23 Apr 68, sub: VC/NVA Attack on Long Binh Ammunition 

Supply Depot, 31 January 1968, p. 1; and Encl 6. Both in VNIT 70, CMH.

Soldiers and M113 armored personnel carriers from the 2d Battalion, 47th 

Infantry, 9th Infantry Division, advance on the enemy-held Widows’ Village.
353

Saigon Embattled

installation suffered much harm. The 5th Division’s attempt to overrun Bien 

Hoa and Long Binh had been a conspicuous failure.44

Battles Outside of Saigon

While COSVN relied on Viet Cong local force battalions from SubRegions 1 through 5 to spearhead the attacks into Saigon, it employed 

its main force regiments, three from the Viet Cong 9th Division, three 

from the North Vietnamese 7th Division, and the Dong Nai Regiment, to 

interdict the main roads leading into the capital. If the attacks in the capital went well, General Thai could send some of those units into the city 

to assist the Viet Cong spearhead battalions. Conversely, if the fighting 

in Saigon looked hopeless, the COSVN commander could withdraw his 

main force regiments even if that meant sacrificing some of his local force 

units.45

On the morning of 31 January, two regiments from the 9th Division

attempted to cut Highway 1 west of Saigon to prevent mechanized units 

from the U.S. 25th Infantry Division based at Cu Chi, Dau Tieng, or 

Tay Ninh West from reaching the city. Neither regiment succeeded. The 

271st Regiment briefly overran the district town of Hoc Mon but failed 

to destroy a key bridge that was being guarded by Troop C of the 3d 

Squadron, 4th Cavalry. Later that morning, the cavalry troop turned the 

bridge over to South Vietnamese troops and then drove cross-country to 

Tan Son Nhut to counterattack the Viet Cong holding the Vinatexco factory. Meanwhile, the 272d Regiment established a blocking position to 

the south of Cu Chi, but failed to stop Troop B of the 3d Squadron, 4th 

Cavalry, when the mechanized unit raced down Highway 1 at 0800 to join 

the battle at the textile factory.46

The 9th Division’s third regiment, the 273d, had a different and more 

difficult assignment. Its mission was to attack the town of Thu Duc, a district capital in eastern Gia Dinh Province located on Highway 1 between 

Saigon and Bien Hoa. In order to do so, the unit had to march in a single 

night without being detected from Hau Nhgia Province west of Saigon 

to the eastern side of the city, a route that skirted several bases from the 

South Vietnamese 5th Division and the U.S. 1st Infantry Division. On the 

evening of 30 January, an infantry patrol from the 1st Division camp at 

Phu Loi spotted the regiment near Phu Cuong, some eighteen kilometers 

north of Go Vap. The patrol called in an artillery strike that decimated the 

unit. The disorganized Viet Cong troops took refuge in a hamlet named 

An My.47

44 AAR, Opn Tet Offensive, II FFV, an. A-1.

45 Ibid., an. A-4.

46 Ibid., p. 15; 9th Division, p. 100. 47 AAR, Tet Offensive, II FFV, p. 13, and an. A; Regimental Hist of 273d VC Regiment, p. 

16, Historians files, CMH; Lung, General Offensives of 1968–1969, pp. 61–67.
Staying the Course

354

The base commander dispatched three companies from the 1st 

Battalion, 28th Infantry, one troop from the 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry, 

and several M42 Dusters from Battery A of the 5th Battalion, 2d Artillery, 

to help South Vietnamese forces cordon An My. One Viet Cong battalion 

slipped away, resuming its journey to Thu Duc around daybreak on 31 

January, but the two remaining battalions were almost completely annihilated. Allied soldiers recovered at least 343 Viet Cong bodies from the 

ruins of An My.48

When the 273d Regiment did not show up at Thu Duc on the morning of 31 January, a pair of local force companies went ahead with the 

assault. They were repulsed with heavy losses. Learning that a battalion 

from the 273d Regiment had escaped An My, General Ware sent a 1st 

Division combat team to the district capital. Task Force Meyer consisted 

of the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry, a company from the 2d Battalion, 16th 

Infantry, and Troop A from the 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry. At Thu Duc 

the force joined the South Vietnamese 2d Marine Battalion, which had 

just finished clearing the 2d Go Mon Battalion from the Joint General 

Staff compound. As a result, the solitary battalion from the 273d Regiment

that had escaped from An My the previous day sustained heavy casualties 

when it attacked Thu Duc on the morning of 1 February. The battalion 

made a second attack two days later alongside the 4th Thu Duc Battalion 

but fared no better. The fighting around Thu Duc cost the enemy upwards 

of 400 killed. Highway 1 between Saigon and Bien Hoa remained open.49

COSVN’s other main combat formation in northern III Corps, the 7th 

PAVN Division, fared no better than the 9th Division in isolating Saigon from 

the neighboring provinces. The 88th and the 141st Regiments failed to block 

Highway 13 in Binh Long and northern Binh Duong Provinces, evidenced 

by the fact that 200 vehicles from the 11th Armored Cavalry traveled down 

the road from Loc Ninh to Bien Hoa in only a few hours on the evening of 

31 January. Likewise, two battalions from the 165th Regiment and a local 

force company failed to capture Ben Cat, a district capital some thirty-eight 

kilometers north of Saigon, because the South Vietnamese 2d Battalion, 

8th Infantry, the 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry, and Company C from the 1st 

Battalion, 18th Infantry, were able to brush aside several ambushes on 

Highway 13 and come to the rescue of the besieged town.50

COSVN sent another main force unit, the Dong Nai Regiment, to attack 

regional capitals in southern Binh Duong and northeastern Bien Hoa 

Provinces. On the morning of 1 February, two battalions from the Dong Nai 

Regiment and part of the Phu Loi I Battalion attacked Phu Cuong, the capital 

of Binh Duong Province, which lay some twenty kilometers north of Saigon 

via Highway 13. Their attack on the headquarters of the South Vietnamese 

48 Rpt, Hughes, 20 Mar 68, p. 32; Rpt, 1st Inf Div Arty, 11 Feb 68, sub: Attack on Phu Loi 

Base Camp, 31 January to 7 February 1968, pp. 1–5, VNIT 159, CMH. 49 Tuan, Saigon-Gia Dinh Offensive Sector, 1968, p. 34; AAR, Tet Offensive, II FFV, p.16; 

AAR, Task Force Ware, II FFV, p. 3; AAR, Tet Offensive, II FFV, p. 20, and an. A-5. 50 AAR, Tet Offensive, II FFV, p. 15; 7th Division, pp. 54–55.
355

Saigon Embattled

5th Infantry Division failed outright, but enemy troops managed to fight their 

way into a nearby training facility for South Vietnamese engineers. At that 

critical moment, a group of U.S. soldiers from the 41st Engineer Company 

who formed an advisory detachment at Phu Cuong rushed forward to meet 

the attackers, checking their advance long enough for the South Vietnamese 

defenders to reorganize themselves. The allied engineers held on for another 

five hours until an infantry battalion from the South Vietnamese 5th Division 

came to their aid. The enemy battalions withdrew from the city at dusk, leaving behind 123 bodies.51

Two days later, on 4 February, the two uncommitted battalions from 

the Dong Nai Regiment attacked Tan Uyen, a district capital on the upper 

bank of the Dong Nai River some eight kilometers north of the Bien Hoa Air 

Base. The enemy destroyed the town’s power plant before being chased off 

by units from the South Vietnamese 48th Infantry Regiment, 18th Division, 

headquartered in Tan Uyen.52

The Viet Cong offensive in Phuoc Tuy Province got under way on the 

morning of 1 February when the D445 Local Force Battalion and the C610 

Local Force Company attacked the capital city of Ba Ria. Two companies 

from the South Vietnamese 3d Battalion, 52d Infantry, and some Regional 

Forces soldiers fought a desperate holding action until the South Vietnamese 

11th Airborne Battalion arrived from the nearby Van Kiep National Training 

Center later that morning. The allied counterattack gained momentum with 

the arrival of two mechanized platoons from the 1st Australian Task Force, 

based at Nui Dat ten kilometers to the northeast, plus two units from the 

South Vietnamese 18th Division, the South Vietnamese 3d Battalion, 42d 

Infantry, and the South Vietnamese 52d Ranger Battalion, based to the north 

at Xuan Loc. The D445 Battalion and the C610 Company withdrew that evening, leaving an estimated 300 dead behind.53

The next day, 2 February, the D440 Local Force Battalion and elements 

of the 84th Rear Service Group attacked Xuan Loc itself, targeting the provincial headquarters compound and the base camp of the South Vietnamese 

18th Infantry Division. Facing two battalions from the South Vietnamese 

43d Regiment, the South Vietnamese 3d Squadron, 5th Armored Cavalry 

Regiment, U.S. artillery batteries from the 52d Artillery Group, and several 

Regional Forces companies, the Viet Cong made no headway. Retreating 

before dawn, the enemy returned for a second strike early the next morning, 

this time penetrating as far as the central market before being driven out of 

Xuan Loc with considerable losses.54

51 Rpt, 159th Engineer Group, n.d., sub: Recommendation for Valorous Unit Award, 159th 

Engineer Group, Valorous Unit Awards, Adjutant General sec., RG 472, NACP. 52 Ibid., p. 22.

53 John Rowe, Vietnam: The Australian Experience (North Sydney, Australia: Time-Life 

Books, 1987), p. 95; AAR, Tet Offensive, II FFV, p. 18; Maj R. F. Stuart, 3 RAR in South 

Vietnam 1967–1968 (Sydney, Australia: Printcraft Press, 1968), p. 16. 54 AAR, Def of Xuan Loc, 45th Mil Hist Det, 15 Feb 68, pp. 2–4, VNIT 8, CMH; ORLL, 1 

Feb–30 Apr 68, 54th Arty Gp, 1 May 68, pp. 9–10, box 101, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd Historian, 

HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP.
Staying the Course

356

Assessing the Cost

As the Communist offensive in III Corps lost steam at the end of its first 

week, General Westmoreland began to assess its consequences. There was 

little doubt that the enemy had taken a beating. Allied intelligence believed 

that around 7,900 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese had been killed in action 

in III Corps between 29 January and 5 February. During that same period, 

A display of captured Communist weapons
357

Saigon Embattled

another 500 or so Communists had surrendered or defected to the allies. The 

5th and the 9th Divisions were temporarily combat ineffective, as were eight 

local force battalions in the Saigon region. Another eight to ten local force 

battalions in eastern and northern III Corps were less badly hurt, but still 

not likely to engage in offensive action for some time. The South Vietnamese 

armed forces had fought well, as had many police units. Allied losses—

around 400 U.S. troops and almost 600 South Vietnamese personnel—were 

a fraction of those sustained by the enemy. From a military point of view, the 

allies had won a great victory.55

Even so, Westmoreland knew that the political costs had been high. In a 

cable to General Wheeler, the MACV commander acknowledged that “the 

enemy has dealt the GVN [Government of South Vietnam] a severe blow.” 

The fighting had destroyed around 11,000 structures and displaced around 

100,000 people in metropolitan Saigon. Though the enemy had failed to cripple the South Vietnamese government, his thrust into the capital had spread 

fear and uncertainty among Saigon’s residents. Previously insulated from the 

war, many civilians in the capital openly doubted the ability of the government to protect them. Rumors of new attacks multiplied each day. Territorial 

security forces had withdrawn from key Revolutionary Development areas 

too, throwing pacification programs into chaos. Thus even in failure, COSVN

had delivered a stunning psychological blow that threatened to sabotage 

allied plans for 1968.56

55 Rpt, Hughes, 20 Mar 68, p. 36.

56 Quote from Msg, Westmoreland MAC 01614 to Wheeler, 4 Feb 68, Westmoreland Msg 

files, CMH. Rpt, Hughes, 20 Mar 68, p. 39; Son, ed., Viet Cong “Tet” Offensive (1968), pp. 

34–35; ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, II FFV, 20 May 68, p. 10, box 18, ORLLS, 1966–1971, Cmd 

Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 8-68, I FFV, 18–24 Feb 68, 24 

Feb 68, pp. 1–6; and Periodic Intel Rpt no. 9-68, I FFV, 25 Feb–2 Mar 68, 2 Mar 68, p. 7. Both 

in Asst Ch of Staff, J–2, MACV, RG 472, NACP.

11

Mekong Firestorm

The allied forces in the Mekong Delta were among the least prepared for 

the Viet Cong offensive that engulfed the country during Tet. None of 

the intelligence that the IV Corps commander, General Manh, and his senior 

adviser, Maj. Gen. George S. Eckhardt, had seen in recent weeks indicated that 

their sector was in danger. North Vietnamese soldiers, far from their families, 

might violate the Tet truce, but it was hard to imagine the locally recruited 

Viet Cong soldiers abandoning their families during the holiday. As a result, 

U.S. units remained at normal readiness, but the South Vietnamese corps commander, General Manh, approved leave for more than two-thirds of the South 

Vietnamese military personnel in IV Corps. 

The 1,700 advisers who reported to General Eckhardt expected to get 

a short respite from their duties during the holiday, as did the several thousand aviation, engineer, and logistical support troops that operated from airfields near Soc Trang, Vinh Long, and Can Tho. Not so the 2d Brigade of 

the 9th Infantry Division, which had just started a new phase of Operation 

Coronado X to interdict enemy logistical activity in Base Area 470 during 

the holiday period. On Saturday the twenty-eighth, the brigade commander, 

Colonel David, and most of his troops—Lt. Col. Ivan C. Bland’s 3d Battalion, 

47th Infantry; Lt. Col. John G. Hill’s 3d Battalion, 60th Infantry; a company 

from the 4th Battalion, 47th Infantry, and several 105-mm. howitzer batteries—traveled up the Ton Duc Loc Canal to establish a line of firebases, spread 

ten kilometers apart, north-south through the center of Base Area 470. The 

screen thus formed would discourage the enemy from moving supplies during 

the 36-hour cease-fire across and along the Ton Duc Loc Canal, a major 

north-south artery in Base Area 470.1

When the Saigon government and the U.S. Mission canceled the cease-fire 

on Monday morning, 30 January, Vietnamese commanders attempted to recall 

their soldiers on leave. The news spread quickly, but many soldiers had traveled to other districts and provinces for the holiday. Most were still awaiting 

transportation when the offensive began later that night. 

When Colonel David learned about the enemy attacks that hit the northern part of the country, he ordered his battalions on the Mang Thit Canal 

to search the eastern part of Base Area 470 to look for Viet Cong units 

that might be heading for My Tho or one of the nearby district towns. His 

1

 Rpt, Cdr, U.S. Naval Forces, Vietnam, 9 Feb 68, sub: U.S. Naval Forces, Vietnam Monthly 

Historical Summary, January 1968, p. 23, Historians files, CMH; MACV History, 1967, vol. 1, 

p. 236; AAR, Opn Coronado X, 2d Bde, 9th Inf Div, 27 Apr 68, pp. 3–4, box 2, AARs, Asst Ch 

of Staff, J–2, MACV, RG 472, NACP. 
Staying the Course

360

patrols on 30 January located a few supply caches but no enemy soldiers. 

Colonel David was not reassured. He ordered his battalion commanders to 

be ready to join the Mobile Riverine Force on short notice if the 2d Brigade 

was needed elsewhere.2

The Delta in Flames

At 0300 on 31 January, the Viet Cong offensive hit eleven of the sixteen 

provinces in IV Corps. General Eckhardt was at his headquarters, an airfield 

complex two kilometers north of Can Tho, when the strikes began. The senior 

adviser thought about taking a jeep into town so he could work with General 

Manh at his IV Corps headquarters, but abandoned his idea when he learned 

that Can Tho airfield was under attack. Confined to his headquarters, General 

Eckhardt and his staff stayed glued to their radios for the next several hours as 

they assessed developments in the Mekong Delta.

The picture that emerged was bleak. From what Eckhardt could determine, upwards of thirty Viet Cong infantry battalions had invaded ten of the 

sixteen provincial capitals in IV Corps. In the countryside, many Regional and 

Popular Forces units had abandoned their outposts, sometimes under pressure 

2

 AAR, Opn Coronado X, 2d Bde, 9th Inf Div, p. 7.

South Vietnamese soldiers battle Viet Cong insurgents in the Mekong Delta.
361

Mekong Firestorm

and sometimes not, to seek the safety of the nearest district town. Guerrillas 

had closed numerous roads and canals. Sappers had destroyed several bridges 

in Dinh Tuong Province, temporarily severing Highway 4 between Saigon and 

the delta. 

The performance of the South Vietnamese regular forces was somewhat 

more reassuring. Most of the units appeared to be fighting well despite missing 

up to two-thirds of their manpower. There were no reports of mass desertions 

or defections, and only a couple of government facilities had fallen into enemy 

hands. The report on senior leadership was mixed. Several province chiefs had 

folded under the pressure, and General Manh seemed too preoccupied with 

the security of his own headquarters to perform his duties, but the commanders of the South Vietnamese 7th, 9th, and 21st Divisions were handling the 

crisis well. Moreover, hundreds of South Vietnamese soldiers were returning 

to duty with each passing hour, and units based in the provinces least affected 

by the fighting were now making their way to the areas of IV Corps that were 

most in need (Map 30).3

The most threatened part of IV Corps appeared to be its northeastern 

corner. In Dinh Tuong Province, 1,500 Viet Cong soldiers controlled the western half of the provincial capital, My Tho, and a second force was pressing 

in from the east. President Thieu was still at his family home in the middle 

of town, and presently unable to leave the city. A sapper team had broken 

into the home of General Thanh, the commander of the South Vietnamese 

7th Infantry Division, who had wisely spent the night at his headquarters. 

The general was now trying to recall several infantry battalions from nearby 

Revolutionary Development areas to mount a counterattack.4

Twelve kilometers to the south, an enemy force of nearly 2,000 soldiers 

had overrun Ben Tre, the capital of Kien Hoa Province, and controlled a string 

of fishing villages on the opposite bank of the Ben Tre River. Only the provincial headquarters, the MACV advisory compound, the main police station, 

and a South Vietnamese Army logistics compound remained in allied hands. 

Two battalions from the South Vietnamese 10th Regiment were trying to fight 

their way into town, but the regimental commander, Lt. Col. Nguyen Tuong 

Dien, had been killed leading an attack. The only good news was the fortuitous appearance of four U.S. Navy patrol boats. Joining up with five South 

Vietnamese armed junks, the flotilla had prevented enemy troops on the south 

side of the river from crossing over to the city via a narrow steel bridge.5

The situation in the central delta was not much better. In Phong Dinh 

Province, the Tay Do Battalion and the 307th Local Force Battalion had 

occupied the southern and western suburbs of Can Tho, temporarily seizing 

3

 Rpt, CIA to White House Situation Room, 1 Feb 68, sub: Situation Report IV Corps as of 

1300 Hrs, 1 February 1968, Historians files, CMH. 4

 Rpt, Advisory Team 96, n.d., sub: Historical summary of Viet Cong Tet Offensive, pp. 

13–15, box 34, AARs, 19651971, Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 5

 Ibid., pp. 1, 5, 8; Son, ed., Viet Cong “Tet” Offensive (1968), p. 433; Rpt, MACV, n.d., sub: 

Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces RVNAF, p. 4, document 77, 31 Mar Speech, vol. 2, tabs 

A–Z, box 47, NSF-National Security Council History, LBJL; Cdr Wynn A. Goldsmith, U.S. 

Naval Reserve, “River Rats to the Rescue at Ben Tre,” Vietnam (February 1998): 26–32.
Staying the Course

362

the university. Downtown, a platoon of sappers had tried to fight their way 

into the South Vietnamese IV Corps headquarters. General Manh’s security detail had repulsed the commandos, trapping them in a hotel across 

the street. Even though the danger to his headquarters had passed, Manh 

continued to worry about the safety of his compound, and was neglecting 

his duties as corps commander.6

6

 Rpt, Advisory Team 96, n.d., pp. 13–15; Quan Khu 9: Nam Khang Chien (1945–1975)

[Military Region 9: Thirty Years of Resistance (1945–1975)] (Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing 

House, 1996), p. 416; Son, ed., Viet Cong “Tet” Offensive (1968), p. 428.

Map 30

2 9

X

ARVN

7

X X

ARVN

9

X X

ARVN

21

X X

XXX

IV

ARVN

CA MAU

BAC LIEU

SOC TRANG

TRA VINH

CAN THO RACH GIA

CHAU DOC

CAO LANH

SA DEC

VINH LONG

DONG TAM

MOC HOA

MY THO GO CONG

III CTZ

Song Hau Giang (Mekong)

Song Co Chien (Mekong)

Song My Tho (Mekong)

SOUTH CHINA SEA

GULF

O F

THAILAND

Song Vam Co Dong 

Song Vam Co Tay

4

4

4

4

4

1

SAIGON

BAC LIEU

CHUONG THIEN

KIEN GIANG

AN GIANG SA DEC 

KIEN

PHONG 

DINH

TUONG

HAU NGHIA

LONG AN

KIEN

HOA

GO CONG

GIA DINH CHAU

DOC

BA XUYEN

VINH BINH

VINH

 LONG

PHONG

DINH

KIEN TUONG

BIEN

HOA

AN XUYEN

CAMBODIA

31 January 1968

IV CORPS TACTICAL ZONE

TET OFFENSIVE

Enemy Attack 

Corps Tactical Zone Boundary

Military Installation

0 50 Miles

0 50 Kilometers
363

Mekong Firestorm

Two kilometers to the north, the 303d Local Force Battalion continued to 

besiege the U.S. airfield that contained Eckhardt’s headquarters, along with 

several fixed-wing and helicopter companies from the 307th Combat Aviation 

Battalion, Company D from the 5th Special Forces Group, and the headquarters of the 69th Engineer Battalion. Earlier that morning, forty sappers had 

penetrated the northwestern perimeter of the airfield during a mortar barrage 

meant to cover their approach. Before the sappers had time to spread out, an 

eleven-man reaction force from the 69th Engineer Battalion caught sight of 

them. Engaging them with M16s most had not used since basic training, the 

engineers held the enemy in place long enough for additional security teams to 

arrive. Five of the engineers lost their lives. Security personnel from the 244th 

Surveillance Airplane Company thwarted a second sapper attack, killing a 

Viet Cong team that tried to breach the southern perimeter of the airfield. 

When the 307th Local Force Battalion melted back into the countryside just 

before dawn, it left behind sixty-seven dead and thirty wounded.7

 

7

 Rpt, 45th Mil Hist Det, n.d., sub: The Tet Offensive in IV ARVN Corps, pp. 1–2, Encl 1 

to Rpt, Location of Maneuver Battalions, IV ARVN Corps, 30 Jan 68, Historians files, CMH; 

Rpt, 69th Engr Bn (Construction), 4 Mar 68, sub: Valorous Unit Award Recommendation, pp. 

1–2, box 3, Rcds of U.S. Forces, Mil Personnel Div, RG 472, NACP; Rpt, 1st Avn Bde, n.d., 

sub: Participation in the Initial Phase of the Tet Offensive, 29 January–8 February 1968, p. 350, 

box 3, Rcds of U.S. Forces, Mil Personnel Div, RG 472, NACP; ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, 164th 

South Vietnamese IV Corps headquarters in Can Tho
Staying the Course

364

By the time the situation in Can Tho appeared to be under control, the same 

could not be said for Vinh Long, the capital of Vinh Long Province. Located 

twenty kilometers east of Can Tho on the south bank of the Mekong River, 

the city was under attack from two Viet Cong battalions and a host of local 

force companies. Although a mechanized troop from the South Vietnamese 2d 

Cavalry Squadron and the South Vietnamese 43d Ranger Battalion had wiped 

out a Viet Cong sapper team that had tried to seize the city jail, they failed to 

prevent the 306th Local Force Battalion and several district companies from 

occupying the southern part of the city. A second enemy battalion, the 308th 

Local Force Battalion, had tried to cross the river from its north bank, but 

South Vietnamese patrol boats had sunk or turned away most of the enemyfilled sampans.8

An enemy mortar and ground assault also hit the U.S. airfield two kilometers to the west, which housed three helicopters companies, an observation aircraft company, and a variety of transportation and logistical units. A 

sapper team penetrated the southwestern perimeter of the airfield and scattered among the revetments that housed twelve O–1 Bird Dog observation 

aircraft. The airfield commander, Lt. Col. Bernard Davis Thompson Jr., was 

killed by enemy fire as he led an ad hoc security team composed of technicians, 

air crewmen, and clerks in a counterattack to expel the commandos. All of the 

Viet Cong soldiers were killed or driven off before they could detonate their 

satchel charges.9

The situation was more encouraging in Sa Dec City, the capital of Sa Dec 

Province, located on the west bank of the Mekong River some twenty-five 

kilometers north of Can Tho. The only enemy unit to enter the city, a small 

sapper team, had tried to break into the private residence of General Thi, the 

commander of the South Vietnamese 9th Division, but his security guards had 

repelled the assault. When General Thi arrived at his house, a light machine 

gun in hand, all of the Viet Cong were either dead or captured, most of them 

barely trained soldiers around sixteen years old. General Eckhardt later learned 

that a flight of AH–1G Cobra gunships from Vinh Long had destroyed the 

main attacking force before it reached the city, sinking the sampans that were 

carrying them while they were still south of the capital.10

The defenders fared less well in Tra Vinh, the capital of Vinh Binh Province 

and home of the South Vietnamese 14th Infantry Regiment. Two Viet Cong 

Combat Avn Gp, 14 May 68, pp. 2–3, Encl 4 to ORLL, 307th Combat Avn (Phantom) Bn, 17 

Apr 68, Historians files, CMH. 8

 Son, ed., Viet Cong “Tet” Offensive (1968), p. 435; Rpt, CORDS, IV CTZ, Vinh Long 

Province, period ending 29 Feb 68, 29 Feb 68, pp. 3, 5, Historians files, CMH; Quan Khu 8: 

Ba Muoi Nam Khang Chien (1945–1975) [Military Region 8: Thirty Years of Resistance War 

(1945–1975)] (Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1998), p. 428. 9

 Adrian G. Traas, Engineers at War, United States Army in Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: 

U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2010), p. 343; Rpt, 1st Avn Bde, n.d., pp. 353–55; ORLL, 

1 Feb–30 Apr 68, 164th Combat Avn Gp, p. 2, Encl 4. 10 Lam Quang Thi, The Twenty-Five Year Century (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 

2003), p. 204; ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, 164th Combat Avn Gp, p. 14, Encl to ORLL, 13th 

Combat Avn (Guardian) Bn, 19 Apr 68, Historians files, CMH.
365

Mekong Firestorm

battalions, the 501st and the 509th, and several local force companies overran nearly half of the town and seized the province headquarters building. 

A South Vietnamese cavalry troop came to Tra Vinh’s rescue around dawn, 

forcing the enemy to retreat to a pagoda at the northern end of town. More 

South Vietnamese reinforcements were headed for the city; the province chief 

expected it to be free of enemy soldiers within a day or two.11

In the northwestern part of the delta, the hardest hit town appeared to be 

Chau Doc City, the capital of Chau Doc Province, which was located on the 

Bassac River just south of the Cambodian border. Three local force battalions, the 510th, 511th, and 512th, and four local force companies overran the 

city so quickly that many U.S. civilians who worked there had been trapped in 

their private residences, unable to reach the comparative safety of the province 

headquarters, the MACV advisory compound, or the South Vietnamese Navy 

patrol boat base. 

Thirty minutes later, four U.S. Navy river patrol boats pulled up to the boat 

dock and landed a team of U.S. Special Forces soldiers and South Vietnamese 

irregulars. The team that had just fought its way out of an ambush near the 

border headed into town, while the U.S. boats peppered enemy positions along 

11 Bfg folder, Vinh Binh Province, Jan 1968, p. 9, Historians files, CMH; Military Region 9, 

p. 433; Rpt, Advisory Team 52, 17 May 68, sub: Distinguished Unit Citation, pp. 2–3, box 7, 

Unclassified Unit Awards Case files, Personal Services Support Directorate, RG 472, NACP.

An aerial view of the Vinh Long airfield
Staying the Course

366

the river with their machine guns. Led by 

S. Sgt. Drew D. Dix, a U.S. Army Special 

Forces soldier, the small team fought its 

way through the town and rescued twelve 

U.S. civilians, killing or capturing nearly 

fifty enemy soldiers in the process. Sergeant 

Dix later received the Medal of Honor for 

his feat. The enemy was now contained, 

and the South Vietnamese 15th Regiment 

was due to arrive in a few hours.12

In Kien Giang Province, the U Minh 

10 Battalion and a local sapper company 

had entered the province capital, Rach Gia 

City, overrunning nearly half of the town 

until checked by a South Vietnamese mechanized unit sent from Vi Thanh, the capital 

city of Chuong Thien Province, some forty 

kilometers to the east, which had not been 

attacked that morning. Joining up with 

the town’s Regional Forces defenders, the 

mechanized unit had pushed the Viet Cong troops out of the city, and U.S. 

helicopter gunships had gone in pursuit of the enemy as he withdrew on foot 

and by sampan through the surrounding mangrove forests.13

In the lower delta, Viet Cong units had attacked three provincial capitals. 

A pair of enemy battalions had invaded the capital of Bac Lieu Province, Bac 

Lieu City, which contained the headquarters of the South Vietnamese 25th 

Infantry Division. None of the government buildings in town had fallen to the 

enemy, and the division commander, General Minh, was now leading a vigorous counterattack that was likely to clear the city by nightfall.14

Things were more uncertain in neighboring Ba Xuyen Province, where a 

pair of Viet Cong battalions had invaded its capital, Soc Trang. The province 

chief, Lt. Col. Huynh Thao Luc, had become unnerved, abdicating his duties 

to junior staffers who were trying to rally the town’s defenders. Fortunately, 

several U.S. Army helicopter gunships were assisting the South Vietnamese 

12 Rpt, Advisory Team 52, 17 May 68, p. 2; Intel Cable, CIA, 4 Feb 68, sub: Security Situation 

in Chau Doc City, Chau Doc Province, as of 2400 Hours on 3 February 1968, p. 1, document 41, 

Vietnam-CIA Cables February (1 of 4), box 240 (1 of 2), NSF-Vietnam Country Files, LBJL; 

MFR, Advisory Team 64, 27 Jan 70, sub: Tet 1968 Chau Doc, pp. 1–4, Historians files, CMH; 

Department of the Army, GO 10, 6 Feb 69, sub: Award of the Medal of Honor, Historians 

files, CMH; MFR, MACCORDS, 17 Feb 68, sub: Narrative Assessment, Post-TET Pacification 

Status, IV CTZ, Historians files, CMH. 13 Intel Cable, CIA, 4 Feb 68, sub: Security Situation in Rach Gia City, Kien Province, as of 

2400 Hours on 3 February 1968, p. 2, document 50, box 240, Vietnam Country Files, Vietnam 

Center and Archive, TTU. 14 Bfg folder, Bac Lieu Province, Jan 68, p. 6, Historians files, CMH; Military Region 9, pp. 

436–37.

Sergeant Dix
367

Mekong Firestorm

from the airfield on the south side of town, and a South Vietnamese ranger 

battalion was on its way from Bac Lieu.15 

The most encouraging news to reach General Eckhardt came from Ca 

Mau, the capital of An Xuyen Province, located near the terminus of Highway 

4, some forty kilometers west of Bac Lieu. Due to the foresight of the province 

chief, Lt. Col. Ngo Xuan Nghi, who had not allowed his men to go on holiday 

leave, his Regional Forces units and the South Vietnamese infantry battalion 

stationed in the city were at full strength when the U Minh 2 and the U Minh 

3 Local Force Battalions attacked on the morning of 31 January. Colonel 

Nghi’s troops ambushed the attackers on the outskirts of town, spreading 

panic among the Viet Cong soldiers, many of whom were young boys pressed 

into service just days earlier. The two enemy battalions left behind several 

hundred of their dead and a mountain of equipment as they retreated. South 

Vietnamese casualties had been negligible and the provincial capital had suffered almost no damage. The inspired defense of Ca Mau proved to be one of 

the few bright spots in an otherwise dismal picture that first day.16 

The Mobile Riverine Force to the Rescue

When General Eckhardt conferred with General Weyand later that afternoon, they agreed that My Tho, Ben Tre, and Vinh Long City needed urgent 

assistance. The other regional capitals were doing better. Aided by South 

Vietnamese units from less-threatened parts of the delta, the defenders in Soc 

Trang, Bac Lieu, Tra Vinh, and Chau Doc City were driving the Viet Cong 

from their cities. The enemy had already retreated from Rach Gia City, Ca 

Mau, and Cao Lanh, and no fighting had been reported in five delta capitals: 

Go Cong City (Go Cong Province), Cao Lanh (Kien Phong Province), Vi 

Thanh (Chuong Thien Province), Moc Hoa (Kien Tuong Province), and Long 

Xuyen (An Giang Province).17

General Westmoreland directed his II Field Force commander to send 

whatever elements of the 9th Infantry Division in III Corps that he could 

spare to join Colonel David’s 2d Brigade and the Mobile Riverine Force 

without delay. Until the crisis passed, the MACV commander placed the augmented Mobile Riverine Force under General Eckhardt’s tactical command. 

The senior adviser was well qualified for the role. He had come to Vietnam 

in December 1966 as the commander of the 9th Infantry Division, and later 

served as the deputy commander of II Field Force. Furthermore, his authority 

15 ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, 164th Combat Avn Gp, p. 3, Encl 4; Rpt, Soc Trang Army 

Airfield, 16 Apr 68, sub: Documentation of Army Aviation Operations (29 Jan–29 Feb 68), p. 1, 

Historians files, CMH; Rpt, 45th Mil Hist Det, n.d., Encl 1. 16 Rpt, David T. Kenney et al., MACCORDS, 1 Mar 68, sub: Trip Report IV Corps Tactical 

Zone, pp. 1–5, Historians files, CMH; Rpt, 45th Mil Hist Det, n.d., pp. 1–3, Encl 6; Special Rpt, 

CMIC, US 04-004-68, 16 Apr 68, sub: U Minh 2 Bn, Subordinate to An Xuyen Province, p. 8, 

box 21, CMIC Interrogation Rpts, Asst Ch of Staff, J–2, MACV, RG 472, NACP. 17 Rpt, Advisory Team 96, n.d., pp. 13–15; Military Region 9, p. 416.
Staying the Course

368

as the senior adviser to IV Corps would ensure that U.S. and South Vietnamese 

forces worked together as efficiently as possible.

When Eckhardt gained control of the Mobile Riverine Force on the afternoon of 31 January, it was still deployed along the Ton Duc Loc Canal in western Dinh Tuong Province. He instructed the 2d Brigade commander, Colonel 

David, to reembark Colonel Hill’s 3d Battalion, 60th Infantry, so the Mobile 

Riverine Force could set sail the following morning. In the meantime, Eckhardt 

used helicopters to airlift Company B from Colonel Bland’s 3d Battalion, 47th 

Infantry, back to Dong Tam, so it could establish a blocking position east of 

the base before night fell. Another flight of helicopters moved Companies A 

and C of the 3d Battalion, 47th Infantry, to the Vinh Long airfield to protect 

the installation overnight.18

After spending a relatively uneventful night at the airfield, the two companies from Colonel Bland’s battalion flew back to the Mobile Riverine Force, 

which then steamed south down the Mang Thit Canal and out onto the Mekong 

River before anchoring at a spot just west of My Tho. At around 1500, U.S. 

helicopters picked up Company B of the 3d Battalion, 47th Infantry, and flew 

it to downtown My Tho, where it secured a piece of waterfront just south of 

the provincial headquarters. That accomplished, Colonel David began landing 

the three companies from the 3d Battalion, 60th Infantry, and two from the 3d 

Battalion, 47th Infantry, carried aboard the Mobile Riverine Force.19

Once ashore, the colonel and his battalion commanders received an update 

from the province chief. The central part of the city, bordered by the Cung 

Canal on the west and the Bao Dinh River to the east and north, was mostly 

under government control, but the western suburbs, a residential area sandwiched between the Cung Canal and the base camp of the South Vietnamese 

7th Division, remained in the hands of the 216A and 514th Local Force 

Battalions. The South Vietnamese 32d Ranger Battalion was still fighting at 

least two Viet Cong companies just north of the city, and at least one enemy 

battalion was dug into the eastern suburbs of My Tho. Two battalions from 

the South Vietnamese 7th Infantry Division were marching back to the city 

but would not arrive for another day. It would be up to the Americans to 

spearhead the counterattack.20

With several hours of daylight still remaining, Colonel David ordered 

his two battalion commanders to begin clearing the western suburbs. The 

Americans encountered strong resistance when they rounded the northern end 

of the canal and began driving south through the kilometer-long residential 

area held by the enemy. The six U.S. companies relied on traditional fire and 

maneuver tactics, employing their organic weapons instead of air and artillery 

strikes whenever possible to limit property damage and to reduce the chance 

of civilian casualties. When darkness brought a halt to the fighting, the 3d 

Battalion, 47th Infantry, and the 3d Battalion, 60th Infantry, were still a few 

18 AAR, Opn Coronado X, Mobile Riverine Force, 27 Apr 68, p. 7, box 7, Security-Classified 

Unit Award Case files, Personnel Services Support Directorate, MACV, RG 472, NACP. 19 Ibid., p. 8.

20 Fulton, Riverine Operations, 1966–1969, p. 150.
369

Mekong Firestorm

blocks shy of the river, having killed an estimated eighty-five enemy soldiers 

while sustaining two killed and thirty-eight wounded.21

That night, the Viet Cong troops who remained in My Tho abandoned the 

city. Colonel David’s battalions completed their sweep of the western suburb 

on the morning of 2 February and then reboarded the Mobile Riverine Force 

around noon. General Eckhardt decided to send the amphibious group back 

to western Dinh Tuong Province in hopes of trapping any Viet Cong forces 

who attempted to withdraw through Base Area 470. The Mobile Riverine 

Force deployed along the Mang Thit Canal later that afternoon, but operations over the next several days yielded few results. The enemy, it appeared, 

had not strayed very far from My Tho, an ominous sign that suggested the 

battle for the provincial capital was not yet over. 

When the Mobile Riverine Force had sailed for My Tho on the morning of 1 February, the commander of the U.S. 9th Infantry Division, General 

O’Connor, had sent a task force drawn from his 1st and 3d Brigades to relieve 

Ben Tre in neighboring Kien Hoa Province. The latest intelligence indicated 

that somewhere between 700 and 800 Viet Cong soldiers from the 516th 

Local Force Battalion and several local force companies controlled most of 

the city. Allied troops still clung to a few enclaves on the waterfront, principally the province headquarters and the MACV advisory compound. The 

21 AAR, Opn Coronado X, Mobile Riverine Force, p. 9.

MACV advisory compound west of My Tho
Staying the Course

370

South Vietnamese ranger battalion stationed on the northern edge of town 

was trying to fight its way into Ben Tre but had made little progress. Several 

hundred Viet Cong troops also controlled the south bank of the Ben Tre River, 

though U.S. and South Vietnamese Navy patrol boats had prevented any from 

crossing the narrow steel bridge that spanned the river.22

Although O’Connor’s 1st Brigade was heavily committed to the fighting 

around Long Binh and Bien Hoa and was still responsible for the defense of 

Bearcat and a long stretch of Highway 1 in eastern III Corps, the brigade 

commander, Colonel Williams, managed to cut loose his 2d Battalion, 39th 

Infantry, commanded by Lt. Col. Harold P. Mueller, for immediate deployment to Dong Tam. The brigade’s 4th Battalion, 49th Infantry, would continue to mop up the remnants of the 5th Division at Long Binh, while the 2d 

Battalion, 47th Infantry, and a portion of his 3d Squadron, 5th Cavalry, continued Operation Riley in Long Khanh Province and defended Camp Martin 

Cox in western Bien Hoa Province.23

At 3d Brigade headquarters in Tan An, Colonel Everett freed up part of 

his 3d Battalion, 39th Infantry, commanded by Lt. Col. Anthony P. DeLuca, 

22 Military Region 8, p. 629. 23 ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, 9th Inf Div, 30 Apr 68, Encl 12, p. 1, box 2, ORLLs, 1966–1971, 

Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 

Soldiers from the 2d Brigade, 9th Infantry Division, move ashore to engage the enemy.
371

Mekong Firestorm

and most of his 2d Battalion, 60th Infantry, commanded by Lt. Col. John 

B. Keeley, for immediate deployment to Ben Tre. Late on the afternoon of 1 

February, helicopters landed Company B, 3d Battalion, 39th Infantry, and 

Company B, 2d Battalion, 60th Infantry, into the small MACV compound on 

the west side of Ben Tre. With those reinforcements, the defenders at the compound and the adjacent province headquarters threw back the enemy assaults 

that materialized later that night. 

Early the next morning, helicopters delivered Colonel DeLuca and the 

remainder of his 3d Battalion, 39th Infantry, to the MACV compound. Other 

helicopters transported Colonel Mueller and his 2d Battalion, 39th Infantry, 

from Camp Martin Cox to landing zones just east of the city. Upon landing, 

Mueller’s battalion passed to the tactical control of Colonel DeLuca, through 

whom Colonel Everett and his 3d Brigade would supervise the clearing operation in Ben Tre.24

At 0900, the 3d Battalion, 39th Infantry, attacked east from the advisory compound toward the central marketplace, while the 2d Battalion, 39th 

Infantry, pushed west toward the city. Both units faced stiff resistance, ending 

the day more than a kilometer apart and with most of the marketplace still 

in enemy hands. The trap was closing, however, and when darkness set in the 

Viet Cong decided to withdraw into the countryside north of Ben Tre. More 

than 150 enemy dead littered the ruined city, in which only one out of every 

five buildings remained intact. Soldiers from the South Vietnamese 10th 

Regiment spent the next several days on a looting spree as they searched the 

city for Viet Cong stragglers. The pair of U.S. battalions swept the area outside Ben Tre with few results, and then returned to Dong Tam on 5 February 

to rest and reorganize.25

As for the third crisis spot in the upper delta, Vinh Long City, elements 

of three Viet Cong battalions continued to occupy large parts of the provincial capital. The situation improved somewhat on 2 February when the South 

Vietnamese 3d Battalion, 15th Infantry, arrived in the city, but the rate of 

allied progress remained slow. With public anger growing, the province chief 

requested help from the 2d Brigade, 9th Infantry Division. Colonel David 

ordered his two battalion commanders currently with the Mobile Riverine 

Force to redeploy their men to the area just south of Vinh Long City. Colonel 

David’s plan was to intercept the Viet Cong as they retreated from the city and 

then crush them in a pincer movement using his two battalions and the South 

Vietnamese units in Vinh Long.26

Late on the afternoon of 2 February, a flight of helicopters ferried Colonel 

Hill’s 3d Battalion, 60th Infantry, from its current position in western Dinh 

Tuong Province to landing zones approximately five kilometers south of Vinh 

Long City. Around that same time, Colonel Bland’s 3d Battalion, 47th Infantry, 

24 ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, 9th Inf Div, Encl 12, p. 10.

25 Rpt, 3d Bde, 9th Div, n.d., sub: Recommendation for Award of Presidential Unit Citation, 

pp. 1–4, Historians files, CMH; AAR, Opn Enterprise, 3d Bde, 9th Inf Div, n.d., pp. 53–54, 

Historians files, CMH. 26 Harvey Meyerson, Vinh Long (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970), pp. 144–45.
Staying the Course

372

minus one company that flew by helicopter to Can Tho airfield, motored past 

Vinh Long City in a fleet of landing craft, turned south down a canal, and 

then disembarked on the right flank of the 3d Battalion, 60th Infantry.27

As soon as the enemy caught sight of the helicopters and boats dropping 

troops in his rear, he decided that it was time to leave Vinh Long. The 306th, the 

308th, and the 587th Local Force Battalions withdrew from the city that night, 

losing eighty soldiers to Colonel David’s battalions as they passed through the 

U.S. cordon but preserving the bulk of their men to fight another day. The 

enemy withdrew a safe distance from the city, outside of the search radius of 

the U.S. battalions that remained in the area for two more days before returning to Dong Tam.28

When South Vietnamese units regained contact with the enemy southwest of Vinh Long on 6 February, Colonel David sent the 3d Battalion, 60th 

Infantry, out once again with the Mobile Riverine Force. While searching 

the tree-lined canals that snaked through the countryside, Colonel Hill’s battalion found scattered groups of enemy soldiers, killing sixty-three against 

their own loss of four killed and sixty-seven wounded. The 3d Battalion, 47th 

Infantry, joined the search operation on 7 February, but when no further contacts took place, the U.S. units returned to Dinh Tuong Province in search of 

richer hunting grounds.29

Firebase Jaeger

With all of the provincial capitals firmly back in allied hands by the seventh of February, General Weyand returned the Mobile Riverine Force to the 

control of the 9th Infantry Division and its 2d Brigade commander, Colonel 

David, thereby freeing General Eckhardt to concentrate on his duties as the 

senior adviser to IV Corps. The II Field Force commander instructed General 

O’Connor to move the remaining elements from the 1st Brigade at Camp 

Martin Cox to Dong Tam as soon as possible, giving the division commander 

a two-brigade force with which to mount a counteroffensive in the upper delta. 

Colonel Everett, meanwhile, resumed his security mission in Long An Province 

with the 3d Brigade.

The 9th Division’s most pressing assignments were to restore security 

along Highway 4 in Dinh Tuong Province and to prevent further attacks on 

My Tho. Receiving intelligence that several enemy battalions remained near 

the city, General O’Connor directed the 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry, currently 

based at Dong Tam, to sweep the hamlets orbiting My Tho. As the search 

began on 8 February, two companies from the 5th Battalion discovered the 

265th Battalion in the hamlet of Long My, just three kilometers northwest 

of the provincial capital. Bringing up an additional company, the mechanized troopers drove the enemy out of Long My, killing at least ninety-one 

27 Military Region 8, p. 430. 28 AAR, Opn Coronado X, 2d Bde, 9th Inf Div, pp. 9–10. 29 Ibid., pp. 11–12.
373

Mekong Firestorm

Viet Cong soldiers. The Americans sustained four killed and twenty-eight 

wounded. Even with the 265th Battalion removed from the picture, at least five 

others—the 261A and 261B Battalions, the 514th Battalion, plus the 263A and 

263B Battalions—remained unaccounted for.30

On 10 February, General O’Connor airlifted the headquarters of the 1st 

Brigade, 9th Division, and the entire 2d Battalion, 39th Infantry, from Camp 

Martin Cox to Dong Tam. In addition to that infantry battalion, the commander of the 1st Brigade, Colonel Williams, gained operational control over 

the 3d Brigade’s 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry; the 1st Battalion, 84th Artillery; 

and Company A, 15th Engineer Battalion, for a new mission called Operation 

Hop Tac I. Its goal was to secure and repair Highway 4 across the length of 

Dinh Tuong Province, a distance of some fifty-nine kilometers.31

In the week that followed, the 1st Brigade task force encountered only light 

resistance as it repaired and reopened damaged sections of Highway 4. On 13 

February, the Mobile Riverine Force headed south for an extended operation 

in the central delta, leaving Colonel Williams with the responsibility of handling any crisis that might emerge in his sector. Accordingly, the 1st Brigade 

commander made arrangements to send troops to Vinh Long City when three 

Viet Cong battalions invaded the provincial capital the next evening, but the 

South Vietnamese defenders turned out not to need American help. The enemy 

withdrew to the countryside two days later, leaving behind around 300 of their 

dead as well as more devastation in the provincial capital.32

The first serious challenge to Operation Hop Tac I came on the night of 

24–25 February at Firebase Jaeger, a 9th Division outpost that was approximately seven kilometers northeast of Dong Tam (see Map 31). The base was 

built on an acre of dry rice paddy just south of Highway 4. It had good allaround visibility, the nearest tree lines being approximately one kilometer to 

the north and to the west. Less to be desired, a series of shallow dikes crisscrossed the area, partly negating the effectiveness of the defensive wire that 

surrounded the base.

The firebase was built to protect the four 155-mm. howitzers of 

Battery B of the 1st Battalion, 84th Artillery. Defending the battery were 

Companies B and C of the 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry, equipped with 

twenty-five armored personnel carriers. Also present was a thirty-man 

road-building team from Company B, 15th Engineer Battalion, and a 

platoon from Company A, 2d Battalion, 39th Infantry, which stood by in 

reserve. Half of the armored personnel carriers were arrayed around the 

edge of the perimeter at 25-meter intervals, while the other half were concentrated near the center of the firebase. None had protective earthworks 

around them because the soil was exceptionally hard at this time of year 

and only a bulldozer could have torn up enough earth to do the job. The 

30 AAR, Opn Coronado X, 2d Bde, 9th Inf Div, p. 14. 31 AAR, Opn Hop Tac I, 1st Bde, 9th Div, 30 Apr 68, pp. 1–2, box 42, AARs, 1965–1971, 

Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 32 Son, ed., Viet Cong “Tet” Offensive (1968), p. 437.
Staying the Course

374

soldiers were barely able to fill enough sandbags to build several command 

bunkers and to construct a low barrier for the howitzers.33

It was well after midnight on 25 February when 300 to 400 Viet Cong 

soldiers from the 263d Main Force Battalion and the 313th Sapper Engineer 

Company quietly approached the firebase from the south, east, and west. Many 

wore straw attached to their backs to resemble cut rice stalks. Some crept along 

the bottom of the partly filled canals to avoid detection. As the enemy closed 

the last 200 meters, a listening post on the southeast side of Jaeger spotted a 

group of enemy soldiers through a Starlight scope and raised the alarm. The 

time was 0145.

Capt. Daniel R. Schueren from Company B of the 5th Battalion, 60th 

Infantry, dispatched four armored personnel carriers to investigate the contact. The vehicles had only just exited the northern gate and made a righthand turn when a volley of rocket-propelled grenades came shrieking out of 

the darkness. The lead vehicle burst into flames after being hit. Seconds later, 

another salvo of rocket grenades whooshed toward the carriers that ringed the 

west side of the base. Before long six M113 armored personnel carriers were 

burning furiously. Captain Schueren was dead, killed by enemy fire when he 

left his command bunker to rally his men.34

Meanwhile, Viet Cong sappers were busy tearing holes in the defensive 

wire with satchel charges. Enemy radio technicians also jammed the frequency 

used by the headquarters of 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry. The battalion staff 

changed to the Company B frequency in order to coordinate air and artillery 

strikes, call in a flare ship, and arrange for helicopter support. Colonel Williams 

also called on the defenders at Firebase Hessian, three kilometers to the east, 

and Firebase Fels, three kilometers to the west, to send reinforcements.35

The situation at Jaeger became critical at 0245 when a squad of Viet Cong 

soldiers penetrated the sector held by the artillery battery. Two of the four 

howitzers fell into enemy hands. Worried that the sappers might try to use the 

captured weapons, the acting commander of Company C, 1st Lt. Lee Alley, 

decided to call for artillery support from Hessian and Fels. He requested that 

the shells be set to detonate in the air above the firebase. Word went around to 

the defenders to seek cover as Lieutenant Wade radioed in the fire mission. A 

minute or two later, dozens of artillery shells began to explode over the base. 

The deadly thunderstorm cut down some of the advancing enemy soldiers and 

sent the rest scurrying for cover, momentarily checking the Viet Cong assault.36

At that critical juncture, around 0300, five armored personnel carriers 

from the reconnaissance platoon of the 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry, rumbled into sight on the eastern branch of Highway 4. A total of seven vehicles 

had left Firebase Hessian, but an enemy ambush claimed two of them en 

33 AAR, FS/PB Jaeger, 25 Feb 68, 5th Bn, 60th Inf, 3 Mar 68, p. 3, box 15, AARs, 19651971, 

Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 34 Ibid.; Keith W. Nolan, House to House: Playing the Enemy’s Game in Saigon, May 1968

(St. Paul, Minn.: Zenith [MBI Publishing], 2006), p. 25. 35 AAR, FS/PB Jaeger, 25 Feb 68, 5th Bn, 60th Inf, p. 3. 36 Nolan, House to House, p. 26.
Map 31

263(-)

PLAF

I I

263(-)

PLAF

I I

263(-)

PLAF

I I

1-84 B

I

5–60 C

I

60(-) 5

I I 5–60 B

I

Approximately

150 meters

150 meters from Berm

Approximately

150 meters

IB C

4

Listening Post with STARLIGHT Anti-Intrusion Device

STARLIGHT

Listening Post with STARLIGHT

STARLIGHT

STARLIGHT

STARLIGHT

STARLIGHT

STARLIGHT

Firebase Perimeter 

25 February 1968

SKETCH NOT TO SCALE

BAT TLE OF FIREBASE JAEGER

Bermed 155-mm. Towed Howitzer MortarM113 Armored Personnel CarrierDestroyed M113 Armored Personnel Carrier
Staying the Course

376

route. The remaining five vehicles tore through attacking Viet Cong and 

then entered Jaeger. Lieutenant Wade stopped the artillery barrage so 

the entire garrison could emerge from cover and resume their positions. 

The infantry lashed the enemy with small arms and machine-gun fire as 

the reconnaissance platoon and several other armored personnel carriers 

began a slow clockwise sweep of the perimeter. By 0315, the Americans had 

killed or chased off the last of the intruders.37

Fifteen minutes later, a group of armored personnel carriers carrying 

Company A, 2d Battalion, 39th Infantry, arrived from Firebase Fels and 

immediately headed south after the retreating enemy. Company C from the 

2d Battalion, 39th Infantry, arrived on foot from Firebase Fels some fortyfive minutes later and secured the outer perimeter. By 0515 all of the shooting 

had stopped.38

The battle had been one of most costly engagements in the recent history of the 9th Division. Twenty-two Americans had been killed and seventyone wounded. Nine armored personnel carriers had been destroyed and two 

howitzers had been damaged. The enemy had lost some one hundred killed. 

If there was a silver lining for the 9th Division, enemy resistance in central 

37 AAR, Opn Hop Tac I, 1st Bde, 9th Div, p. 6. 38 Ibid., p. 21.

An M113 from the 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry, 9th Infantry 

Division, travels Highway 4 in the Mekong Delta.
377

Mekong Firestorm

Dinh Tuong Province dropped off noticeably after the battle for Jaeger. Viet 

Cong interdiction of Highway 4 became increasingly rare as U.S. units honed 

their ability to operate at night, usually in squad- and platoon-size patrols that 

would wait in ambush for enemy mine layers to carry out their business. When 

Operation Hop Tac I ended on 10 March, the number of enemy craters that 

appeared on Highway 4 each night had dropped from a high of eighty-nine to 

almost none.39

Coronado XI

While Colonel Williams’ 1st Brigade restored security along Highway 

4 in Dinh Tuong Province, Colonel David’s 2d Brigade headed deeper into 

the delta than it had ever operated before. The mission came about when 

the South Vietnamese corps commander, General Manh, asked the Mobile 

Riverine Force for assistance in driving off four enemy units, the 303d, 307th, 

309th, and the Tay Do Battalions, which still clung to the outskirts of Can Tho 

City. Commencing Operation Coronado XI on 13 February, Colonel David 

and the Mobile Riverine Force headed out of Dong Tam and set a course for 

Phong Dinh Province.

Landing at several beaches south of Can Tho City the next day, the 3d 

Battalion, 47th Infantry, and the 3d Battalion, 60th Infantry, began a clockwise sweep around the provincial capital. Resistance was minimal. Over the 

next nine days, the Americans killed a total of eighty-two Viet Cong soldiers 

and found a number of supply dumps. U.S. losses came to fourteen killed and 

seventy-three wounded in the clearing operation.

On 20 February, Military Region 3 sent the 312th Local Force Battalion, 

two provisional battalions, and an element of the 306th Battalion to attack Sa 

Dec City. Troops from the South Vietnamese 15th Regiment held the enemy at 

bay, while General Thi arranged for the South Vietnamese 1st Battalion, 16th 

Infantry, and the South Vietnamese 3d Troop, 2d Armored Cavalry Squadron, 

to mount a relief operation from Vinh Long City. When those troops reached 

Sa Dec City that afternoon, the enemy retreated into the countryside.40

Whatever the motive, the enemy attack had no effect on the 2d Brigade, 

which continued its sweep around Can Tho City. Two days later, Colonel David 

received intelligence that placed the Military Region 3 headquarters in Phung 

Hiep District at the southern end of Phong Dinh Province. Hoping to catch 

the enemy unawares, the 2d Brigade commander decided to head south with 

the Mobile Riverine Force by way of the canal system, using engineer jacks to 

elevate bridges so the boats could reach otherwise inaccessible areas. 

Arriving at Phung Hiep on the twenty-third, Companies B and C of the 

3d Battalion, 47th Infantry, made contact with security elements from the 

Military Region 3 headquarters. Assisted by gunships, air strikes, and naval 

vessels, the 2d Brigade killed sixty-six of the enemy that day while suffering 

39 Ibid., p. 34.

40 Ibid., p. 207; Military Region 9, pp. 431–33.
Staying the Course

378

only three wounded. Most of the Military Region 3 command group escaped, 

but from that time on the enemy headquarters spent more of its time concealed in rear base areas than in the field directing operations.41

The Mobile Riverine Force returned to Can Tho on 25 February after 

a mortar barrage struck the U.S. airfield north of town that morning. The 

shelling damaged two aircraft and destroyed between 50 and 75 percent of 

the ordnance in the main ammunition depot. Two Americans were killed and 

another twenty-seven were wounded. Colonel David sent the 3d Battalion, 

47th Infantry, and the 3d Battalion, 60th Infantry, back into the countryside 

around Can Tho to look for the four Viet Cong battalions still thought to be 

in the area.42

On the morning of 26 February, a patrol located a battalion-size enemy 

force manning fortified positions seven kilometers northwest of the capital. 

Companies from the 3d Battalion, 47th Infantry, and the 3d Battalion, 60th 

Infantry, converged on the location, some on foot, and others by helicopter. 

The enemy put up a stiff defense, damaging a dozen helicopters as they landed 

troops behind the Viet Cong position. When the fighting ended that evening, 

41 AAR, Opn Coronado XI, 2d Bde, 9th Inf Div, 17 Apr 68, pp. 12–13, box 2, Asst Ch of 

Staff, G–3, 9th Inf Div, RG 472, NACP. 42 Intel Cable, CIA, 26 Feb 68, sub: Situation in the Provinces of IV Corps as of 1300 Hours 

on 25 February 1968, p. 1, Historians files, CMH. 

Tango boats landing on a riverbank in the Mekong Delta
379

Mekong Firestorm

the Americans found a total of sixty-two enemy dead and a large ammunition dump. Their own losses had been fourteen killed and fifty-one wounded. 

When the two U.S. battalions found no other enemy units in the countryside 

west and north of Can Tho in the days that followed, David felt assured that 

the provincial capital was momentarily safe from that quarter. 

Turning its attention to new hunting grounds, the 2d Brigade moved the 

Mobile Riverine Force into the canals south of Can Tho to join three South 

Vietnamese ranger battalions in a sweep of the area. On the afternoon of 1 

March, a fight began five kilometers southwest of the city, which lasted until 

the next day, producing sixty-three enemy dead and a U.S. loss of six killed 

and thirty-seven wounded. That clash proved to be the last major contact of

Coronado XI. When the operation ended on 6 March, the Mobile Riverine 

Force recorded a total body count of 297 Viet Cong soldiers. Colonel David’s 

troops had not delivered the knockout blow he had hoped for. Nevertheless, 

the aggressive American thrust into the central delta had protected Can Tho 

City from further harm, and the appearance of the Mobile Riverine Force 

this deep into the delta had given the headquarters of Military Region 3 new 

problems to worry about.43

The Post-Tet Situation in IV Corps

Judged by the goals Military Regions 2 and 3 had set prior to the general 

offensive, Tet had been a disappointment. Viet Cong troops had seized only 

a handful of the government and military command centers that the enemy 

had identified as essential targets. No uprising had materialized. The South 

Vietnamese government had not cracked and most of its military forces 

had performed credibly. Many Viet Cong units had taken heavy casualties that could not be quickly or easily replaced. Enemy depots were now 

depleted, while morale, sky-high prior to Tet, was now conspicuously low 

among some units.

On the whole, South Vietnamese regular units had proven surprisingly 

resilient, especially given their low strength at the start of the offensive. Those 

units from the Vietnamese 7th Division that had seen action at My Tho, Soc 

Trang, Ca Mau, and Can Tho had done particularly well. South Vietnamese 

ranger and marine units had also proved their elite status. Although Regional 

and Popular Forces soldiers had abandoned their rural outposts, they had not 

deserted in large numbers, instead withdrawing to the nearest town to take 

part in its defenses. Still, there had been a downside to their actions, for large 

parts of the countryside were now devoid of government troops. At the end 

of February, most Regional and Popular Forces units still had not returned 

to their rural stations, leaving the Revolutionary Development program at a 

standstill in nine out of the delta’s sixteen provinces.44

43 ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, 9th Inf Div, Encl 12, p. 9.

44 Rpt, MACV, 21 Mar 68, sub: Assessment of RVNAF Status, pp. 1–3, document 87, 31 

Mar Speech, vol. 7, Advisory Gp Papers, box 49 (1 of 2), NSF-National Security Council 
Staying the Course

380

Easier to determine was the impact of the offensive on the urban population in IV Corps. On a comparative basis, the cities in the Mekong Delta 

sustained the greatest amount of damage in Vietnam, with more than 21,000 

buildings destroyed and more than 93,000 people left homeless. Large swathes 

of My Tho, Ben Tre, Chau Doc, and Vinh Loc had been leveled in the fighting 

or burned to ashes. Repairing the damage would likely take more than a year.

If the enemy could hold on to his rural gains and keep the provincial capitals under psychological, if not physical, siege, he could justify the high price 

he had paid during Tet. Conversely, if the South Vietnamese regained their 

confidence quickly and resumed the pacification program with renewed vigor, 

the depleted Viet Cong would be hard-pressed to resist. Much would depend 

on the quality of allied leadership over the next few months to see what the 

lasting impact would be.45

History, LBJL. 45 ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, 9th Inf Div, Encl 12, p. 26; Rpt, Lt Col Philip S. Hurd, CORDS, 

18 Mar 68, sub: Trip Report IV Corps Tactical Zone, p. 2; and Encl 1. 
12

Fighting in the Northern Provinces

More than a dozen Viet Cong battalions attacked cities throughout 

the Mekong Delta on the night of 30–31 January, a mixed force of 

approximately twenty Viet Cong and North Vietnamese battalions struck the 

capitals of Quang Tri and Thua Thien Provinces at the other end of the country. 

The 7th Front sent five battalions and nearly 2,000 soldiers to attack Quang Tri 

City, while the Hue City Front mustered fifteen battalions and more than 5,000 

soldiers to attack Hue. Oddly, the three North Vietnamese infantry divisions 

and supporting artillery units attached to the DMZ Front, the strongest of the 

three enemy commands in northern I Corps, remained virtually inactive as the 

general offensive got under way. Only a few sapper and artillery raids troubled 

the units defending the Strong Point Barrier, and no serious fighting took 

place at Khe Sanh between 28 January and 6 February. General Westmoreland 

would learn the reason several months later from a North Vietnamese prisoner 

of war: a B–52 bomb strike on 28 January had nearly destroyed Maj. Gen. 

Tran Qui Hai’s DMZ Front headquarters, forcing his staff to move to a new 

location and thereby leaving the North Vietnamese units it controlled without 

orders. Westmoreland welcomed the lull along the Demilitarized Zone, for he 

needed all of the newly arrived Army units in northern I Corps to deal with 

the attacks at Quang Tri City and Hue.

The Assault on Quang Tri City

Allied officials in Quang Tri City were better prepared than most for 

the attacks that hit South Vietnam’s cities on the first and second nights of 

Tet. The senior province adviser, Robert B. Brewer, had learned from one of 

his spies in September that the enemy intended to seize the city sometime in 

early 1968. In the last week of January, when intelligence suggested that the 

attack was imminent, the province chief, Lt. Col. Nguyen Am, put the city 

on an emergency footing. He canceled all military leave, imposed a curfew, 

and placed sandbagged checkpoints manned by the Regional Forces on every 

street corner. Colonel Am also received operational control over the South 

Vietnamese 9th Airborne Battalion, which he transferred to the commander 

of the South Vietnamese 1st Infantry Regiment, Lt. Col. Nguyen Huu Hanh, 

the officer responsible for coordinating the defenses around Quang Tri City.1

1

 Ltr, Robert B. Brewer to Eric M. Hammel, 14 Nov 86, pp. 1–2, Historians files, CMH; Son, 

ed., Viet Cong “Tet” Offensive (1968), pp. 297–98; Intel Cable, CIA, 2 Feb 68, sub: This is a 
Staying the Course

382

The provincial capital was a collection of one- and two-story buildings on 

the bank of the Thach Han, a wide river that ran past the western edge of the 

city on its way to Dong Ha, a journey by water of some twenty kilometers, and 

then another ten kilometers beyond that to the Cua Viet estuary. A square stone 

fortress measuring several city blocks on each side dominated the northern half 

of Quang Tri City. Built by the Vietnamese emperors in the early nineteenth 

century, the Citadel featured thick stone walls and a water-filled moat that 

offered good protection for Colonel Am’s provincial headquarters. A two-lane 

dirt road known as Route 555 entered the city from the northeast, passed by the 

eastern edge of the Citadel and the lower half of town, and then continued south 

another four kilometers before ending near the Catholic hamlet of La Vang. At 

the northwestern corner of Quang Tri City, a second road known as Route 560 

headed north along Thach Han for about a kilometer, crossed a small tributary 

known as the Vinh Dinh River, and then continued north to the district town 

of Trieu Phong and more than a dozen Revolutionary Development hamlets. A 

third road, Highway 1, approached Quang Tri City from the southeast, turned 

east along the lower edge of town, and then crossed the Thach Han via a steel 

bridge. Turning to the northwest, Highway 1 passed by the Ai Tu airfield, a 

newly completed C–130-capable facility manned by U.S. Air Force personnel, 

before continuing on to Dong Ha.

Going into the Tet holiday, Colonel Hanh chose to keep three battalions 

from his South Vietnamese 1st Regiment in Trieu Phong District to the north 

and northeast of Quang Tri City to defend the Revolutionary Development 

hamlets there and to watch for the 808th and 814th Battalions, which operated from the Communist-controlled villages that lined the coast. He stationed 

two companies from the South Vietnamese 9th Airborne Battalion inside the 

Citadel along with a battery of Vietnamese 105-mm. howitzers. Hanh placed a 

second paratrooper company in the wooded hamlet of Tri Buu just northeast 

of the Citadel to watch Route 555. MACV Advisory Team 4 stationed in a 

compound near the eastern corner of the Citadel helped cover the open farmland to the east of Quang Tri City with bunker-protected machine guns and a 

pair of M42 Dusters. Two National Police Field Force companies and several 

Popular Forces platoons manned sandbagged checkpoints at street corners 

throughout town. Colonel Hanh kept his fourth infantry battalion and a cavalry troop of M113 armored personnel carriers at the La Vang regimental 

headquarters, situated near Landing Zones Betty and Sharon approximately 

three kilometers south of town. Finally, he placed the fourth company from 

the South Vietnamese 9th Airborne Battalion near the southeastern edge of 

town to watch Highway 1.

Colonel Hanh’s ace in the hole, Colonel Rattan’s 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry 

Division, was conducting Operation Jeb Stuart from several landing zones 

in Base Area 101 at the start of the Tet holiday, looking for signs of the 812th 

Regiment that made its home there and paying special attention to the routes 

that led to the provincial capital. If the city came under attack, Rattan had 

Situation Report on 1 February prepared by CAS, based on the personal observation of a CAS 

official in the province, p. 2, box 240 (1 of 2), NSF-Vietnam Country Files, LBJL. 
383

Fighting in the Northern Provinces

a plan in place to relieve the capital with the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry, and 

the 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry. His contingency plan would soon be put to 

the test.

The assault on Quang Tri City got under way at 0200 on 31 January, a cold 

and drizzly moonless night. The battle began when twenty North Vietnamese 

commandos from the 10th Sapper Battalion who had infiltrated the city over 

the last few days emerged from safe houses to attack the Citadel. The saboteurs intended to destroy Colonel Am’s headquarters and then to hold one 

of the fortress gates long enough for the main strike force—the K4 and K6 

Battalions of the 812th Regiment and the 814th Local Force Battalion—to 

enter the city (Map 32).2

The sappers counted on speed and surprise to make up for their small 

numbers. They had neither. The main attack force was at least two hours 

behind schedule and still several kilometers to the east of the city. Rain-swollen 

streams had slowed the units, and their officers were confused in the unfamiliar 

terrain. Furthermore, the town was filled with alert Regional Forces soldiers 

and policemen who were expecting just such an attack. The defenders mowed 

down most of the sappers with truck-mounted machine guns and the rest soon 

2

 AAR, Opn Jeb Stuart I, 1st Cav Div, 2 Jul 68, p. 2, Encl 5, Historians files, CMH.

An aerial view of Quang Tri City
Staying the Course

384

surrendered. The premature raid gave the city notice that a second and larger 

attack was imminent.3

The three enemy battalions that made up the main attack force reached 

the city around 0400. The 814th Battalion headed for the hamlet of Tri Buu, 

approaching the city from the northeast along Highway 1. Concealed by a 

layer of early morning fog, the Viet Cong made it to the edge of the hamlet 

before being spotted by the South Vietnamese paratroopers who were stationed 

there. After a short and confused firefight in nearly pitch-dark conditions, the 

outnumbered paratroopers fell back to the Citadel. The 814th Battalion raked 

the Citadel with heavy machine guns mounted in the cupola of a Catholic 

church, while a second local force battalion, the 808th, mortared the city from 

a blocking position it had established on Highway 1 just northeast of town.

While that fight raged, the K4 and K6 Battalions attacked Quang Tri City 

from the southeast, their mortar teams shelling Landing Zones Betty and 

Sharon and the La Vang complex, while the main body of North Vietnamese 

soldiers hustled up Highway 1. U.S. sharpshooters and a .50-caliber machine 

gun crew positioned on top of a water tower at Landing Zone Betty engaged 

the enemy from the flank, killing or wounding several dozen North Vietnamese 

soldiers, but the remainder kept going without bothering to return fire. The K4 

Battalion plunged into the provincial capital, while the K6 Battalion stopped at 

the intersection of Highway 1 and Route 555, taking cover in a field of tombstones just north of Landing Zone Betty. Counting the Viet Cong battalions 

at the other end of town, as many as 1,500 enemy soldiers now clung to the 

outskirts of the provincial capital.4

Isolating the city was not the same as conquering it, however. The soldiers 

from the 814th Battalion had no way of entering the Citadel because the 10th 

Sapper Battalion had failed to seize any of its gates. The K4 Battalion could 

not fight its way through the South Vietnamese policemen and territorial soldiers that had formed an ad hoc defensive line in the center of Quang Tri City. 

Unable to advance, the 814th Battalion stayed put in the hamlet of Tri Buu and 

the K4 Battalion began digging into the southern edge of town.5

Colonel Hanh launched a two-pronged counterattack shortly after daybreak. Two of his battalions near Trieu Phong headed south on Route 560, 

hoping to cross Vinh Dinh Bridge and then attack east toward Tri Buu, but 

encountered the 808th Battalion in a blocking position a few hundred meters 

north of the bridge. The South Vietnamese advance came to an abrupt halt, 

and the two battalion commanders reported only marginal progress over the 

next few hours. Colonel Hanh’s counterattack from the south fared no better. 

The infantry battalion and the cavalry troop he dispatched from La Vang got 

only as far as the cemetery on the southern edge of town before being stopped 

3

 Intel Cable, CIA, 2 Feb 68, sub: Situation Report on Quang Tri Province as of 0700 on 1 

February, pp. 3–4, box 240 (1 of 2), NSF-Vietnam Country Files, LBJL; Son, ed., Viet Cong 

“Tet” Offensive (1968), p. 299. 4

 Son, ed., Viet Cong “Tet” Offensive (1968), p. 299; AAR, Battle of Quang Tri, 1st Bde, 1st 

Cav Div, 1 Apr 68, p. 3, Encl to ORLL, 1 Nov 67–31 Jan 68, 1st Cav Div, 17 Mar 68, Historians 

files, CMH. 5

 Son, ed., Viet Cong “Tet” Offensive (1968), p. 300.
10

I I

SAPPERS

PLAF

808

PLAF

I I

814

PLAF

I I

K6 812

PAVN

I I

K4 812

PAVN

I I

1 1 Cav(-)

X

1 1 Cav(-)

X

ARVN

1

III

LZ BETTY

LA VANG ARVN Compound

LZ SHARON

QUANG TRI

Ai Tu Aireld

Song Thach Han

Song Vinh Dinh

Song Thach Han

1

1

1

560

555

556 557

Tri Buu

Quang Tri

AT TACK ON QUANG TRI

SITUATION

31 January 1968

Enemy Attack

Military Installation

Signicant Village or Hamlet

0

0 1 2 Kilometers

Miles 1 2

Map 32
Staying the Course

386

by the soldiers from the K6 Battalion. When Colonel Hanh’s battalions failed 

to punch through after several hours of hard fighting, Colonel Am turned to 

the 1st Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division for help.6

Colonel Rattan relayed the message to General Tolson, and asked for permission to shift several companies currently operating in Base Area 101 to 

landing zones southeast of town where the heavy weapons companies from 

the K4 and K6 Battalions were located. The colonel wanted to knock out the 

mortars and recoilless rifles that had effectively closed the runways at Betty

and Sharon. He also intended to cut off the enemy’s line of retreat back to 

Base Area 101. Tolson urged Rattan to execute the plan without delay.7

At 1600, an armada of helicopters appeared in the overcast skies above 

Quang Tri City. A flight of aircraft deposited Companies B and C from the 

1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry, near Highway 1 some two kilometers southeast 

of town. Within minutes, the Americans located the heavy weapons company 

from the K4 Battalion and began a swirling, close-range battle with the North 

Vietnamese gun crews. Meanwhile, a second flight of helicopters landed 

Companies A and C from the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry, about two kilometers 

farther south where the K6 Battalion had emplaced its mortars and recoilless 

rifles. The North Vietnamese troops initially fought with great determination, 

but resistance waned over the next few hours as helicopter gunships, artillery, 

and roving cavalry platoons wiped out a growing number of gun crews.8

As Colonel Rattan’s troops disrupted the enemy’s rear, the South 

Vietnamese task force fighting at the cemetery near Landing Zone Betty

renewed its attack. Bereft of its heavy weapons support and hammered incessantly by air and artillery strikes, the K6 Battalion gradually gave way and 

then broke as evening approached. Attacking from the north, the South 

Vietnamese battalions finally swept aside the 808th Battalion blocking their 

way and crossed the Vinh Dinh River into town. Attacking out of the Citadel, 

the reorganized South Vietnamese 9th Airborne Battalion also drove the 814th 

Battalion from Tri Buu after several hours of hard fighting.9

As darkness brought an end to the fighting, the soldiers from the K4 and 

K6 Battalions who still occupied a few blocks along the southern edge of 

Quang Tri City abandoned their positions and headed south. Most retained 

their weapons and uniforms, but some donned civilian clothing to blend into 

the crowds of refugees who were fleeing the city. When daybreak came on 1 

February, the capital was back in allied hands.10

Colonels Hanh and Rattan organized a combined pursuit of the K4 and 

K6 Battalions that netted an additional three North Vietnamese soldiers killed 

or captured over the next four days. The largest single engagement took place 

6

 Ibid.

7

 AAR, Battle of Quang Tri, 1st Bde, 1st Cav Div, p. 4.

8

 Rpts, 14th Mil Hist Det, 1 Apr 68, sub: Battle of Quang Tri, pp. 5–6; 1st Bde, 1st Cav Div, 

n.d., sub: An analysis of current capabilities of the 812th Regiment, 324B Division, p. 4. Both 

in Historians files, CMH. 9

 Son, ed., Viet Cong “Tet” Offensive (1968), p. 300. 10 Interv, author with Steven Velcrum, former member of Co C, 1st Bn, 5th Cav, 26 Apr 05, 

Historians files, CMH.
387

Fighting in the Northern Provinces

on 4 February when the 1st Battalion, 501st Infantry, a unit from the 2d 

Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, then operating under the control of the 1st 

Cavalry Division, discovered the K5 Battalion from the 812th Regiment near 

the district town of Hai Lang, eight kilometers southeast of Quang Tri City. 

Designated as the reserve force for the attack on the capital, the K5 Battalion

had remained near Hai Lang throughout the battle to protect the enemy’s line 

of communications to Base Area 101. In the ensuing firefight, the paratroopers killed 108 enemy soldiers with the help of artillery and helicopters at a cost 

of 5 dead and 42 wounded. South Vietnamese troops scored another blow 

against the 812th Regiment when they located its command post in the woods 

just east of La Vang and killed the North Vietnamese regimental commander. 

The government troops also captured the regiment’s chief of staff along with 

a trove of cryptographic equipment and codes, plus the regimental logbook 

that contained a desperate final entry: “Help. Being attacked by American 

Airborne. Give idea.”11

All told, the enemy lost an estimated 914 soldiers killed and another 86 

captured between 31 January and 6 February in the battle for Quang Tri City. 

The badly mauled 812th Regiment disappeared into the western mountains 

for the next several months. The 808th and the 814th Battalions dropped from 

sight for an even longer period, only returning to offensive action in the latter 

part of 1968. 12 

Allied operations quickly resumed after the battle. Rattan’s brigade shifted 

its focus back to Base Area 101, while the South Vietnamese 1st Infantry 

Regiment returned to the Revolutionary Development areas around Quang 

Tri City. In the city, however, fear of another attack remained palpable for 

weeks afterward.

The battle for Quang Tri City proved to be one of the most one-sided 

allied victories of the Tet offensive. Nonetheless, its outcome had been very 

much in doubt on the morning of 31 January. The enemy had not relinquished 

his grip on the city until Colonel Rattan’s soldiers had begun landing in his 

rear. Quang Tri City had been fortunate; no other city in the country had a 

fully functional airmobile brigade operating on its doorstep. The 1st Cavalry 

Division could not be everywhere in northern I Corps at once, and where its 

reach was weak, the enemy stood a substantially greater chance of achieving 

his aims.

Target: Hue

The former imperial capital of Vietnam had so far escaped the worst ravages of war. From time to time the enemy mortared the city, and saboteurs 

from the Hue City Sapper Unit occasionally committed acts of terrorism, 

11 Intel Cable, CIA, 3 Feb 68, sub: This is a Situation Report in Quang Tri Province as of 0400 

Hours on 3 February, p. 4, box 240 (1 of 2), NSF-Vietnam Country Files, LBJL; Ltr, Brewer to 

Hammel, 14 Nov 86, p. 3. 12 Rpt, 14th Mil Hist Det, 1 Apr 68, pp. 5, 7.
Staying the Course

388

but a large enemy force had never appeared at the city’s gates. Nonetheless, 

considering the city’s cultural and intellectual importance to the Vietnamese 

people—as well as its political status as the capital of Thua Thien Province—it 

was only a matter of time before the Communists tried to make it their prize.

According to Buddhist legend, Hue had sprung to life as a lotus flower 

blossoming from a puddle of mud. In more prosaic terms, the city sat on a 

bend of the Perfume (Hoang) River seven kilometers southwest of the South 

China Sea and was divided by the river into two sections. On the north bank 

stood the Citadel, a six-square-kilometer fortress constructed in the first two 

decades of the nineteenth century at the behest of the royal family. Modeled 

after the Forbidden City in Beijing, the Vauban-style fortress was built in the 

shape of a diamond, with its four corners pointing to the cardinal directions 

of the compass. Stone walls up to eight meters high and several meters thick 

encircled the city, as did a wide moat filled with water. The Perfume River ran 

a parallel course a short distance from the southeastern wall, offering extra 

protection from that quarter. Ten gates pierced the massive walls, four on the 

southeastern side, and two each on the remaining walls. A shallow canal cut 

through the heart of the Citadel, winding a crooked course from the middle 

of the southwestern wall to the middle of the northeastern wall. A pair of culverts connected the interior city canal with the canals outside. In more peaceful times, boats traveled from the Perfume River into the city, but now barbed 

wire blocked both culverts. The southeastern section of the city contained the 

An aerial view of Hue on the Perfume River
389

Fighting in the Northern Provinces

Imperial Palace, a walled and moat-ringed compound covering nearly a square 

kilometer that had housed the royal family between 1802 and 1945.13

South of the Perfume River lay the newer section of the city, a bustling 

residential and business community that contained numerous public buildings, 

including the prestigious Hue University, the province headquarters and its 

associated jail, the main hospital, and the treasury. Southern Hue, half the 

size of the Citadel, was also known as the Triangle because it resembled an 

irregular triangle bounded on the south by the Phu Cam Canal, on the east by 

a stream known as the Phat Lac, and on the northwest by the Perfume River. 

A pair of bridges linked the modern city to the Citadel. The Nguyen Hoang 

Bridge, built to transport vehicles and pedestrians using Highway 1, spanned 

the Perfume River near the eastern corner of the Citadel. Fifteen hundred 

meters to its southwest was the Bach Ho Railroad Bridge. The other bridge of 

military importance in southern Hue was the An Cuu Bridge, a modest arch 

on Highway 1 that conveyed traffic across the Phu Cam Canal.

Despite Hue’s size and importance, the city had relatively few defenders 

within its limits. On the eve of Tet, the greater metropolitan area contained 

fewer than a thousand South Vietnamese troops on active duty. Some of the 

garrison was on leave to celebrate Tet, either at their homes in the city or elsewhere in neighboring districts. The headquarters of the South Vietnamese 1st 

Infantry Division, commanded by Maj. Gen. Ngo Quang Truong, made its 

home in the Mang Ca compound, a minifortress that occupied the northern 

corner of the Citadel. Apart from the headquarters staff and a handful of 

support units, the only combat units in the Citadel were the division’s 36-man 

reconnaissance platoon and the division’s reaction force, the elite Hac Bao 

(Black Panther) Company. General Truong’s other reserve, a troop of M41 

light tanks, was laagered on Highway 1, two kilometers south of the Triangle. 

In an emergency, he could also call on two South Vietnamese airborne battalions and a troop of armored personnel carriers that operated ten kilometers 

to the north of the city at a Highway 1 outpost called PK–17.14

The American presence in the city was minimal, with only 200 or so troops 

on assignment there at any given time. Approximately one hundred U.S. Army 

advisers and administrative personnel as well as a few Marine guards were 

headquartered in a lightly defended compound a block and a half south of 

the Perfume River, on the east side of Highway 1 just across from the university. A rotating group of staff personnel from the compound were stationed 

at General Truong’s headquarters day and night. Other U.S. and Australian 

advisers were out in the countryside accompanying South Vietnamese units.

The closest regular U.S. combat units were stationed to the southeast 

of Hue. The 2d Battalion, 501st Infantry, a unit from the 2d Brigade, 

101st Airborne Division, currently attached to General Tolson’s division, 

defended the rear logistical base of the 1st Cavalry Division, Landing 

13 “The Rebirth of Hue,” Vietnam Feature Service TCB-037, n.d., p. 7. In the language of the 

Cham people who lived in that region of central Vietnam, Hue meant “lily.” 14 AAR, NVA/VC Tet Offensive: Hue, 1st Inf Div Advisory Det, Advisory Team 3, 30 Mar 

68, p. 9, Historians files, CMH.
Staying the Course

390

Zone El Paso, seven kilometers southeast of the Citadel via Highway 1. 

Elements of the 1st and the 5th Marine Infantry Regiments operated from 

Phu Bai, fifteen kilometers southeast of the Citadel, under the control of 

Task Force X-Ray, a brigade-size component of the 1st Marine Division. 

Task Force X-Ray had the dual mission of protecting the C–130 airfield 

and adjoining logistical base at Phu Bai, as well as preserving the line of 

communications on the fifty-kilometer stretch of Highway 1 between Phu 

Bai and the Hai Van Pass. Each day, truck convoys departed from offloading and storage facilities in Da Nang, traveled twenty kilometers up and 

through the winding Hai Van Pass, and then on to Phu Bai and Landing 

Zone El Paso, where they deposited the supplies needed by Task Force 

X-Ray and the 1st Cavalry Division. A different set of truck companies 

based at Landing Zone El Paso made daily trips up Highway 1 as far as 

Quang Tri City to deliver supplies to the 1st Cavalry Division’s forward 

bases. One of the units that depended on those supplies was the 3d Brigade, 

1st Cavalry Division, headquartered at Camp Evans twenty-five kilometers 

to the northwest of the Citadel.

The 3d Brigade was in a state of flux on the eve of the Tet holiday. 

When its commander, Colonel Campbell, flew his command group and 

two battalions from the Que Son Valley to Camp Evans on 26 January, 

he discovered that the site, a muddy patch of ground on the southern 

shoulder of Highway 1 that had formerly been occupied by elements of 

Headquarters of the South Vietnamese 1st Division at Hue
391

Fighting in the Northern Provinces

the 3d Marine Division, contained no pre-positioned stocks of ammunition or fuel. Supplies were still tight five days later. Because General 

Westmoreland had deployed the 1st Cavalry Division to northern I Corps 

almost two months ahead of schedule, III Marine Amphibious Force had 

not created a supply depot at Camp Evans and did not have enough trucks 

on hand to keep up with demand. The runway was also too short to land 

C–130 transport aircraft. Now with all three of his maneuver battalions, 

his artillery battalion, and the remainder of his brigade consolidated at 

Evans, Campbell did not have enough fuel to operate his 150 helicopters 

on a regular basis, nor enough artillery shells to perform regular fire support missions. Until the division’s rear logistical area at Landing Zone 

El Paso could push enough supplies to him, which might take a week or 

more due to a shortage of trucks, the 3d Brigade was essentially a light 

infantry unit.15

General Truong was eager to see Campbell’s brigade get on its feet. 

Signs appeared that the 6th PAVN Regiment and the 12th Sapper Battalion, 

units that operated from the mountains northwest of Hue, intended to 

15 Pearson, War in the Northern Provinces, 1966–1968, pp. 57–65; Ray L. Bowers, Tactical 

Airlift, United States Air Force in Southeast Asia (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force 

History, U.S. Air Force, 1983), p. 325; Krohn, Lost Battalion of Tet, p. 52; AAR, Opn Jeb

Stuart I, 1st Cav Div, 2 Jul 68, p. 8, box 15, AARs, 1965–1971, Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, 

RG 472, NACP.

General Truong (left) confers with General Tolson (center).
Staying the Course

392

attack the capital. What Truong did not know was that the enemy had 

recently shifted several more regiments and support units into the area 

and formed a new tactical headquarters, the Hue City Front, to control 

them. Among the new arrivals was the 7th Battalion of the 29th Regiment, 

325C PAVN Division, which had recently been operating near Khe Sanh. 

The 5th PAVN Regiment came down from Base Area 101 and the 4th 

PAVN Regiment came up from the southern part of Thua Thien Province. 

Other reinforcements included an artillery battalion armed with 122-

mm. rockets, two sapper battalions, two 82-mm. mortar companies, two 

75-mm. recoilless rifle companies, and two 12.7-mm. heavy machine gun 

companies. Counting the Viet Cong units that operated near the capital, 

the enemy had gathered an attack force equivalent to at least fourteen 

battalions.16

The Hue City Front divided itself into two wings. The southern group 

consisted of the 804th, 815th, and 818th Battalions of the 4th Regiment; 

the 1st and 2d Sapper Battalions; and several heavy weapons companies. 

The northern wing consisted of the 800th, 802d, and 806th Battalions of 

the 6th Regiment; the 12th Sapper Battalion; the 416th Battalion of the 

5th Regiment; the 7th Battalion of the 29th Regiment; and a pair of heavy 

weapons companies. The enemy left his mountain camps for the city on the 

evening of 29 January.

General Truong was unaware of their approach, but the wave of attacks 

in II Corps and southern I Corps later that night convinced him that his own 

city was in danger. He canceled holiday leave and instructed the Regional and 

Popular Forces units near Hue to remain on duty each night. He ordered his 

staff to stay at the Mang Ca compound for the next few days and sent half of 

his Hac Bao Company across the river to defend the provincial headquarters. 

He also dispatched his reconnaissance platoon four kilometers up the Perfume 

River, knowing that enemy units were likely to march along its course to find 

their way to the city at night.17

The general’s precautions paid off at 2200 when Regional Forces troops 

reported seeing enemy soldiers sneaking past a hamlet near the western tip of 

the Citadel. Pursued by gunfire, the shadowy figures disappeared back into the 

night. Two hours later, the reconnaissance platoon reported that several enemy 

battalions were marching past their hidden position toward Hue. Truong 

ordered his scouts to return to the Citadel at once; he would need every soldier 

he could get to ward off the coming assault.18

16 Tong Ho Trinh, Huong Tien Cong va Noi Day Tet Mau Than o Tri-Thien-Hue 1968 [The 

1968 Tet Offensive and Uprising in the Tri-Thien-Hue Theater] (Hanoi: Vietnamese Institute for 

Military History, 1968), pp. 21–22. 17 George W. Smith, The Siege at Hue (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1999), p. 20; Ltr, 

Robert B. Annenberg to Maj (Ret.) Tom Cubbage , 23 Feb 89, sub: Vietnam Reminiscences: 

The Battle of Tet, p. 4, Historians files, CMH; AAR, Battle of Hue, 45th Mil Hist Det, 19 Mar 

68, p. 2, Historians files, CMH. 18 Smith, Siege at Hue, pp. 18–20.
393

Fighting in the Northern Provinces

A City Besieged: 31 January–1 February

At 0333 on 31 January, a Viet Cong signal flare burst over Hue. Agents 

from the Hue City Sapper Unit, dressed like civilians but carrying automatic 

rifles and pistols, emerged from safe houses in the Citadel. Some cut the telephone lines that led into General Truong’s headquarters. Others killed the 

soldiers standing watch at one of the southwestern gates and then opened it 

for the 800th Battalion, the 802d Battalion, and the 12th Sapper Battalion that 

were concealed in farmlands nearby. After rushing through the gate, the 800th 

Battalion veered north to attack the Tay Loc airfield, while the remaining units 

plunged east into the heart of the city (Map 33).19

Meanwhile, a company from the 806th Battalion seized the An Hoa Bridge 

that spanned the moat near the western tip of the Citadel. Forty sappers—the 

shadowy force briefly glimpsed earlier that night—scaled the northwestern 

wall of the Citadel and then captured a gate so a second company could enter 

the city. The combined force then headed east to attack General Truong’s 

headquarters. The remaining two companies from the 806th Battalion occupied a cemetery about a kilometer to the north to block Highway 1.20

Not everything went the enemy’s way. The 800th Battalion failed to overcome fifty Hac Bao soldiers and some ordnance troops at the Tay Loc airfield. 

The 802d Battalion briefly penetrated the Mang Ca compound only to be 

driven back by an ad hoc force of clerks and headquarters staff. The enemy 

could afford to bypass the airfield, but he needed to overrun the 1st Division 

headquarters before he could consider the city truly his.

General Truong was determined not to let that happen. He ordered his four 

infantry battalions to return to the city as soon as possible. In the meantime, he 

recalled his Hac Bao soldiers from the airfield and ordered the M41 tank troop 

in southern Hue to relieve his position. The Hac Bao detachment and more than 

a hundred South Vietnamese soldiers who had been on leave reached the 1st 

Division headquarters, giving Truong enough men to hold his position for the 

time being. Meanwhile, at the rear base of the South Vietnamese armored cavalry troop, southeast of Hue, the troop commander headed north on Highway 

1 with two M41 tanks and two M113 armored personnel carriers—the only 

vehicles that were currently fit for duty. An enemy ambush destroyed one tank 

and one carrier as the column crossed the An Cuu Bridge and entered southern 

Hue. A few hundred meters up the road, still well short of the MACV advisory 

compound, a storm of rocket-propelled grenades destroyed the two remaining 

vehicles. Truong would receive no help from that quarter.21

As the defenders at the Mang Ca compound fought to retain their foothold in the Citadel, the southern wing of the Hue City Front swarmed into the 

Triangle. A reinforced company from the 2d Sapper Battalion assaulted the 

MACV advisory compound. The defenders repulsed each wave of attackers, 

and after two hours the enemy battalion moved on to easier targets in the 

19 Trinh, 1968 Tet Offensive and Uprising in the Tri-Thien-Hue Theater, p. 29. 20 Ibid.

21 Ibid., p. 34.
Staying the Course

394

city. Meanwhile, the 4th and the 5th Regiments seized government buildings 

throughout the Triangle. The only target that gave them real trouble was the 

provincial headquarters, where a platoon of Hac Bao soldiers held out until 

later that day.22

Shortly after the attack began, the MACV advisory team in Hue notified the Marine headquarters at Phu Bai and asked for help. The commander of Task Force X-Ray, Brig. Gen. Foster C. LaHue, agreed to send 

a reduced company to reinforce the advisers. He had little else to spare. All 

of his outposts from the Hai Van Pass to Phu Bai were under attack, and 

enemy sapper teams had mined or cratered a number of locations on that 

fifty-kilometer stretch of Highway 1. The road to Da Nang was closed, 

and General LaHue saw his first priority as restoring it so truck convoys 

could once again start delivering supplies to Task Force X-Ray and the 

1st Cavalry Division. At that stage, neither the Marine commander nor 

anyone else at III Marine Amphibious Force appreciated the extent of the 

crisis in Hue. Several days would pass before U.S. commanders outside 

22 Interv, Maj Lamar F. Peyton, 45th Mil Hist Det, with Col George O. Adkisson, 11 Mar 

68, VNIT 201, CMH; Intel Rpt, DoD, no. 6027656768, 22 Jul 68, sub: After Action Report, p. 

5, Historians files, CMH.

An aerial view of southern Hue
Map 33

5 416

PAVN

I I

6 806

PAVN

I I

800 1

PAVN

I

XXX

B4

PAVN

6 802

PAVN

I I

6(-) 800

PAVN

I I

4 818

PAVN

I I

4 815

PAVN

I I

4 804

PAVN

I I

810

PLAF

I I

12

I I

SAPPERS

PLAF

HUE CITY

I I

SAPPERS

PLAF

1

I I

SAPPERS

PLAF

2

I I

SAPPERS

PLAF

1st Division

Training Center

1st ARVN Division

Headquarters

Nam Giao Engineer Camp

Tam Thai

Cavalry Camp

MACV

Compound

Song Huong

Song Sau

Song Huong

Song Dai Giang

1

1

1

547

551

549

550

N ui Nha Nhan

Gia Hoi Island

Aireld

Huu Gate

Bach Ho Bridge

Nguyen Hoang

Bridge

An Cuu Bridge

Tu Dam Pagoda

An Hoa Bridge

Chanh Tay Gate

Dong Ba Gate

Imperial

Palace

Provincial Headquarters

Thon Luong Quan

Thon Lieu Coc Thuong

Thon Phu O

Thon Que Chu

Thon La Chu

Thon Bon Tri HUE

BAT TLE OF HUE

ENEMY AT TACK

30–31 January 1968

0

0 2 1 Kilometers

Miles 2 1

Enemy Axis of AttackMilitary Installation

0 100 200 and Above

ELEVATION IN METERS
Staying the Course

396

of the city fully understood the situation there. As a result, the marines 

LaHue sent to reinforce Hue would be venturing into the unknown.23

At 0830, a reduced company from the 3d Marine Division boarded trucks 

at Phu Bai and, along with two U.S. Army trucks armed with quad .50-caliber 

machine guns, headed north toward Hue. En route, the task force encountered 

four Marine M48 tanks pulled up on the shoulder of Highway 1. Their crews 

explained that they had been headed for the Navy loading ramp just north 

of the MACV advisory compound when they had been informed that Hue 

was under attack. The tankers agreed to join the task force as it continued up 

Highway 1. 

The column crossed the An Cuu Bridge without incident, noting the two 

destroyed South Vietnamese vehicles by the side of the road. A few minutes later, the U.S. troops reached the spot where the two remaining South 

Vietnamese cavalry vehicles had been knocked out, finding the troop commander lying badly wounded by his tank. Picking up the injured man, the 

column continued on through southern Hue until it came to a spot where 

the buildings gave way to rice fields on either side for 500 meters. Anything 

crossing that exposed section of highway would be a conspicuous target and 

there was only room enough for two vehicles to travel side by side. A vehicle 

disabled or destroyed by enemy fire might block the entire road. Fearing his 

men would be butchered in the back of the trucks before they reached the 

advisory compound, the Marine officer in charge of the column radioed Phu 

Bai for reinforcements.

A second Marine rifle company joined the convoy a short time later, and 

with the U.S. tanks in the lead, the column headed north onto the exposed 

causeway. As expected, the task force came under heavy fire, but the volume 

of suppressive fire poured back by the South Vietnamese and Marine tanks, 

plus two Marine rifle companies, allowed the column to inch forward without 

taking serious casualties. Four hours later, the tail end of the column managed 

to reach the MACV compound. It was clear to them, at least, that the enemy 

in Hue was much stronger and more determined than anyone at Task Force 

X-Ray headquarters had suspected (Map 34). 

Knowing that General Truong’s headquarters was in peril, General 

LaHue ordered the Marine task force to cross the river and fight its way to the 

Mang Ca compound. The American M48 tanks were too heavy for the bridge, 

however, and the South Vietnamese tank crews refused to cross. Two Marine 

infantry platoons went forward instead. As soon as the Americans appeared 

on the bridge, the walls of the Citadel erupted with enemy machine-gun and 

small arms fire. Several marines fell dead or wounded, and when the others 

reached the far side they discovered that the fishing shacks and shanty homes 

that lined the riverbank were filled with North Vietnamese snipers. With a 

third of their number now dead or wounded, the two platoons doubled back 

across the bridge and returned to the advisory compound carrying their fallen. 

23 Unless otherwise noted, the following section is based on Historical Study, Opn Hue City, 

31st Mil Hist Det, 2-68, Aug 1968, Historians files, CMH. AAR, Battle of Hue, 45th Mil Hist 

Det; AAR, NVA/VC Tet Offensive: Hue, 1st Inf Div Advisory Det, Advisory Team 3.
Map 34

USMC

1 1

I I

USMC

5 2

I I

ARVN

7

I I

ARVN

2

I I

ARVN

3-7

I

ARVN

3 1

I I

ARVN

2 4

I I

ARVN

3 4

I I

ARVN

3 2

I I

ARVN

3 3

I I

ARVN

9

I I

1st Division

Training Center

Nam Giao Engineer Camp

Tam Thai

Cavalry Camp

MACV Compound

1st ARVN Division

Headquarters

Song Huong

Song Sau

Song Huong

Song Dai G ai ng

1

1

1

547

551

549

550

N ui Nha Nhan

Gia Hoi Island

Aireld

Huu Gate

Bach Ho Bridge

Nguyen Hoang

Bridge

An Cuu Bridge

Tu Dam Pagoda

An Hoa Bridge

An Hoa Gate

Graveyard

Chanh Tay Gate

Dong Ba Gate

Imperial Palace

Provincial Headquarters

Thon Luong Quan

Thon Lieu Coc Thuong

Thon Phu O

Thon Que Chu

Thon La Chu

Thon Bon Tri HUE

BAT TLE OF HUE

FRIENDLY SITUATION

31 January–2 February 1968

0

0 2 1 Kilometers

Miles 2 1

0 100 200 and Above

ELEVATION IN METERS

Axis of Airborne AdvanceAxis of Ground AdvanceMilitary Installation
Staying the Course

398

That evening, the marines and U.S. Army advisers spent a mostly sleepless 

night in the compound, while General LaHue and III Marine Amphibious 

Force headquarters tried to piece together what was happening in Hue.24

The marines from Task Force X-Ray were just one of many allied units 

trying to reach General Truong and his staff on 31 January. Shortly after 

0900, the South Vietnamese 3d Troop, 7th Cavalry, and the South Vietnamese 

7th Airborne Battalion joined up at PK–17 and then proceeded southeast 

on Highway 1. Around noon, as the mechanized column neared a graveyard about 400 meters from the Citadel, soldiers from the 806th Battalion

who had concealed themselves in foxholes next to headstones opened fire 

with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons. The initial fusillade 

destroyed two of the twelve M113 armored personnel carriers and brought 

the column to a halt.25

The commander of the South Vietnamese task force reviewed his options. 

His troops were beyond friendly artillery range and the worsening weather 

ruled out air strikes, but he was under orders to reach General Truong’s headquarters as quickly as possible. Finding no alternative, the airborne officer 

24 Son, ed., Viet Cong “Tet” Offensive (1968), pp. 1–2. 25 Intel Rpt, DoD, no. 6027541968, 16 Sep 68, sub: After Action Report, p. 40, Historians 

files, CMH.

A U.S. marine scans the streets in Hue for enemy snipers, with an M48 tank 

ready to provide firepower.
399

Fighting in the Northern Provinces

opted for a frontal assault. The armored personnel carriers tried to suppress 

the enemy with their .50-caliber machine guns as the South Vietnamese paratroopers charged into a withering storm of fire. Almost half were killed or 

wounded in that desperate advance. The survivors fought their way to the 

middle of the cemetery and then hunkered down, unable to advance or retreat. 

The South Vietnamese battalion commander radioed I Corps headquarters for 

reinforcements, and General Lam released the 2d Airborne Battalion, which 

was waiting in reserve at PK–17. Coming down Highway 1, the 2d Battalion 

swung east and then executed a flanking attack against the 806th Battalion. 

The maneuver relieved some of the pressure on the 7th Airborne Battalion but 

failed to dislodge the North Vietnamese battalion from the southern part of 

the cemetery.

The exchange of gunfire tapered off as darkness approached. The South 

Vietnamese soldiers spent a cold and miserable night shivering among the 

headstones, but when they awoke the next morning, 1 February, they discovered that the 806th Battalion had pulled back into the Citadel. Around noon, 

several Hac Bao soldiers met up with the task force and led it across country 

back to the Hue Citadel, entering General Truong’s besieged headquarters 

through a gate near the Mang Ca compound.26

The commander of the South Vietnamese 1st Infantry Division was also 

doing all that he could to get the four battalions from his 3d Regiment back 

into the Citadel. Marching back from their Revolutionary Development sector 

west of the city, the 2d and the 3d Battalions made it to the southern corner of 

the Citadel where the railroad bridge crossed the Perfume River on the evening 

of the thirty-first, but they were unable to force the enemy-controlled gates and 

walls. The 4th Battalion, which had been operating in the countryside southeast of Hue, ran into Viet Cong blocking forces that delayed its return until 5 

February. The 1st Battalion, stationed to the east of Hue, also found its way 

blocked by local force units. Turning back to the coast, the 1st Battalion met 

up with South Vietnamese Navy boats and then traveled down the Perfume 

River to the Mang Ca compound on the afternoon of 1 February. Counting 

the just-arrived airborne task force, Truong now had sufficient number of men 

to initiate a limited counteroffensive.27

On the afternoon of 1 February, the 2d and the 7th Airborne Battalions 

pushed out from the 1st Division compound accompanied by elements from 

the Hac Bao Company and the handful of cavalry vehicles that were still in 

working condition. The combined force headed west and then south through 

light enemy resistance to the Tay Loc airfield, rescuing the small group of 

ordnance troops who still defended the southern end of the runway. General 

Truong held his 1st Battalion from the 3d Regiment that had just come from 

the coast in reserve. Just before dusk, U.S. Marine CH–46 helicopters arrived 

from Dong Ha with two companies of the South Vietnamese 4th Battalion, 

26 Ibid., p. 42.

27 Trinh, 1968 Tet Offensive and Uprising in the Tri-Thien-Hue Theater, pp. 33, 35; Interv, 

Peyton with Capt Gary A. Webb, Adviser to South Vietnamese 1st Bn, 3d Inf, 11 Mar 68, VNIT 

201, CMH.
Staying the Course

400

2d Regiment. Deteriorating conditions and the coming of night grounded the 

helicopters before they could transport the rest of the battalion.28

As the weather in Thua Thien Province took a turn for the worse on 1 

February, General LaHue and his staff back at Phu Bai began working on a 

plan to recapture southern Hue. Despite having no intelligence on the enemy’s 

strength or composition, the commander of Task Force X-Ray took the most 

aggressive option, ordering the senior Marine commander at the advisory 

compound, Lt. Col. Marcus J. Gravel of the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, to 

push west along the bank of the Perfume River with two companies and a 

few tanks. The marines made little progress against the North Vietnamese 

who seemed to have every street and alley covered by automatic weapons and 

rocket-propelled grenade launchers. By noon, the two companies had been 

reduced to around half of their original fighting strength. Pulling his men back 

to the compound, Colonel Gravel loaded the most badly wounded men onto 

trucks and sent them speeding back to Phu Bai. When the convoy reached the 

base, an unwashed lieutenant fresh from the battle briefed General LaHue on 

the situation. The general, only now beginning to appreciate the magnitude of 

the Communist attack, sent a company from the 2d Battalion, 5th Marines, by 

helicopter and promised to send more reinforcements soon.

28 Intel Rpt, DoD, no. 6027541968, 16 Sep 68, pp. 38, 41.

A Marine machine gun team during street fighting in Hue
401

Fighting in the Northern Provinces

Enter the Cavalry: 2–10 February

When General Lam and General Cushman met at Da Nang on the night 

of 1 February to discuss the situation in Hue, they agreed that the South 

Vietnamese would be responsible for clearing the Citadel while the marines did 

the same for the Triangle. They also agreed that they would limit the damage 

done to the historic city as much as possible. To pressure the enemy from the 

west, the presumed direction of Communist supply lines, Cushman received 

permission from Westmoreland to use the 1st Cavalry Division. The commander of the division, General Tolson, in turn relayed the mission to the 3d 

Brigade’s commander, Colonel Campbell (see Map 35).

Circumstances forced Campbell to proceed with caution. An air assault 

against the western wall of the Citadel was out of the question because the 

ground fire around Hue was too intense and the brigade’s artillery batteries at 

Camp Evans were too far away to support such a maneuver. Campbell knew 

that North Vietnamese troops lay thick about the city, but he had no specific intelligence on their strength and disposition. A visual inspection by air 

suggested that the enemy was everywhere. One helicopter pilot and assault 

platoon leader with the 229th Aviation Battalion, Capt. Ken E. Hamburger, 

later recalled seeing Viet Cong flags flying from villages all along Highway 1 

between PK–17 and Hue when he passed over the area. Campbell would not 

risk dropping an infantry battalion or two in the midst of a superior enemy 

force. No matter where he put his soldiers, it would be difficult to keep them 

supplied by helicopter due to the bad weather and the abundance of North 

Vietnamese antiaircraft guns.29

Among his other problems, Campbell worried that he might not get enough 

food, fuel, and ammunition to support his operations. The enemy occupation 

of Hue had severed the ground link between the 1st Cavalry Division and Phu 

Bai. The truck companies that had serviced the 1st Cavalry Division were all 

headquartered at Phu Bai, now cut off from both Camp Evans and Da Nang. 

Enemy troops had also severed the pipeline that transferred fuel to Phu Bai 

from a pumping station on the coast. As things looked right now, it might take 

several weeks to reopen Highway 1 between Camp Evans and Da Nang.

Communist sappers had also mined Highway 1 to the north of Camp 

Evans, interdicting the road to Dong Ha. In any event, the truck companies 

based at Dong Ha were assigned to the 3d Marine Division, and already had 

their hands full with that mission. To make matters worse, enemy activity on 

the Thach Han River had prevented some allied supply vessels from making 

the journey from the Cua Viet estuary to Dong Ha, reducing the amount of 

fuel and ammunition that was stored at the Marine base camp. As a result, 

Colonel Campbell was forced to rely on air-dropped supplies delivered by 

C–130 aircraft and CH–47 supply runs to Dong Ha to sustain his brigade 

at Camp Evans. Even then, bad weather and a shortage of C–130 aircraft 

29 Interv, Capt Joseph W. A. Whitehorne with Maj Gen John J. Tolson, 24 Jun 68, p. 4, 

Historians files, CMH; Krohn, Lost Battalion of Tet, p. 73; Interv, author with Capt Ken E. 

Hamburger, 13 Apr 05, Historians files, CMH.
Staying the Course

402

(there were only around eighty planes to service all of South Vietnam) would 

limit the tonnage he received. With those problems in mind, Colonel Campbell 

began planning for the relief of the city.30

Because of the shortage of aviation fuel and helicopters at Camp Evans, 

Campbell had to deploy his brigade in stages. That afternoon, the 2d Battalion, 

12th Cavalry, boarded helicopters under overcast skies and flew to PK–17. The 

soldiers left their packs behind—the gear was to be transported later—in order 

to fit more men into each aircraft. The packs contained, among other things, 

their rubber-coated nylon ponchos and sweaters. Both were sorely missed as a 

cold rain began to fall. After eating a meal of cold rations, the troops spent a 

miserable night in a mud-covered field near PK–17.31

On the morning of 3 February, the 400 infantrymen of the 2d Battalion 

assembled to hear their commander, Lt. Col. Richard S. Sweet, issue their 

marching orders. Sweet decided to take a circuitous route to Hue by going 

south and then east rather than marching straight down Highway 1, which 

the enemy had probably blocked with mines and ambushes. He was concerned that the battery of 105-mm. guns normally attached to his battalion 

had not yet arrived at PK–17—bad weather and a shortage of CH–47 helicopters were to blame—but if luck prevailed, his men would reach the city 

walls before dark.32

Setting out at 0700, the battalion marched south for about 1,500 meters 

and then turned southeast toward Hue, keeping Highway 1 on its left flank. For 

the next several hours, it saw no signs of the enemy apart from a solitary sniper 

who fired a few rounds before disappearing. At 0945, when Colonel Sweet’s 

men were about four kilometers northwest of the Citadel, they reached a tiny 

hamlet called Thon Lieu Coc Thuong. As the Americans entered the hamlet, 

its inhabitants fled to a large island of trees 200 meters to the southeast. Inside 

the hamlet, the battalion found freshly dug trenches and foxholes as well as 

hundreds of little paper North Vietnamese flags. The enemy, it appeared, was 

close at hand.33

As the battalion searched the hamlet, snipers began firing at the Americans 

from the wooded island to the south where the villagers had fled. Consulting 

his map, Colonel Sweet saw that the island sheltered the villages of Thon Que 

Chu and, to its south, Thon La Chu. He called for an artillery strike from 

two South Vietnamese 105-mm. howitzers at PK–17. Without interpreters on 

hand to adjust the fire, the shelling proved ineffectual. Although the low cloud 

ceiling ruled out close air support missions from the U.S. Air Force, brigade 

headquarters sent gunship and aerial rocket artillery helicopters to soften up 

the enemy position. The aircraft worked over Thon Que Chu for about an 

30 Intervs, Whitehorne with Tolson, 24 Jun 68, p. 4; Whitehorne with Col Hubert S. Campbell, 

CO, 3d Bde, 1st Cav Div, 12 May 68, p. 4, VNIT 96, CMH; AAR, Opn Jeb Stuart I, 1st Cav 

Div, tab V, p. 2; Pearson, War in the Northern Provinces, 1966–1968, pp. 57–65; Bowers, Tactical 

Airlift, pp. 325, 329; Traas, Engineers at War, p. 348. 31 After Action Interview (AAI), Hue, 2–5 Feb 68, 2d Bn, 12th Cav, 1 May 68, p. 3, box 30, 

AARs, 1965–1971, Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 32 Krohn, Lost Battalion of Tet, p. 61. 33 Ibid., p. 71.
Map 35

5 7 Cav

I I

2 12 Cav

I I

USMC

1 1

I I

USMC

1(-)

III

USMC

5 2

I I

ARVN

1 TF

III

ARVN

3-7

I

ARVN

3

III

ARVN

2 4

I I

1st Division

Training Center

Nam Giao Engineer Camp

Tam Thai

Cavalry Camp

MACV Compound

Song Huong

Song Sau

Song Huong

Song Dai Giang

1

1

1

547

551

549

550

N ui Nha Nhan

Gia Hoi Island

Aireld

Huu Gate

Bach Ho Bridge

Nguyen Hoang

Bridge

An Cuu Bridge

Tu Dam Pagoda

An Hoa Bridge

An Hoa Gate

Chanh Tay Gate

Dong Ba Gate

Imperial Palace

Provincial Headquarters

Thon Luong Quan

Thon Lieu Coc Thuong

Thon Phu O

Thon Que Chu

Thon La Chu

Thon Bon Tri HUE

BAT TLE OF HUE

FRIENDLY SITUATION

2–10 February 1968

0

0 2 1 Kilometers

Miles 2 1

0 100 200 and Above

ELEVATION IN METERS

Axis of AdvanceMilitary Installation
Staying the Course

404

hour until one pilot mistakenly fired on the 2d Battalion, killing one soldier 

and wounding four. Colonel Sweet called off the helicopters. The preparatory bombardment had done little harm to the enemy, but General Tolson 

demanded that Sweet take Thon Que Chu without further delay. The colonel 

strongly recommended waiting until the artillery battery providing direct support to the battalion became operational at PK–17, but Tolson overruled him. 

Out of options, Sweet decided to take Thon Que Chu with a frontal assault.34

In a scene reminiscent of a World War I infantry assault, around 150 men 

from the unit charged across the open field that stood between them and Thon 

Que Chu. Bright flashes rippled across the far tree line as North Vietnamese 

troops hidden at the edge of the hamlet opened fire. Bullets and mortar fragments toppled some of the advancing Americans, who had no cover other than 

a small cemetery in the middle of the field. Colonel Sweet fed more platoons 

into the attack, and helicopter scout ships reappeared to strafe the enemy positions. The attacking troops reached the tree line shortly after noon and drove 

the enemy deeper into Thon Que Chu. Nine soldiers had been killed, most 

from sniper rounds to the head, and another forty-eight had been wounded in 

the assault.35

34 AAI, Hue, 2–5 Feb 68, 2d Bn, 12th Cav, p. 3.

35 Ibid., p. 4.

Soldiers of the 1st Cavalry Division head for Hue.
405

Fighting in the Northern Provinces

Once inside the woods, the Americans discovered an elaborate network of 

trenches and camouflaged bunkers. It was clear that the enemy had expended 

considerable time and energy fortifying the village. The thick hedgerows of 

bamboo and palm trees that divided the family holdings also offered formidable natural defenses. Bespeaking the prosperity of the village, some of its 

houses were sturdy stone and tile structures that were strong enough to deflect 

bullets or shell fragments. In midafternoon, the rest of the battalion crossed 

the open field and entered Thon Que Chu. With only a few hours of daylight left, Colonel Sweet decided to establish a night defense position and then 

resume his advance the next morning.36

The wisdom of Colonel Sweet’s decision to stay put was proved when the 

North Vietnamese counterattacked his battalion only a short time after it had 

finished scooping out foxholes in the sandy soil. Small arms and machine-gun 

fire poured in from all directions, and Sweet soon realized that his men were 

surrounded by a much larger enemy force. The cavalrymen spent the rest of the 

day locked in a prolonged firefight with a better-armed North Vietnamese force 

equipped with 82-mm. mortars, 75-mm. recoilless rifles, and .51-caliber heavy 

machine guns, weapons typically associated with a regimental-size formation. 

The 2d Battalion, 12th Cavalry, repelled several strong probes and cleared out 

a number of snipers that crept their way into the village. The volume of enemy 

fire became so intense at times that it was nearly impossible for the cavalrymen 

to raise their heads above the rim of their foxholes for more than a second or 

two. None of the enemy thrusts broke through the perimeter, however, and the 

firefight gradually trailed off and then ceased. Emerging from their foxholes, 

the soldiers found that nearly everything they had left above ground had been 

shredded. When Sp4c. Steven M. Johnson collected his C-ration packages, for 

example, he found them so riddled with bullets and mortar fragments as to be 

inedible.37

Later that day, 3 February, several helicopters were able to touch down in 

a small clearing inside the village long enough to evacuate the dead and the 

most seriously wounded Americans. When the battalion began to run low on 

ammunition, the unit’s logistics officer, Maj. William I. Scudder, scrounged up 

all the bullets and grenades he could find at Camp Evans and then convinced 

a few brave helicopter pilots to deliver the goods to Thon Que Chu. Without 

those shipments, the 2d Battalion would have run out of ammunition during 

the night. 

At this point, Colonel Sweet still did not know the size or the identity of 

the enemy force besieging him. Thon Que Chu and Thon La Chu harbored the 

headquarters of the Hue City Front, as well as the 416th Battalion of the 5th 

PAVN Regiment and all three battalions of the 29th Regiment, 325C Division, 

the latter having just arrived after a forced march from Khe Sanh. Sweet surmised that he had stumbled on a major staging area for reinforcements and 

36 Ibid., p. 5.

37 Interv, author with Sp4c. Steven M. Johnson, 27 Apr 05, Historians files, CMH.
Staying the Course

406

supplies going into Hue, and he knew the enemy would make great sacrifices 

to preserve it.38

Earlier that afternoon, around the time that the 2d Battalion was fighting its way into Thon Que Chu, Colonel Campbell and his 3d Brigade headquarters moved from Camp Evans to PK–17. General Tolson also flew down 

from his headquarters at Camp Evans to the post to monitor the progress of 

Colonel Sweet’s troops. Clearly the 2d Battalion was in grave danger. Unless 

it received sustained fire support, it might not survive the next determined 

assault. To Campbell’s relief, a convoy from Camp Evans arrived at PK–17 

shortly before 1800, carrying ammunition for a pair of U.S. 105-mm. howitzers that had arrived earlier in the day. The artillery liaison officer with the 2d 

Battalion made sure that every shell counted, and Colonel Sweet’s men, their 

spirits and their defensive power greatly improved, held their own throughout 

the night.

The 2d Battalion faced renewed enemy pressure on the morning of 4 

February. Shortly after 0700, a volley of 82-mm. mortar fire and 122-mm. 

rocket fire hit the U.S. position in Thon Que Chu. When the bombardment 

ended, North Vietnamese troops assaulted the cavalry perimeter from multiple 

38 Shelby L. Stanton, Anatomy of a Division: 1st Cav in Vietnam (Novato, Calif.: Presidio 

Press, 1987), p. 120; AAR, Opn Jeb Stuart, 1st Cav Div, tab G, p. 1; Trinh, 1968 Tet Offensive 

and Uprising in the Tri-Thien-Hue Theater, p. 32.; Krohn, Lost Battalion of Tet, p. 141.

Troops of the 1st Cavalry Division fight in Thon La Chu.
407

Fighting in the Northern Provinces

directions. Much of the killing took place at ranges of less than twenty meters. 

The 3d Brigade headquarters sent a rocket-armed helicopter to assist the 2d 

Battalion, but ground fire brought the aircraft down before it reached Thon 

Que Chu. Finding no weak spots in the U.S. line, the North Vietnamese ended 

their attack fifteen minutes later. Though brief, the morning firefight cost the 

2d Battalion another eleven killed and fifty-one wounded.39

As medics treated the injured, Colonel Sweet reviewed the state of his battalion. He knew that his unit would be overrun if it remained in Thon Que 

Chu. Only about 200 men were still able to fight. Most had gotten less than six 

hours of sleep over the last two days, and they were almost out of water. His 

closest source of help, the 5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry, was just then arriving at 

PK–17 and would take at least another twenty-four hours to reach Thon Que 

Chu. Even though Major Scudder had loaded a medevac helicopter going to 

the village with ammunition and then used a drawn pistol to warn away a 

senior officer who tried to unload the aircraft, supplies remained low because 

firefights flared up throughout the day.40

Late in the afternoon on 4 February, Colonel Sweet discussed the situation 

with his company commanders. After considering his options, he decided that 

the 2d Battalion would break free of the encirclement that evening. Despite 

the unit’s predicament, Sweet was unwilling to take it back to PK–17 without first having accomplished his mission. He considered moving his men 

to another settlement 1,500 meters to the east but abandoned the idea after 

the observation aircraft he sent to investigate the hamlet barely avoided getting shot down by North Vietnamese antiaircraft guns. Resolving to do what 

the enemy probably least expected, the colonel decided to move deeper into 

enemy-held territory, to a small hill named Nha Nhan that rose from the plain 

several kilometers southwest of Thon Que Chu. While his depleted unit only 

had a limited offensive ability at this point, Sweet knew that the top of the hill 

would be an ideal spot to observe Communist troops as they moved into Hue. 

After Colonel Campbell approved the plan, Colonel Sweet decided that the 

battalion would move out at 2000. He reasoned that it would be completely 

dark and the enemy, with any luck, would be preoccupied with cooking food 

and repairing equipment.

The 2d Battalion prepared for its escape as evening fell. The men placed 

their excess equipment into a pile that engineers then rigged with explosives, 

timed to detonate later that night. A pair of UH–1 Huey helicopters flew into 

Thon Que Chu to evacuate several dozen wounded soldiers, but there was not 

enough room to take the bodies of the eleven dead. Colonel Sweet had them 

buried in the sand so they could be retrieved at a later date. 

As darkness fell, the troopers quietly formed two columns, using tape and 

pieces of clothing to secure items that might make noise as they marched. 

Shortly after 2000, the battalion sneaked northwest toward a gap in the 

enemy line that appeared to be around seventy-five meters wide. The North 

Vietnamese sentries to either side did not see the Americans as they slipped 

39 AAI, Hue, 2–5 Feb 68, 2d Bn, 12th Cav, p. 5; Krohn, Lost Battalion of Tet, p. 100. 40 Krohn, Lost Battalion of Tet, p. 100.
Staying the Course

408

away. After reaching the graveyard that stood between Thon Que Chu and 

Thon Lieu Coc Thuong, the battalion formed a single file, sent scouts out 

ahead, and began marching south. A few minutes later, the scouts froze when 

they heard the unmistakable sound of a machine gun bolt being drawn. The 

unseen North Vietnamese troops manning the weapon were only cleaning it, 

however, and failed to notice the crouching Americans just a few meters away. 

The scouts quietly backtracked and led the battalion in a wide arc around the 

machine gun nest without incident. 

Approximately thirty minutes later, as the troopers crossed a stream that 

lay southwest of Thon La Chu, they heard a massive explosion in the distance 

as several pounds of plastic explosives turned their excess equipment into a 

ball of flame. At that prearranged signal, the 105-mm. howitzers at PK–17 

began lobbing high-explosive and white phosphorous shells into Thon Que 

Chu and Thon La Chu to cover the escape of the 2d Battalion. The heavy 

cruiser, USS Canberra, also joined the bombardment, pounding the enemyheld hamlet with its 8-inch naval guns. Meanwhile, Colonel Sweet and his 

men kept trudging through the night, every soldier concentrating on following the person in front of him. Most of the men were staggering from exhaustion, and many were also suffering from minor wounds. As the battalion 

passed near several enemy-held settlements, Communist lookouts stationed 

there—apparently believing that the column was a line of North Vietnamese 

soldiers headed for the Citadel—shined flashlights for them to use as navigation beacons. At one point, a large group of enemy soldiers who were headed 

for the city actually crossed right in front of the American column, which 

remained quiet and motionless until the danger had passed.41

When the battalion finally reached Nha Nhan shortly after dawn on 5 

February, its men wearily climbed to the top of the ridge, which turned out 

to contain an outpost manned by a South Vietnamese platoon. With the panorama of Hue spread out below them—looking deceptively peaceful apart 

from some rising columns of smoke and the occasional white-orange flash 

of a distant explosion—the Americans set up camp and grabbed some muchneeded rest. 

As soon as Colonel Sweet’s men began to direct artillery and naval gunfire 

on targets they observed on the plain below, the enemy stopped trying to move 

men and supplies into Hue during daylight hours. To discourage the enemy 

from approaching the hill at night, the division sent the 2d Battalion a .50-caliber machine gun and a searchlight. Although the North Vietnamese made 

no effort to assault Nha Nhan, they did try to cut off Colonel Sweet’s supply 

channel by shooting at the helicopters that delivered food, water, and ammunition. A sniper from Company B of the 2d Battalion, 12th Cavalry, Sp4c. Carl 

T. Johnson, recalled that the heavy enemy fire either seriously damaged or shot 

down at least four helicopters. To reduce their vulnerability to antiaircraft fire, 

the UH–1 helicopters avoided landing on the hill whenever possible, instead 

41 Interv, author with John Toler, 12 Apr 05, Historians files, CMH; Edward J. Marolda and 

G. Wesley Pryce III, A Short History of the United States Navy and the Southeast Asian Conflict, 

1950–1975 (Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1984), p. 44.
409

Fighting in the Northern Provinces

swooping low over the summit and having their crews kick out supply crates as 

the aircraft roared past.42

On 5 February, Campbell flew two companies from the 2d Battalion, 501st 

Infantry, a unit from the 101st Airborne Brigade presently operating with the 

1st Cavalry Division, from Camp Evans to PK–17 where they established a new 

base, Landing Zone Sally, a short distance to the west. With the paratroopers now interposed between Camp Evans and the enemy-infested mountains 

to the west, Colonel Campbell released the 5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry, from 

defensive duties at Camp Evans and ordered its commander, Lt. Col. James 

B. Vaught, to march his battalion four kilometers to the south to investigate 

the hamlet of Thon Trung where enemy mortar crews had previously fired on 

Camp Evans.43

As the two lead companies from the battalion approached the village 

around 1030, they received small-arms and mortar fire. At the same time, 

enemy machine gunners 1,500 meters to the southeast riddled a command and 

control helicopter that was flying a mission on behalf of the 2d Battalion, 

12th Cavalry. The stricken aircraft crash-landed in enemy territory. A short 

time later, a second helicopter swooped in to rescue the downed crew and passengers, but the Americans still needed to recover the damaged aircraft. The 

5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry, turned away from its original mission and spent the 

rest of the day trying to reach the wreckage, but enemy resistance prevented 

the men from reaching the helicopter. 

The battalion resumed its advance the next day, 6 February. After a brief 

skirmish, it secured the downed helicopter and then returned to Thon Trung. 

The battalion overran the village and found a cache of supplies so huge that it 

took the rest of the day to dispose of it. The 5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry, spent 

the night in the village and resumed its march to Thon Que Chu on the morning of 7 February.44

Around 1100, as the lead company entered a hamlet midway between 

Thon Trung and Thon Lieu Coc Thuong, a helicopter landed and unloaded 

supplies. Upon taking off, the aircraft made a slow turn over Thon Que Chu, 

apparently oblivious to the danger below. The woods erupted with machinegun and small arms fire and the heavily damaged helicopter made a crash 

landing on the other side of Thon Lieu Coc Thuong. Colonel Vaught, who 

had planned to attack Thon Que Chu from his present position later that day, 

instead turned his battalion east to the crash site. After waiting for a quick 

artillery and naval gunfire barrage to soften up Thon Lieu Coc Thuong, his 

troops stormed the village. They discovered dozens of uncompleted fighting 

positions and extensive communications wire but no Communists. Emerging 

from the other side of the village, the soldiers secured the downed helicopter and rescued its crew, while gunships suppressed a smattering of enemy 

machine-gun and mortar fire that came from Thon Que Chu. With evening 

42 Interv, author with Sp4c. Carl T. Johnson, 19 Apr 05, Historians files, CMH.

43 AAR, Battalion attack, 5th Bn, 7th Cav, 14th Mil Hist Det, 4 May 68, pp. 2–3, box 30, 

AARs, 1965–1971, Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 44 Ibid.
Staying the Course

410

fast approaching, Vaught decided to stay put. He began building a forward 

base where he could stockpile supplies, and he established a medical aid station in anticipation of the coming battle.45

The colonel sent two companies forward to probe Thon Que Chu on the 

morning of 8 February. One company crossed the open field quickly, but the 

unit on its right flank, some 300 meters away, encountered heavy fire and 

stopped 50 meters short of the woods. Vaught sent two platoons from another 

company to help and called in 1,500 rounds of artillery from PK–17, but several hours of intense fighting took place before the pinned company managed 

to extract itself. U.S. losses totaled two killed and seven wounded. Seeing that 

Thon Que Chu was extremely well defended and probably could not be taken 

by a single battalion, Colonel Vaught ordered the men from the first company 

to pull back to Thon Lieu Coc Thuong for the night.46

Hearing from Vaught that a frontal assault was all but impossible, 

Colonel Campbell began looking for another way in. On 9 February, the 3d 

Brigade commander instructed Colonel Sweet’s battalion on Nha Nhan to 

probe Thon La Chu from the south. As the 2d Battalion, 12th Cavalry, moved 

out that morning, accompanied by the South Vietnamese platoon from the 

hill outpost, the men encountered a squad of well-camouflaged snipers at 

the base of the hill. North Vietnamese bullets and mortar fragments killed 

two Americans and wounded twelve others before a team of cavalrymen outflanked the enemy, killing at least three of the sharpshooters. More trouble 

lay ahead. As the unit was crossing a rice field that led to the village of Thon 

Bon Tri, a small wooded settlement 1,500 meters south of Thon La Chu, a 

battalion or more of North Vietnamese opened fire from the tree line. The 

Americans quickly lost another two men killed and ten wounded. Unable to 

advance and with darkness fast approaching, Colonel Sweet decided to pull 

his unit back to Nha Nhan for the night.47 

Colonel Campbell needed to get more of his brigade into the battle, but he 

still did not have enough aviation fuel, spare parts, and artillery shells, notwithstanding valiant efforts by the U.S. Air Force to ease the shortfall. Transport 

aircraft kept food, fuel, and ammunition flowing into Camp Evans using 

pathfinders on the ground and radar control teams for guidance because the 

cloud ceiling rarely exceeded 91 meters and was often much worse. Sometimes 

the visibility was so bad that observers at the camp never saw the transport 

planes, but only the parachuted supplies when they emerged through the lowhanging clouds. Between 4 and 8 February alone, U.S. Air Force C–130s flew 

thirty-four missions and delivered around one million pounds of supplies. 

Even so, Campbell needed Highway 1 to be reopened between Camp Evans 

45 Rpt, 31st Mil Hist Det, Aug 1968, sub: Opn Hue City, p. 32, Historians files, CMH. 46 AAR, Battalion attack, 5th Bn, 7th Cav, 14th Mil Hist Det, pp. 3–4.

47 AAR, Opn Jeb Stuart, 1st Cav Div, tab C, p. 3; Daily Jnl, 2d Bn, 12th Cav, S–2/3, 9 Feb 

68, pp. 1–3, box 5, Daily Jnl, Asst Ch of Staff, S-3, 2d Bn, 12th Cav, Cav Units, USARV, RG 

472, NACP.
411

Fighting in the Northern Provinces

and the Marine base at Dong Ha before he could bring the full weight of the 

3d Brigade to bear.48

The logistics problems in northern I Corps were affecting more than just 

Campbell’s 3d Brigade. As USARV commander General Palmer had informed 

Army Chief of Staff General Harold K. Johnson on 5 January, the “most 

urgent problem in I CTZ [I Corps Tactical Zone] from [a] logistic point of view 

is to open Highway 1 north of Da Nang and keep it open. Current inability 

of III MAF to maintain this road open is perhaps the primary logistic factor 

limiting number of troops which can be supported in northern I CTZ.” On 8 

February, General Tolson had explained to Palmer how supply problems were 

limiting his operations in Thua Thien and Quang Tri Provinces. The commander of the 1st Cavalry Division “seriously doubted that capability exists to 

support logistically, additional brigade of the 101st [Airborne Division] in this 

area right now although it is urgently needed.” He had recommended sending 

only one infantry battalion and supporting artillery to the C–130 airfield at 

Quang Tri City until the supply situation improved. General Westmoreland 

had conveyed similar concerns to Admiral Sharp and General Wheeler that 

day, noting that his effort to deploy elements of the 101st Airborne Division 

into northern I Corps will “post a tremendous logistical challenge in view of 

48 Interv, Whitehorne with Tolson, 24 Jun 68, p. 5; AAR, Opn Jeb Stuart, 1st Cav Div, tab 

AE, p. 1.

A Huey helicopter delivers supplies to 1st Cavalry Division troops in Thon La Chu.
Staying the Course

412

the poor weather at this time and the enemy situation.” Reinforcing the point 

in a message to General Johnson on 8 February, General Palmer wrote that the 

“logistics situation is critical. Other than airlift, the primary logistic support 

for northern I CTZ must come by water through the Cua Viet estuary, which 

is harassed by enemy fire. Bad weather hampers all operations.”49

After meeting with General Cushman on the eighth to discuss the problems facing III Marine Amphibious Force, General Westmoreland explained 

to Sharp and Wheeler on 9 February the steps he intended to take to ease 

the crisis. He decided to airlift a battalion from the 101st Airborne Division 

to Phu Bai to secure that supply point so the Marine units from Task Force 

X-Ray could focus on the fight for Hue. He proposed sending a second airborne battalion to Da Nang so it could be deployed to the Hai Van Pass to 

reopen that stretch of Highway 1, and an Army combat engineer battalion 

from northern II Corps to repair damaged sections of the highway. Once a 

ground line of communications had been restored between Da Nang and Phu 

Bai, and from Dong Ha to Camp Evans, the MACV commander intended to 

bring in additional elements of the 1st Cavalry Division and 101st Airborne 

Division to help retake Hue and restore security in the lowlands of northern I Corps. To control the growing number of U.S. Army units in northern 

I Corps and to achieve better coordination between the Army, Marine, and 

South Vietnamese forces, Westmoreland expected to have the joint headquarters known as MACV Forward up and running within the week, headed by 

General Abrams, who would take control of the fight for Hue from a command post now being created at Phu Bai.50

Going on the Attack in the Triangle and the Citadel: 2–10 February

As Colonel Campbell’s 3d Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division was attempting to dislodge the North Vietnamese troops holding Thon La Chu in order 

to cut the enemy supply line that ran from the western mountains through 

the hamlet and then east into the Citadel, a handful of battered U.S. Marine 

infantry companies continued the slow and costly process of liberating southern Hue. When the commander of the 1st Marines, Col. Stanley S. Hughes, 

arrived at the MACV advisory compound on 3 February to take charge of 

the battle, he saw why progress had been so slow. North Vietnamese soldiers 

seemed to occupy every floor in every building. From those vantage points, 

they were able to engulf the marines in interlocking fields of fire every time 

the Americans tried to advance. The North Vietnamese soldiers possessed an 

abundance of rocket-propelled grenade launchers and ammunition. The stone 

49 First quote from Msg, Palmer ARV 266 to General Johnson, 5 Feb 68, p. 5. Second quote 

from Msg, Tolson FCV 095 to Palmer, 8 Feb 68, p. 1. Third quote from Msg, Westmoreland 

MAC 01810 to Sharp, 8 Feb 68, p. 1. Fourth quote from Msg, Palmer ARV 289 to General 

Johnson, 8 Feb 68, p. 4. All in Westmoreland Msg files, CMH. 50 Msg, Westmoreland MAC 01858 to Wheeler, 9 Feb 68, p. 3, Westmoreland Msg files, 

CMH.
413

Fighting in the Northern Provinces

and concrete buildings that they occupied gave them strong cover as well as 

concealment. Some enemy soldiers had also dug spider holes next to buildings and courtyard walls that were nearly impossible to see from ground level. 

Sniper fire seemed to come from everywhere.51

Colonel Hughes reorganized the four Marine companies and resumed 

the attack on 4 February. Using a combination of M72 antitank weapons, 

3.5-inch rocket launchers, 106-mm. recoilless rifles, and tear gas, the marines 

captured several blocks by day’s end. They also gained needed reinforcements 

when a second company from the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, moved by truck 

from Phu Bai to the advisory compound. In the next two days that followed, 

the Americans captured several important government buildings, including 

one that had recently served as the headquarters of the 5th PAVN Regiment. 

The tired but elated marines hauled down a Viet Cong banner that had been 

flying from a flagpole in the courtyard and raised the stars and stripes while a 

CBS film crew captured the event.52

The marines made comparatively rapid progress when they resumed their 

westward attack on 7 February. The Communists left behind an ever-larger 

number of weapons and bodies, a sign of their increasing disorganization. In a 

51 Rpt, 101st Abn Div, 29 Dec 68, sub: Special Intelligence Study Nr 33-68, p. 4, Historians 

files, CMH; Intel Rpt, DoD, no. 6027656768, 22 Jul 68, p. 6. 52 Intel Rpt, DoD, no. 6027656768, 22 Jul 68, pp. 189–90.

Troops of Company C, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, engages in a firefight in Hue.
Staying the Course

414

tacit admission that they had lost the battle for the Triangle, sappers destroyed 

the Nguyen Hoang Bridge to prevent the Americans from crossing the river 

and attacking the southeastern wall of the Citadel. 

Worn down by more than a week of incessant combat and effectively 

cut off from their comrades on the other side of the river, the 815th Sapper 

Battalion and the 2d Sapper Battalion moved to the southern side of the Phu 

Cam Canal where the 818th Battalion was already located. Meanwhile, the 

804th Battalion and the 1st Sapper Battalion remained south of the canal near 

the An Cuu Bridge, while the 810th Battalion began preparing to sneak west 

across the Perfume River by raft and by boat to Gia Hoi Island.53

The marines spent the next several days rounding up enemy stragglers 

from the Triangle. On 10 February, a battalion from the 327th Infantry, 101st 

Airborne Division, flew from III Corps to Phu Bai. The unit relieved several 

Marine companies in the area, which General LaHue then sent to Hue. The 

first of these reinforcements had to dismount from their trucks at the damaged 

An Cuu Bridge and move across it by foot, but when engineers finished building a pontoon bridge next to the damaged span four days later, trucks were 

once again able to move freely between Phu Bai and Hue.54

While General LaHue’s marines were busy retaking the Triangle, the 

South Vietnamese forces under General Truong were slowly expanding their 

foothold in the Citadel. On 2 February, helicopters brought the remainder of 

the Vietnamese 4th Battalion, 2d Regiment, as well as a company from the 1st 

Battalion, 1st Regiment, to the 1st Division compound. Marine helicopters 

also flew in the Vietnamese 9th Airborne Battalion from Quang Tri City. By 

nightfall, government forces had regained control over most of the Citadel’s 

northwestern quarter.55

The South Vietnamese forces made slow progress over the next few days. 

Although the enemy had lost nearly 700 men according to allied estimates, he 

showed no signs of cracking. General Truong knew that North Vietnamese 

reinforcements and supplies were entering the Citadel from Thon La Chu each 

night. Proof of that came on the evening of 6 February when a battalion from 

the 29th Regiment previously reported to be in Thon La Chu launched a fierce 

counterattack in the Citadel that forced the South Vietnamese to fall back to 

the Tay Loc airfield.56

General Truong received additional troops of his own the next day. On 7 

February, U.S. Navy landing craft transported the 2d, 3d, and 4th Battalions 

of the South Vietnamese 3d Regiment to the 1st Division headquarters. Later 

in the evening, a company from the South Vietnamese 1st Infantry Regiment 

and fifteen M113 armored personnel carriers arrived from Quang Tri City. All 

told, Truong now had in the Citadel his entire 3d Regiment, a battalion from 

53 Intel Rpt, DoD, no. 6027448568, 29 May 68, sub: Attack on Hue City, p. 8, Historians 

files, CMH; Intel Rpt, DoD, no. 6027656768, 22 Jul 68, p. 8; Trinh, 1968 Tet Offensive and 

Uprising in the Tri-Thien-Hue Theater, p. 41. 54 Trinh, 1968 Tet Offensive and Uprising in the Tri-Thien-Hue Theater, p. 35. 55 AAR, Battle of Hue, 45th Mil Hist Det, p. 6.

56 Rpt, 31st Mil Hist Det, Aug 1968, p. 27.
415

Fighting in the Northern Provinces

his 2d Regiment, two companies from his 1st Regiment, three paratrooper battalions from the 1st Airborne Task Force, two armored cavalry squadrons, and 

the Hac Bao Company.57

His force was less formidable than it seemed. Combat had reduced some 

of the battalions to less than 200 effective soldiers. Food and ammunition 

were running low. Exhaustion and a steady stream of casualties were sapping 

morale. The South Vietnamese units had few heavy weapons such as mortars 

and recoilless rifles with which to dislodge the enemy from the stone buildings 

and the thick hedgerows common to the old city. The consistently bad weather 

prevented all but the bravest or most foolhardy pilots from flying air support 

missions. Although Truong estimated that the Communists in the Citadel had 

lost nearly 1,200 men killed since the start of the offensive, a steady stream of 

replacements and supplies continued to flow into the southwestern part of the 

Citadel. Until he received more troops or substantially more artillery and air 

support, Truong knew that progress would be slow.58

West of Hue: 11–20 February

West of the Citadel, on top of Nha Nhan Hill, the 2d Battalion, 12th 

Cavalry, continued to face a nearly intractable problem. Colonel Sweet wanted 

to get moving against the North Vietnamese in the valley below, but he had 

only the vaguest idea of their strength and dispositions. Shortly before midnight on 11 February, he sent a squad of volunteers down the hill and into 

the woods surrounding Thon Bon Tri to assess the enemy’s position. Using a 

Starlight night-vision scope, the group discovered that the North Vietnamese 

had built an elaborate trench just inside the tree line. The scouts also observed 

a second trench studded with bunkers a short distance behind the first. When 

the squad returned to the summit of Nha Nhan and described what it had 

seen, Colonel Sweet realized that a daylight frontal attack against such a position would be suicidal. After he explained the situation to his superior, Colonel 

Campbell decided to keep the 2d Battalion on top of Nha Nhan rather than 

send it in a futile attack against Thon Bon Tri (see Map 36).59

Even though the 2d Battalion, 12th Cavalry, was temporarily out of the 

picture, Campbell decided to make another effort against Thon Que Chu with 

the 5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry. On the morning of 12 February, the artillery 

batteries stationed at Camp Evans fired hundreds of rounds into Thon La Chu, 

using up much of the ammunition reserves they had managed to stockpile over 

the last few days. Even so, the bombardment seemed to have little effect. A 

chatter of machine-gun and small-arms fire greeted Vaught’s battalion when it 

advanced from the trees of Thon Lieu Coc Thuong around noon. Two of the 

cavalry companies managed to cross the clearing and to enter Thon La Chu, 

57 Ibid., pp. 30, 32.

58 Ibid., p. 32.

59 Ibid., p. 6.
Staying the Course

416

but they withdrew a short time later as their casualties began to mount. The 

Americans lost five killed and thirty-four wounded in the assault.60

Colonel Campbell decided to forego new attacks against Thon Que Chu 

and Thon La Chu until the weather had cleared and he had more infantry at 

his disposal. Given more troops, the 3d Brigade commander could effectively 

isolate Thon La Chu, cutting the supply channel that ran west to the mountains and east to Hue, even if he did not take the hamlet itself. To that end, 

General Tolson gave Campbell command of the 2d Battalion, 501st Infantry, 

which began moving south from Camp Evans to PK–17 on 12 February. 

Although the enemy still had the ability to move men and supplies between 

Thon La Chu and the Citadel—the 815th Battalion, 5th Regiment, crossed the 

Perfume River and occupied Thon Bon Tri on the thirteenth, and the same 

night the 9th Battalion, 29th Regiment, moved from Thon La Chu into the old 

city—Campbell could now pressure the enemy’s supply line between Thon La 

Chu and the western hills. On 15 February, a company from the 2d Battalion, 

501st Infantry, discovered a North Vietnamese force of equal size, possibly a 

rear service element, when it swept through the village of Thon Trung. After 

artillery and aerial rocket helicopters hit the North Vietnamese position, two 

companies from the 5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry, flew in by helicopter to join the 

assault. The three U.S. companies killed at least fifty-eight Communists and 

drove the rest from the village. Slowly, the cordon was closing around Thon 

Que Chu–Thon La Chu.61

On 15 February, Westmoreland’s deputy, General Abrams, assumed command of MACV Forward, which had come into being at Phu Bai three days 

earlier. In his new position, Abrams exercised tactical authority over all U.S. 

combat units north of the Hai Van Pass, giving Westmoreland a high degree of 

control over the fighting in northern I Corps and putting the separate battles 

being waged at Hue, one by Task Force X-Ray south of the Perfume River and 

another by the 3d Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, west of the Citadel, under a 

single U.S. commander for the first time. Abrams’ status as Westmoreland’s 

deputy also gave him the authority he needed to coordinate efficiently U.S. 

and South Vietnamese operations.62

Abrams quickly recognized the importance of shutting down the enemy 

supply line. Although the enemy controlled only about one-third of the city 

at that stage, he was getting new supplies and reinforcements every night. 

Several days earlier, the 6th Battalion, 24th Regiment, 304th Division, originally 

located near Khe Sanh, had reached the Citadel after following a route that 

took it through Base Area 101, Base Area 114, and Thon La Chu. Elements of 

the 324B PAVN Division had also been spotted moving south from Quang Tri 

Province toward Hue, a fact confirmed on 16 February when the 1st Brigade, 

60 AAR, Battalion attack, 5th Bn, 7th Cav, 14th Mil Hist Det, p. 4.

61 AAR, Opn Jeb Stuart, 3d Bde, 1st Cav Div, 11 Mar 68, p. 3, Encl 1, Historians files, 

CMH; Daily Jnl, 2d Bn, 12th Cav, S–2/3, 14 Feb 68, p. 1; Rpt, 31st Mil Hist Det, Aug 1968, pp. 

39–40; Trinh, 1968 Tet Offensive and Uprising in the Tri-Thien-Hue Theater, pp. 39–40. 62 Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 1233 to CINCPAC, 26 Jan 68; Westmoreland MAC 1011 to 

CJCS, 22 Jan 68, sub: Visit to Washington by Richard E. Cavazos, LTC Inf, USA. Both in 

Westmoreland Msg files, CMH. Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, p. 345.
Map 36

5 7 Cav

I I

2 12 Cav

I I

USMC

1 1

I I

USMC

1(-)

III

USMC

5 2

I I

USMC

5 1

I I

ARVN

3-7

I

ARVN

3

III

ARVN

2 4

I I

VNMC

A(-)

III

VNMC

A 4

I I

1st Division

Training Center

Nam Giao Engineer Camp

Tam Thai

Cavalry Camp

MACV Compound

1st ARVN Division

Headquarters

Song Huong

Song Sau

Song Huong

Song Dai Giang

1

1

1

547

551

549

550

N ui Nha Nhan

Gia Hoi Island

Huu Gate

Bach Ho Bridge

Nguyen Hoang

Bridge

An Cuu Bridge

Tu Dam Pagoda

An Hoa Bridge

An Hoa Gate

Chanh Tay Gate

Dong Ba Gate

Imperial Palace

Provincial Headquarters

Thon Luong Quan

Thon Lieu Coc Thuong

Thon Phu O

Thon Que Chu

Thon La Chu

Thon Bon Tri

HUE

BAT TLE OF HUE

FRIENDLY SITUATION

11–20 February 1968

0

0 2 1 Kilometers

Miles 2 1

0 100 200 and Above

ELEVATION IN METERS

Axis of AdvanceMilitary Installation
Staying the Course

418

1st Cavalry Division, tangled with part of the 803d PAVN Regiment, 324B 

Division, about twenty kilometers northeast of Hue.63

After talking to General Tolson about the situation north and west of 

Hue, General Abrams flew over the battlefield on the morning of 16 February 

to see for himself how the fighting was developing. Returning to Phu Bai, he 

sent a message to General Cushman expressing his conviction that “the threat 

to Hue is building up rapidly.” He noted that three enemy battalions were still 

operating in the Citadel, resupplied nightly from a camp in the mountains west 

of Hue. The unexpected appearance of the 803d Regiment and the resilient 

enemy supply channel led Abrams to conclude that “we must seek every means 

to reinforce the 3d Brigade of the 1st Air Cavalry Division” even if that meant 

“straining our logistic base to the maximum.”64

Abrams met with Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky, General Lam, and 

General Cushman that afternoon to discuss the situation at Hue. Abrams 

declared that their first priority should be to close down the enemy supply 

route west of the Citadel. The longer the enemy held Thon Que Chu–Thon La 

Chu, he argued, the longer the battle in the Citadel would go on. The others 

concurred. Colonel Campbell’s 3d Brigade would therefore get the lion’s share 

of whatever extra resources Abrams could squeeze out of his command.65

On 17 February, Abrams met with Westmoreland and Cushman at MACV 

Forward headquarters to discuss the situation. Allied intelligence indicated that 

a second wave of attacks was likely to hit the country within the next twentyfour to forty-eight hours, with Hue being one of the primary targets. All three 

generals were concerned because several enemy regiments in I Corps had yet 

to join the offensive, and the North Vietnamese had already brought troops in 

from as far away as Khe Sanh to fight for the imperial capital. Upon the advice 

of Abrams and Cushman, General Westmoreland decided to establish a full 

Army brigade at Phu Bai. From III Corps he brought in the headquarters of 

the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, and its 2d Battalion, 327th Infantry. 

Once on the ground, the brigade commander, Col. John W. Collins III, took 

control of his 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry, which had come to Phu Bai a 

week earlier, as well as the 2d Battalion, 505th Infantry, a unit from the 3d 

Brigade, 82d Airborne Division, that had just arrived from the United States. 

Westmoreland also ordered the 3d Squadron, 5th Cavalry, minus one troop, 

to be detached from the 9th Infantry Division in eastern III Corps so it could 

move to Thua Thien Province as soon as possible. With Army units moving 

into place to defend the Phu Bai sector, General LaHue and Task Force X-Ray

could concentrate their full attention on the battle for the Citadel.66

63 AAR, Opn Jeb Stuart, 1st Cav Div, p. 4, p. 1, tab G, and p. 5, Encl 5; Rpt, 101st Abn Div, 

29 Dec 68, p. 2. 64 Msg, Abrams PHB 087 to Cushman, 16 Feb 68, p. 2, Westmoreland Msg files, CMH.

65 ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, XXIV Corps, Vietnam, 4 Jun 68, p. 2, box 67, ORLLs, 1966–1971, 

Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP; AAR, Opn Jeb Stuart, 1st Cav Div, tab V, p. 2. 66 AAR, Opn Hue City, 1st Bde, 101st Abn Div, 23 Mar 68, pp. 1–2, box 4, AARs, 1965–

1971, Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP; Msgs, Abrams PHB 099 to Westmoreland, 

17 Feb 68; Westmoreland MAC 02241 to Sharp, 17 Feb 68. Both in Westmoreland Msg files, 

CMH.
419

Fighting in the Northern Provinces

Back at Camp Evans, the situation was finally beginning to improve for 

Campbell’s 3d Brigade. On 15 February, the number of daily supply convoys 

shuttling between Dong Ha and Camp Evans increased from one to three. 

Four days later, the colonel received some much-needed manpower. General 

Tolson released the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, from base defense duties at 

Camp Evans, while Campbell also gained control over the 2d Battalion, 501st 

Infantry. He now had a total of four battalions he could use against the enemy 

west of Hue.67

On 20 February, General Abrams directed General Tolson to clear the 

western approaches to Hue, using all the resources at his disposal except those 

essential for the defense of Quang Tri City. The 1st Cavalry Division commander informed Colonel Campbell to proceed with his assault on Thon La 

Chu. Though the weather remained bad, Campbell believed that he finally 

had enough men and supplies to seize Thon Que Chu–Thon La Chu. He also 

hoped that the 10,000 artillery shells and 27 tons of aerial ordnance that had 

pummeled the hamlets during the last week, combined with naval shelling 

from the 6-inch guns of the USS Providence and the 8-inch guns of the USS

Canberra, had begun to tell on the North Vietnamese defenders.68

On 20 February, Campbell moved his battalions into their attack positions. The 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, flew from Camp Evans to Landing Zone

Sally, the small landing zone next to PK–17, and then marched to a jump-off 

point just west of Thon Que Chu–Thon La Chu. On its right flank was the 

2d Battalion, 501st Infantry, which had spent the morning clearing the village 

of Thon Trung for a second time after an enemy company had moved back 

in. Meanwhile, in the hamlet of Thon Lieu Coc Thuong, the 5th Battalion, 

7th Cavalry, prepared for its fourth assault against the far woods. During the 

preceding week, the battalion had held a series of training exercises to teach 

the soldiers how to use demolitions to dislodge the enemy from his bunkers 

and hedgerows. Campbell also loaned the battalion a pair of M42s, whose 

twin 40-mm. cannon could provide rapid and accurate supporting fire against 

fortified positions. Finally, the 2d Battalion, 12th Cavalry, sent two companies 

into the valley to circle around the northwest side of Thon Bon Tri and attack 

it from the rear. The colonel resolved to take Thon Que Chu–Thon La Chu 

early the next morning.69

Stalemate in the Citadel: 11–20 February

As the 3d Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division became more deeply 

embroiled in the fighting to the west of Hue, the Marine units from Task Force 

X-Ray plunged into the battle for the Citadel (see Map 37). After Colonel 

67 AAR, Opn Jeb Stuart, 3d Bde, 1st Cav Div, Encl 1, p. 3. 68 Msg, Abrams PHB 128 to Tolson, 20 Feb 68, p. 1, Westmoreland Msg files, CMH; Monthly 

Sum, MACV, Feb 1968, pp. 49–51, Historians files, CMH; AAR, Battalion attack, 5th Bn, 7th 

Cav, 14th Mil Hist Det, p. 5. 69 AAR, Opn Jeb Stuart, 1st Cav Div, tab E, p. 2.
Staying the Course

420

Hughes from the 1st Marines declared that major enemy resistance had ended 

in southern Hue on 10 February, General LaHue ordered the 1st Battalion, 

5th Marines, to travel from Phu Bai to the Mang Ca compound to join the 

South Vietnamese clearing operation in the Citadel. Westmoreland covered 

the departure of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, with the 1st Battalion, 327th 

Infantry, a unit from the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, that he released 

from III Corps. The marines could call on four 155-mm. howitzers that were 

based at Landing Zone El Paso, a battery of 105-mm. howitzers in southern 

Hue, and a pair of 4.2-inch mortars in the Hue stadium a short distance east 

of the advisory compound. The latter weapons were capable of firing tear gas 

canisters as well as high-explosive rounds. The utility of the heavy ordnance 

was nevertheless limited by the South Vietnamese high command’s decision 

to limit artillery fire inside the Citadel due to the damage large-caliber shells 

would inflict on civilians and the city’s historic architecture. The success of 

the Marine effort would therefore depend on the bravery and skill of a few 

hundred riflemen.70

On 11 February, a day after South Vietnamese troops swept the last surviving Communists from the neighborhoods around the Tay Loc airfield, U.S. 

helicopters landed there with a company from the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines. 

Another company from the 5th Marines and five Marine tanks also arrived at 

the Mang Ca compound by boat. Later in the day, helicopters began bringing in South Vietnamese Marine Task Force Alpha, which had spent the last 

twelve days fighting in Saigon, to replace the battered 1st Airborne Task 

Force. The weather turned nasty in the afternoon, however, and only the headquarters and one company of the Vietnamese marines made it into the city 

before clouds and rain grounded the helicopters. Two days would pass until 

the weather permitted the airlift to resume. 

On 13 February, the commander of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, Maj. 

Robert H. Thompson, his staff, and a reinforced company boarded a landing 

craft on the south bank of the Perfume River and traveled to the Mang Ca 

compound. Snipers and mortar crews did their best to hit the vessels, each 

dangerously laden with fuel and ammunition, but the boats made it safely to 

their destination. Once at the 1st Division compound, Thompson reviewed the 

tactical situation with General Truong. The major proposed that his marines 

relieve the South Vietnamese paratroopers in the eastern half of the Citadel 

and then attack toward the southeastern wall the following morning. 

General Truong, relieved to see U.S. troops in the Citadel at last, agreed 

to the plan. But what he either did not know or failed to tell Major Thompson 

was that the South Vietnamese 1st Airborne Task Force had already pulled 

out of its sector and left for Saigon. Consequently, when three companies of 

Thompson’s battalion moved toward their jump-off line in the eastern quarter of the city on the morning of 13 February, the two units that were leading 

the way collided with an equally large force of North Vietnamese who had 

quietly reclaimed several residential blocks that had been under the control 

of the South Vietnamese paratroopers. Thirty-five men from Company A, 

70 Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, p. 194.
Map 37

5 416

PAVN

I I

24 6

PAVN

I I 325C

PAVN

III

324B

PAVN

III

XXX

B4

PAVN

6

PAVN

III

4 818

PAVN

I I

4 815

PAVN

I I

4 804

PAVN

I I

810

PLAF

I I

12

I I

SAPPERS

PLAF

1

I I

SAPPERS

PLAF

2

I I

SAPPERS

PLAF

1st Division

Training Center

Nam Giao Engineer Camp

Tam Thai

Cavalry Camp

MACV Compound

1st ARVN Division

Headquarters

Song Huong

Song Sau

Song Huong

Song Dai Giang

1

1

1

547

551

549

550

N ui Nha Nhan

Gia Hoi Island

Aireld

Huu Gate

Bach Ho Bridge

Nguyen Hoang

Bridge

An Cuu Bridge

Tu Dam Pagoda

An Hoa Bridge

An Hoa Gate

Chanh Tay Gate

Dong Ba Gate

Imperial Palace

Provincial Headquarters

Thon Luong Quan

Thon Lieu Coc Thuong

Thon Phu O

Thon Que Chu

Thon La Chu

Thon Bon Tri

HUE

BAT TLE OF HUE

ENEMY AT TACK

11–20 February 1968

0

0 2 1 Kilometers

Miles 2 1

Enemy Axis of AttackMilitary Installation

0 100 200 and Above

ELEVATION IN METERS
Staying the Course

422

more than a third of its total strength, were killed or wounded in the first few 

minutes of contact.71

Thompson immediately sent in his reserve company and two M48 tanks, 

which allowed the shaken troops from Company A to regroup and then continue the fight. The marines managed to advance only a block or two that day, 

a story repeated during the next few days as North Vietnamese opposition 

showed no signs of weakening. 

On the other side of the city, the South Vietnamese marines were having 

an equally hard time retaking the area southwest of the Imperial Palace. They 

advanced only 400 meters during the next two days, partly because the enemy 

had turned every house into a stronghold and dotted every yard with fighting 

pits, and partly because the marines lacked heavy weapons, particularly the 

106-mm. recoilless rifles that were proving so useful to the Americans. 

Meanwhile, Thompson’s 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, continued to grind 

ahead in the eastern sector of the city. On the fifteenth, after a round of artillery, naval gunfire, and air strikes wore down a key strong point on the eastern wall that anchored the enemy’s right flank, Thompson’s marines finally 

resumed their progress. By this point in the battle, the Americans had become 

skillful street fighters and could distinguish which structures on a block were 

71 Ibid., p. 199.

Men of Company L, 3d Battalion, 5th Marines, use walls and buildings as 

cover to advance in Hue.
423

Fighting in the Northern Provinces

keys to breaking the enemy’s front line. Supported by mortars, tanks, and 

recoilless rifles, and sometimes employing riot control agents that required 

them to wear gas masks, the marines darted forward in small groups to clear 

each room and building one at a time. Hour by hour Thompson’s marines 

kept moving forward, but only slowly and at great cost. After two more days 

of bitter fighting with little territory gained, Major Thompson called a temporary halt on 17 February. For the next few days, his weary marines concentrated on building up their nearly exhausted supplies and on organizing 

themselves for the next attack.72

The Final Push: 20–25 February

On the afternoon of 20 February, Major Thompson hatched a plan to 

break the enemy’s last line of defense on the eastern side of the city. Three 

hours after midnight, select groups of marines crept into no-man’s-land. Each 

headed for a building that had proven vital to the enemy’s defense. To the 

marines’ surprise, they found all three buildings virtually undefended. The 

Communists, it appeared, quietly pulled back from their frontline positions 

after dark each night to rest. When the enemy came walking back from the 

direction of the southeastern wall just before first light, the marines shot over 

a dozen North Vietnamese soldiers before they realized that their position was 

threatened. The 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, moved forward to consolidate the 

gain, and by the end of the twenty-first the U.S. troops had pressed to within 

one hundred meters of the southeastern wall.73

As U.S. and South Vietnamese marines entered the final phase of the 

battle in the Citadel, General Lam released the South Vietnamese 21st and 

the 39th Ranger Battalions from I Corps reserve to clear out the Viet Cong 

that still occupied a string of hamlets along the Perfume River immediately 

to the east. Once the South Vietnamese rangers arrived, the U.S. Navy landing craft that ferried troops and supplies from the boat ramp near the advisory compound and the Mang Ca compound upriver faced substantially less 

hostile fire than before.74

To the west of Hue, Colonel Campbell’s 3d Brigade engineered a breakthrough of its own around the time that Thompson’s 1st Battalion began its 

final push to the wall. Shortly before dawn on 21 February, Campbell launched 

a three-battalion attack against Thon Que Chu–Thon La Chu after a brief but 

intense bombardment. The 5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry, hit the same spot in the 

wood line that it had briefly penetrated three times before. The 1st Battalion, 

7th Cavalry, assaulted Thon La Chu from the west as did the 2d Battalion, 

72 Ibid., p. 201; AAR, Battle of Hue, Advisory Teams 3 and 4, n.d., p. 8, box 1, Organizational 

Hist, 101st Abn Div, Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 73 Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, p. 207. 74 Interv, Peyton with Maj Jack D. Woodall, Senior Adviser to South Vietnamese 1st Ranger 

Gp, Capt Donald S. Roe, Senior Adviser to South Vietnamese 21st Ranger Bn, and Capt 

Kenneth R. Johnston, Senior Adviser to the South Vietnamese 39th Ranger Bn, 11 Mar 68, 

VNIT 201, CMH.
Staying the Course

424

501st Infantry, on its right flank. Applying the lessons they had learned from 

earlier attempts to storm the woods, the Americans employed smoke canisters 

to obscure the enemy’s vision and 40-mm. cannon fire to destroy individual 

strong points. Low-flying scout helicopters also proved useful by spraying 

bunkers from the rear and trenches from above where they were more vulnerable. Putting their newly learned demolitions expertise to use, the soldiers of 

the 5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry, used ten-pound shaped charges mounted on 

poles to destroy several bunkers at the edge of the tree line that had caused 

them great trouble in the past. When the three battalions breached the outer 

line and plunged into Thon Que Chu and Thon La Chu, they came to grips 

with a regiment or more of North Vietnamese soldiers in a swirling, closerange battle that lasted most of the day.

The Communists began a fighting withdrawal from the hamlets at around 

1700, moving east toward the wooded settlements that clustered near the 

southwestern wall of the Citadel, three kilometers away, where allied troops 

had yet to venture. Three of the U.S. battalions pursued the fleeing enemy 

while the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, remained in Thon La Chu to search for 

stragglers and documents. In the fighting that day, the enemy had lost eightynine killed and two captured. Friendly casualties were four killed and seventyseven wounded. One prisoner later told his interrogators that the village had 

contained almost 1,000 North Vietnamese regulars at the time of the attack. 

While some of the enemy units, such as the 416th Battalion, 5th Regiment, had 

been there since the start of the battle, others, such as the 7th Battalion and 

the regimental headquarters of the 90th Regiment, 324B Division, had arrived 

in Thon La Chu only a few days earlier after a forced march from Khe Sanh.75

Around the same time that Campbell’s battalions struck Thon Que Chu 

and Thon La Chu on the morning of 21 February, two companies of the 2d 

Battalion, 12th Cavalry, maneuvered around Thon Bon Tri and attacked it 

from the northwest. Colonel Sweet’s men encountered only light resistance 

because most of the North Vietnamese soldiers were in the southern part of 

the hamlet, manning the trenches that faced Nha Nhan. Capitalizing on the 

surprise they had achieved, the two cavalry companies hit the enemy from 

behind. The North Vietnamese fought back stubbornly for most of the day, 

but once darkness set in they withdrew east toward the hamlets that lay along 

the Perfume River near the southwestern corner of the Citadel. Colonel Sweet 

resolved to pursue them at first light. 

On the morning of 22 February, the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, remained 

in Thon Que Chu–Thon La Chu to mop up pockets of resistance, while the 

remaining units under 3d Brigade control began marching toward the Citadel. 

They advanced along parallel tracks, with the 5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry, 

following the course of Highway 1; the 2d Battalion, 501st Infantry, searching the central route; and the 2d Battalion, 12th Cavalry, sweeping the area 

75 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 2-68, 1st Cav Div, 1–29 Feb 68, 29 Feb 68, p. 12, Historians files, 

CMH; Rpt, 2d Bn, 12th Cav, 1st Cav Div, n.d., sub: Battle of Hue, p. 8, Historians files, CMH; 

AAR, Battalion attack, 5th Bn, 7th Cav, 14th Mil Hist Det, p. 6; Trinh, 1968 Tet Offensive and 

Uprising in the Tri-Thien-Hue Theater, p. 40.
425

Fighting in the Northern Provinces

to the south. At first, the three battalions encountered only a smattering of 

North Vietnamese soldiers, most of whom appeared to have gotten cut off 

from their units. In midmorning, however, the 5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry, came 

under heavy fire from an estimated company of North Vietnamese who had 

occupied the hamlet of Thon An near the northwestern tip of the Citadel. 

Colonel Vaught called in helicopter gunships and artillery, while the pair of 

Dusters attached to his unit systematically leveled any structure that appeared 

to be serving as a strong point. The supporting fire went on all day, but the 

Communist troops did not abandon their positions. With darkness approaching, Vaught paused the attack until the following morning.

Meanwhile, several kilometers to the south, the 2d Battalion, 12th Cavalry, 

made contact with another force of well-organized North Vietnamese soldiers 

just before noon. Several companies of enemy troops armed with mortars, 

machine guns, recoilless rifles, and rocket-propelled grenades were strongly 

entrenched along the south side of the Sau Canal, a deep waterway that ran 

toward the Citadel perpendicular to the Perfume River, forming a triangle 

of land roughly three kilometers wide and less than one kilometer long that 

was heavily wooded and contained several hamlets. As the firefight grew, the 

2d Battalion, 501st Infantry, about a kilometer to the north, began moving 

toward the canal. As the paratroopers passed through a hamlet along the way, 

they discovered the bodies of at least thirty civilians whom the Communists 

had murdered. Many of those slain had been bound and shot while others 

had been dismembered. Continuing their march, the soldiers from the 2d 

Battalion, 501st Infantry, moved onto the left flank of the cavalrymen and 

attacked the North Vietnamese troops defending the canal. The enemy held 

firm until darkness forced the U.S. battalions to call off the attack.76

By 22 February, the area of the Citadel still controlled by the enemy had 

shrunk to the grounds of the Imperial Palace and the southwestern corner of 

the old city. With the allies closing in on all sides, the Hue City Front ordered 

its troops to retreat through the western wall while they still could.77

U.S. soldiers cleaned up the remnants of enemy forces that were still at 

large north of the Citadel on 23 February. That morning, one company from 

the 5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry, boarded helicopters and flew to the Hue docks 

near the Mang Ca compound where it joined a platoon of armored personnel carriers from Troop A of the 3d Squadron, 5th Cavalry, on loan from the 

9th Infantry Division. The greater part of the 5th Cavalry had just arrived in 

the Phu Bai–Hue region after redeploying from eastern III Corps to northern 

I Corps via the port of Vung Tau. The mechanized task force swept along 

the northwestern wall toward the An Hoa Bridge, flushing out Communist 

soldiers who had taken refuge in the grasses and weeds. Meanwhile, two 

kilometers to the northwest, the remainder of the 5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry, 

resumed its advance toward Thon An. The cavalrymen fought their way into 

76 AAR, Opn Jeb Stuart, 3d Bde, 1st Cav Div, p. 4, Encl 1; Rpt, 14th Mil Hist Det, 10 Mar 

68, sub: Battle of Hue, p. 6, tab C, Historians files, CMH; AAR, Opn Jeb Stuart, 1st Cav Div. 77 Intel Rpt, DoD, no. 6027541968, 16 Sep 68, p. 47; Rpt, 14th Mil Hist Det, 10 Mar 68, p. 

10; Interv, Peyton with Woodall, Roe, and Johnston, 11 Mar 68.
Staying the Course

426

the enemy-occupied hamlet and found beneath its shattered remains a honeycomb with bunkers capable of withstanding all but the heaviest bombardment. The troopers spent the rest of the day searching the ruins for survivors 

and combing through the adjacent cemetery where the 806th Battalion had 

ambushed the South Vietnamese 7th Airborne Battalion on 31 January.78

Meanwhile, on the twenty-third, the 2d Battalion, 12th Cavalry, and the 

2d Battalion, 501st Infantry, resumed their battle with the enemy force that 

was dug into the south side of the Sau Canal. The presence of civilians sometimes led the allies to restrict their use of artillery. Whenever possible, forward 

observers brought howitzer fire down on the North Vietnamese bunkers and 

trenches that lined the canal, but sometimes those positions were too close 

to U.S. lines for safety. Based on the intensity of enemy fire, the Communists 

appeared to have large reserves of ammunition for their machine guns, recoilless rifles, and mortars. The Sau Canal also presented a formidable physical 

barrier to any attack the Americans might contemplate. For the moment, 

Campbell’s two battalions were stymied. 

The battle in the Citadel came to a symbolic end just before dawn on 24 

February when South Vietnamese soldiers recaptured the southern gate and 

hauled down the massive Viet Cong flag that had flown over it since the start 

of the battle. In midmorning, the Hac Bao Company and an infantry bat78 AAR, Battalion Attack, 5th Bn, 7th Cav, 14th Mil Hist Det, p. 7.

Troops of the 1st Cavalry Division approach the Hue Citadel.
427

Fighting in the Northern Provinces

talion from the 3d Regiment made a final sweep of the Imperial Palace and 

overcame the few North Vietnamese soldiers who were still capable of resisting. Meanwhile, the South Vietnamese Marine task force retook most of the 

southwestern wall. By nightfall, only the extreme southwestern corner of the 

Citadel remained in enemy hands. 

West of the Citadel that same morning, the 2d Battalion, 12th Cavalry, 

tried to fight its way across the Sau Canal and through several layers of North 

Vietnamese fortifications. The cavalrymen had little room to maneuver on the 

congested battlefield and frequently faced fire from several directions at once. 

Colonel Sweet decided to pull his men back across the canal so artillery and 

mortars could further soften up the Communist positions. He resumed the 

attack later that day with support from the 2d Battalion, 501st Infantry, but 

got no better results. The nearly fanatical resistance that the Americans faced 

probably had something to do with the fact that the North Vietnamese were in 

the midst of withdrawing the last of their troops from the Citadel. Like water 

rushing out of a hole in the bottom of a bucket, the North Vietnamese forces 

drained out of the Citadel directly into the Sau enclave. That gave the enemy 

an incentive to hold the line at the edge of the canal and significantly increased 

the number of soldiers he had to defend it. 

Also on the twenty-fourth, the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, finished its work 

in Thon La Chu and headed east toward Highway 1. After clearing out several pockets of resistance along the way with the help of helicopter gunships 

and artillery, it camped in a graveyard about a kilometer from the Citadel. 

That night, the battalion observed enemy soldiers marching away from Hue 

to the north and to the west. Forward observers called in artillery strikes, killing an unknown number of the retreating Communists. A machine gunner in 

Company A of the 2d Battalion, 12th Cavalry, Sp4c. George J. Patterson Jr., 

recalled finding thousands of enemy footprints the next day that reminded 

him of the markings left by a cattle stampede.79

The allies crushed the last organized resistance in the Citadel on 25 

February. Just east of the old city, the South Vietnamese 21st and 39th Ranger 

Battalions finished a three-day sweep of Gia Hoi Island that netted hundreds 

of Communist cadre, many of whom turned out to be university students. 

According to local residents, those students had played a key role in rounding up government officials and others the enemy regarded as threats to their 

regime. West of the Citadel, the 2d Battalion, 12th Cavalry, organized another 

assault on the Sau enclave only to discover that the enemy had slipped away 

during the night. Colonel Sweet’s men found an abandoned regimental field 

hospital and many fresh graves near the canal with piles of discarded equipment heaped nearby.80

79 AAR, Opn Jeb Stuart, 3d Bde, 1st Cav Div, p. 5, Encl 1; Rpt, 14th Mil Hist Det, 10 Mar 

68, p. 7; Annual Hist Sum, 1968, 2d Bn , 12th Cav, n.d., p. 13, box 1, Organizational Hist, 2d Bn, 

12th Cav, 1st Cav Div, Cav Units, USARV, RG 472, NACP; Rpt, 14th Mil Hist Det, 10 Mar 68, 

p. 11; Interv, author with George Patterson Jr., 22 Mar 05, Historians files, CMH. 80 Annual Hist Sum, 1968, 2d Bn, 12th Cav, n.d., p. 13; Rpt, 45th Mil Hist Det, 19 Mar 68, 

sub: Battle of Hue, p. 2, Encl 9, Historians files, CMH.
Staying the Course

428

Aftermath

On 26 February, President Thieu flew from Saigon to Hue to congratulate 

General Truong and his men. The month-long battle for Hue had been the 

most sustained and ferocious engagement of the war to date. A total of 142 

U.S. marines had died in the fighting for Hue and another 1,100 or so had 

been wounded. The South Vietnamese Army lost 333 men killed and 1,773 

wounded and the Vietnamese marines another 88 killed and 350 wounded. 

The 1st Cavalry Division reported losses of 68 killed and 453 wounded, while 

the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, listed its casualties as 6 dead and 56 

wounded.81

The residents of Hue had also paid a steep price. More than 4,000 civilians 

had lost their lives during the 25-day battle, most at the hands of the enemy. 

Viet Cong cadre had executed hundreds of government officials, while North 

Vietnamese soldiers during their retreat from the city had killed an even greater 

number of civilians that they had forced to work for them as porters. Months 

after the battle ended, South Vietnamese officials discovered a number of mass 

graves to the south and west of Hue where the enemy had buried nearly 3,000 

civilians they had killed in the final stages of the battle. Some of the dead had 

their hands and feet tied, and many showed signs of having been shot at close 

range. At least 600 had been buried alive. The North Vietnamese never publicly 

admitted to killing more than a small number of civilians, blaming most of the 

deaths instead on the allies or on collateral damage from the battle. However, 

a captured document from April 1968 admitted to the “elimination” of nearly 

3,000 “tyrants and puppet administrative personnel.” Not all Communist 

officials were pleased that the executions had taken place. According to one 

captured document, some cadres in Thua Thien Province felt that the mass 

killings had been inconsistent with Viet Cong policy.82

The South Vietnamese armed forces had performed well during the 

battle. The Hac Bao Company, the 3d Regiment of the South Vietnamese 1st 

Infantry Division, and the paratroopers of the South Vietnamese 1st Airborne 

Task Force had fought with exceptional skill and valor. Often fighting without 

direct U.S. assistance, they had bested their North Vietnamese opponents in a 

prolonged, close-range battle. The 1st Division’s command and control system 

had also proved to be excellent, due in no small part to General Truong’s 

leadership.83

For the enemy, Hue had been his most successful operation of the Tet 

offensive. He had nearly overran one of South Vietnam’s largest and most 

81 Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, p. 213. 82 Intel Rpt, DOD, no. 6027448568, 29 May 68, pp. 6, 9; Quoted words from Intel Bull, 

CDEC, no. 11791, 26 Apr 68, p. 2, box 154, NSF-Vietnam Country Files, LBJL; “The Rebirth 

of Hue,” p. 2. 83 Memo, Col Jack T. Pink, Sec, Joint Staff, MACV, for George D. Jacobson, Mission 

Coordinator, U.S. Embassy, 31 Mar 68, sub: Updates of TET Offensive Evaluations, p. 1, Encl 

1, Historians files, CMH; Memo, Brig Gen Harris W. Hollis, Director of Opns, MACV, for 

Army Ch of Staff, 25 Mar 68, sub: Performance of ARVN during Battle of Hue, p. 8, Historians 

files, CMH.
429

Fighting in the Northern Provinces

culturally important cities in a matter of hours and had established a revolutionary government there that had lasted for almost a month. By hanging 

onto the city for twenty-five days, the enemy had been able to keep the Tet 

offensive alive in the U.S. media weeks after the fighting had ended elsewhere 

in the country.84

The offensive had also sorely tested the U.S. logistic and command 

arrangements in northern I Corps, hitting III Marine Amphibious Force when 

it was still shuffling units and working on infrastructure upgrades to support 

the 1st Cavalry Division. General Cushman’s headquarters had not had time 

to sort out the various problems that came from integrating Marine operations and supply requirements with an Army airmobile division. Task Force 

X-Ray, the provisional command that Cushman had created as a stop-gap 

measure to defend the supply line between Hue and Da Nang, had not had the 

resources or authority to control the fighting at Hue once that battle started. 

For the first ten days of the battle, the marines in southern Hue and the 3d 

Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, west of Hue had operated with little coordination, and the U.S. forces likewise had achieved little coordination with the 

South Vietnamese. General Westmoreland had resolved those problems by 

sending his deputy to take charge of the battle, but it had taken more than a 

week to get a new command post with all the necessary signal equipment up 

84 AAR, Battle of Hue, Advisory Teams 3 and 4, p. 11; AAR, Battle of Hue, 1st Inf Div 

Advisory Det, Advisory Team 3, p. 3; Intel Rpt, DOD, no. 6027448568, 29 May 68, pp. 4–6. 

An aerial of the city of Hue in ruins
Staying the Course

430

and running at Phu Bai, using personnel borrowed from MACV headquarters 

in Saigon and from the 1st Signal Brigade.85

No one at MACV or III Marine Amphibious Force had anticipated the 

scope of the enemy offensive, and therefore had not anticipated the possibility 

that Highway 1 would be closed for an extended period between Da Nang 

and the U.S. bases in Thua Thien and Quang Tri Provinces. Isolated from his 

main source of supply, Colonel Campbell could not bring the full weight of his 

3d Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, to bear on the fight until the situation had 

improved in the middle of February. Likewise, Westmoreland had been able to 

bring additional units into the fight only on a piecemeal basis, as dictated by 

the supply situation. 

Fortunately for the allies, the fleet of U.S. Air Force transport aircraft, 

reinforced by Army and Marine helicopters and supplemented by cargo vessels coming up the Perfume River, had been able to bring in enough supplies to 

keep Campbell’s brigade and Task Force X-Ray fighting. In February, C–130 

aircraft had made over 1,000 landings at Phu Bai, and another 350 sorties 

to Quang Tri City and Dong Ha. The C–130s had also moved several South 

Vietnamese airborne battalions from Saigon to Phu Bai, plus the 1st Brigade, 

101st Airborne Division, in late February. All told, the U.S. Seventh Air Force 

reported that it had transported 36,000 tons of cargo to I Corps that month, a 

50 percent increase over the average monthly tonnage and amounting to onethird of the countrywide workload in February.86

Despite the enemy’s accomplishments, he had paid a dear price for his 

nearly month-long occupation of Hue. Allied estimates of the number of 

enemy killed ranged from between 2,500 and 5,000. The 4th, 5th, and 6th 

Regiments had taken heavy losses, with some battalions reduced to approximately 100 men out of an original force of nearly 400. Other units that had 

arrived later in the battle were only marginally better off. The enemy would 

need several months to rest and reconstitute his units before they were once 

again combat ready. The battering the Communists took in Hue also exacted a 

psychological toll. According to captured documents, many soldiers in the 6th 

Regiment became reluctant to operate in the lowlands in the months following 

Tet.87

Ironically, the siege of Khe Sanh, which the enemy hoped would draw 

allied forces away from South Vietnam’s cities, ended up backfiring on him. 

The growing danger to the Marine base had so alarmed Westmoreland that he 

had rushed the 1st Cavalry Division to northern I Corps a full month ahead of 

schedule. But instead of sending it out to Khe Sanh, he had put the division in 

the lowlands where it could best respond to enemy initiatives. The cavalry had 

arrived just in time to save Quang Tri City and to help drive the enemy from 

Hue. The North Vietnamese miscalculation had cost them dearly, robbing 

them of their best chance for an outright military victory in the Tet campaign. 

85 Msg, Westmoreland MAC 02452 to Sharp, 21 Feb 68, p. 1, Westmoreland Msg files, CMH.

86 Bowers, Tactical Airlift, pp. 326–28. 87 Intel Bull, CDEC, no. 15873, 27 Aug 68, sub: 6th NVA Regt, Tri-Thien-Hue MR, p. 2, box 

41, CDEC Bulls, Asst Ch of Staff, J–2, MACV, RG 472, NACP.
431

Fighting in the Northern Provinces

Nonetheless, the allies knew how close they had come to disaster in both cases, 

and as the mopping-up operations got under way around Quang Tri City and 

Hue, Abrams and his staff at MACV Forward began planning a new set of 

operations that would make it difficult if not impossible for the enemy to ever 

set foot in those cities again.

Part Three

Thrust and Parry

13

Reverberations

The explosion that ripped through South Vietnam during the 1968 Tet 

holidays was the single most important event of the Vietnam War. 

Planned by the Communists and foreseen but underestimated by the allies, 

everyone recognized the offensive as a transformational moment. But what 

would the effects be? During the weeks that followed the initial attacks, the 

three primary combatants pored over reports to understand what had happened and to decide what to do next.

The Communist Perspective 

From the moment the first gun sounded, the government in Hanoi adopted 

an unrelentingly positive tone in public. The Lao Dong Party’s official newspaper declared that “the once-in-a-thousand year opportunity has come. The 

bugle has sounded victory,” and every other government organ followed suit. 

Privately, however, Communist officials were less sanguine, for they realized 

that Le Duan’s bid to bring the war to a quick and successful conclusion had 

failed. After making the obligatory triumphal posturing, COSVN headquarters acknowledged that “we have been guilty of many errors and shortcomings.” Militarily, the Communists had failed to capture many key objectives, 

had not held on to the areas that they had succeeded in capturing, and had 

not eliminated any major allied units. South Vietnamese formations had not 

dissolved in a mass of defections as anticipated, Communist command and 

control had been poor, and the morale of Communist soldiers was flagging 

as a result of the reversals. Most importantly, the attack had not brought the 

Thieu government to its knees.1

1

 Quote from James H. Willbanks, The Tet Offensive, A Concise History (New York: Columbia 

University Press, 2006), p. 152. Circular from Central Office of South Vietnam (COSVN) 

Current Affairs Committee and Mil Affairs Committee of South Vietnam Liberation Army HQ 

Concerning a Preliminary Assessment of the Situation, 31 Jan 68, in Vietnam: The Definitive 

Documentation of Human Decisions, 2 vols., Gareth Porter, ed. (Standfordville, N.Y.: E. M. 

Coleman Enterprises, 1979), 2:486 (second quote); Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, Hanoi’s War: An 

International History of the War for Peace in Vietnam (Raleigh: University of North Carolina 

Press, 2012), pp. 11–12; Military History Institute of Vietnam, Victory in Vietnam, vol. 2, pp. 

ix, 224; Cosmas, Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973, pp. 59, 65. See also synopses of captured 

COSVN and MR5 documents in Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 02701 to Sharp, 26 Feb 68; and 

Westmoreland MAC 02063 to Wheeler, et al., 13 Feb 68. Both in Creighton W. Abrams Papers, 

CMH, and Bfg, MACV, J–2 Strategy Assessment, p. 2, Encl 3 to MFR, MACV, 5 Apr 68, sub: 

MACV Commander’s Conference, 31 Mar 68, Historians files, CMH. 
Staying the Course

436

Compounding the inability of the Communists to achieve their objectives 

was the human cost of the failure. Both publically and privately, Communist 

officials found the question of losses too delicate to address. Even decades 

after the war, the official military history published by the Communist government of Vietnam made no mention of the causalities the Communists suffered during Tet. This reticence did not apply to the allies, as the history gleefully claimed that the Communists had “killed or dispersed 150,000 enemy 

soldiers, including 43,000 Americans,” destroying 2,370 aircraft and 1,700 

armored vehicles in the process.2

The allied accounting—while undoubtedly inexact—was far more realistic 

and sobering for Hanoi’s leadership. MACV estimated that the Communists 

had committed 124,000 troops to the Tet offensive—84,000 in the initial 

battles of 30–31 January, plus another 40,000 over the next several weeks. 

These had suffered mightily. During February 1968, the allies had killed 

about 50,000 enemy personnel. Of this number, 40,000 had been soldiers and 

10,000 had been individuals not carried on MACV’s roster of enemy military 

units. MACV arbitrarily evenly divided the latter category into two groups—

members of the infrastructure and civilians who, either willingly or not, had 

served the enemy as guides, auxiliaries, or laborers. To the dead were added 

thousands more who either had surrendered, been captured, or who had 

been detained as suspects. The number of enemy wounded was unknown, 

but MACV postulated that 14,000 enemy personnel had been hurt seriously 

enough to have either died or been permanently incapacitated. In contrast, 

the command reported 7,277 allied military dead—5,025 Vietnamese, 2,105 

Americans, and 147 from the other Free World forces.3

Equally hard to swallow for Hanoi’s leaders was the fact that their plan for 

a national uprising had fizzled. “We failed to motivate the people to stage uprisings and break the enemy’s oppressive control,” admitted COSVN, a fact that 

2

 Military History Institute of Vietnam, Victory in Vietnam, vol. 2, pp. 223, 467 (nn. 22 and 

23); Son, ed., Viet Cong “Tet” Offensive (1968), pp. 475–81. 3

 Definitive numbers are always hard to come by, and those related to Tet are no exception. 

In addition to the usual issues of incomplete information, varying parameters, and diverse 

accounting methods are added difficulties caused by the sheer size of Tet. The numbers 

presented here are derived from Rpt, Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense (OASD), 

Comptroller (Systems Policy and Information), Directorate of Information Opns, Southeast 

Asia Statistical Sum, 5 Dec 73, tables 2, 6; and Rpt, OASD, Systems Analysis (Southeast Asia 

Programs), Statistical Tables through Oct 1968, n.d., tables 1C, 2B, 2C, 2E. Both in Historians 

files, CMH. See also, Rpt, MACV, 6 Mar 68, sub: Enemy Losses for the period 291800 hrs 

Jan 68 to 052400 hrs March 68, pp. 1–2, document 12, Westmoreland History files, CMH; 

Rpt, General Earle G. Wheeler, 27 Feb 68, sub: Report of Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, 

on Situation in Vietnam and MACV Force Requirements, p. 3, document 4a, Vietnam 2H (1) 

1/68-2/68 Strategic Reconsiderations after Tet, box 75 (2 of 2), NSF-Vietnam Country Files, 

LBJL; Son, ed., Viet Cong “Tet” Offensive (1968), pp. 41, 55–56; Phillip B. Davidson, Secrets 

of the Vietnam War (Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1990), pp. 83–84. An additional 1,100 

South Vietnamese military personnel were listed as missing. American wounded for February 

totaled 9,464, of whom about 5,000 required hospital care. South Vietnamese and third nation 

soldiers requiring hospitalization in February came to 11,451 and 147, respectively. Rpt, OASD, 

Comptroller, Southeast Asia Statistical Sum, 5 Dec 73, tables 2, 6. As with enemy casualties, 

sources differ on friendly casualties.
437

Reverberations

Military Region 5 headquarters termed “a big problem.” Once the bullets had 

begun to fly, the populace had found the bomb shelter more appealing than the 

barricades. In a land in which many were tired of war and apathetic about the 

outcome, fear and indifference easily trumped ideology. The Communists had 

certainly gained in the short run by demonstrating that no place was beyond 

their reach. They had also gained when some civilians blamed the government 

for the destruction that had been visited on their homes during the fighting. But 

just as many people if not more blamed the Communists for violating the cherished Tet holidays, for creating the situation that had caused the devastation, and 

for the massacre of thousands of civilians at Hue. Even the most talented propagandist could not gloss over that fact that the Communists had not achieved 

their much-publicized objectives. They had called for a mass uprising, and no 

one had bothered to show up.4

Faced with so much bad news, Hanoi’s leaders took solace in three factors. First, although they could not sustain losses indefinitely on the scale 

they had suffered in February, they still had significant reserves in the South 

that they had not committed. To these they were busily adding more men—

regulars sent down from the North’s still substantial army, and southerners 

recruited or impressed from areas where the government’s presence had 

4

 Circular from COSVN, 31 Jan 68, in Porter, Vietnam, p. 486 (quote); Msg, Westmoreland 

MAC 02063 to Wheeler, et al., 13 Feb 68.

An M48A3 tank and its crew from the 4th Infantry Division stand guard in 

front of a destroyed house during the fighting in Pleiku City.
Staying the Course

438

been weakened. The expanded ability to recruit southerners pointed to the 

second reason for optimism—the assault on South Vietnam’s towns and 

cities had forced the Saigon government to withdraw most of its troops 

from the countryside, creating a vacuum the Communists hoped to exploit. 

And third, exploitation was possible because the Communist infrastructure 

had emerged from Tet fairly intact. Located mostly in the countryside away 

from the sites of Tet’s major battles, only a portion of the infrastructure had 

participated in the fighting. If allied estimates that about 5,000 Communist 

cadres had died during Tet was correct, then nearly 80,000 infrastructure 

members remained, ready to fill the vacuum created by the government’s 

withdrawal from the countryside.5

 

All things considered, Le Duan judged that the best course was to forge 

ahead. The Hanoi government instructed its troops to remain as close to the 

cities as possible, creating a physical and mental state of siege that it hoped 

would sap the population’s spirits and relegate allied forces to a defensive 

posture. Militarily, Communist soldiers were to avoid direct confrontations 

with the Americans and to refrain from attacking the major cities, relying 

instead on bombardments and small raids to keep the allies pinned down. 

Smaller provincial and district towns were fair game, however, with COSVN

establishing a goal to render them 80 percent destroyed. Communist units 

were also to target allied air bases, fuel depots, and lines of communications. Meanwhile, the party would exploit the vacuum in the countryside to 

the maximum extent possible, spreading its influence, gathering food and 

recruits, and mobilizing the populace for the still-hoped-for general uprising. 

Last but not least, the North would continue to pump men and resources 

into the South until the Communists had rebuilt their forces sufficiently to 

launch another thrust at the cities. A sense of urgency pervaded all of this, 

for as COSVN headquarters explained, “If in the coming days we fail to 

quickly motivate a large and powerful force of the masses to stand up against 

the enemy in time, and if we fail to concentrate our armed forces to attack 

him continuously, he will certainly recover his strength and counterattack 

us more strongly. Not only will this limit the impact of our victories, it will 

create new difficulties for us.”6

The View from Saigon 

If the forecast for Hanoi’s leaders was overcast, President Thieu gazed 

upon an equally leaden sky. Tet traumatized South Vietnam like no other 

5

 Edwin E. Moise et al., eds., “The Myths of Tet,” in Michael Arthur, New Perspectives on 

the History and Historiography of Southeast Asia (New York: Routledge, 2001), pp. 242, 244. 6

 Military History Institute of Vietnam, Victory in Vietnam, vol. 2, p. 227; Msg, Westmoreland 

MAC 02701 to Sharp, 26 Feb 68; Msg, Westmoreland MAC 02063 to Wheeler, et al., 13 Feb 

68; Circular from COSVN, 31 Jan 68, in Porter, Vietnam, p. 486 (quote); Bfg, MACV, J–2 

Strategy Assessment, pp. 3–4, Encl 3; Memo, COSVN for Sub Region 4, 21 Feb 68, Encl to 

News Release, U.S. Mission Press Center, no. 120-68, 26 Jun 68, sub: COSVN Report Outlines 

Viet Cong “Second Offensive” Tactics, Historians files, CMH.
439

Reverberations

event. The enemy had penetrated the regime’s innermost sanctuaries, making 

a mockery of claims of security, undermining Thieu’s standing with the public, 

and damaging socioeconomic activity. Routine governance had ground to a 

halt, and the populace was filled with dread, not only by what had taken 

place, but also by Communist promises that more was to come. 

In addition to losing several thousand military dead, nearly 14,000 South 

Vietnamese soldiers had been hospitalized for wounds by 5 March. More 

than 10,000 had deserted, although about half of that number had returned 

to the colors. The elite airborne division had suffered particularly heavy 

losses, and at one point fifty-eight battalions were combat ineffective due to 

lack of manpower.7

The urban nature of the fighting had hit the populace unusually hard. 

South Vietnamese authorities put the civilian toll at 14,300 killed, 24,000 

wounded, and 627,000 homeless. Over 72,000 homes had been destroyed. 

CORDS came up with similar casualty statistics but put the damage higher—

over 884,000 refugees, 108,000 houses that either had been destroyed or had 

received at least 50 percent damage, and another 102,000 buildings with less 

than 50 percent damage. The United States estimated that property losses 

exceeded $173 million.8

The countryside, on the other hand, had emerged largely unscathed. 

The Communists had attacked only about fifty hamlets during the opening 

phase of the offensive. Still, some damage had occurred in rural areas. The 

Viet Cong had set fire to some settlements, while the allies had bombed and 

shelled others as they fought to dislodge enemy soldiers.9

 

More devastating to the allied cause in the countryside than the physical 

destruction was the loss of control, as rural security forces had fallen back to 

urban areas. According to MACV’s hamlet evaluation system, the percentage 

of the population living in relative security dropped precipitously as a result 

of Tet—from about 67 percent to 60 percent—representing a reduction from 

the government’s rolls of over 1.3 million people. CORDS Director Komer 

later speculated that the situation was much worse, estimating that the government had lost control of 2.7 million people.10

7

 Memo, JCS for the President, 27 Feb 68, sub: Military Situation and Requirements in 

Vietnam, p. 2, Historians files, CMH. 8

 Son, ed., Viet Cong “Tet” Offensive (1968), p. 56; Rpt, CORDS, 1969, sub: Daily Civilian 

Casualties During Post Tet Offensive, p. 1; Tables, CORDS, Status of Refugees and Cement 

and Roofing, 9 May 68; Rpt, Chairman, JCS, 28 Feb 68, sub: Situation in Vietnam and MACV 

Force Requirements (JCS 2472/237), p. 5, Encl 1 (Intelligence). All in Historians files, CMH. 

Louis A. Wiesner, Victims and Survivors: Displaced Persons and Other War Victims in Viet-nam, 

1954–1975, vol. 14, Contributions to the Study of World History (Westport, Conn: Praeger, 

1988), p. 161. 9

 Msg, Sec of State 120926 to All European Diplomatic Posts, et al., 27 Feb 68, sub: Vietnam 

Situation Report as of 1800 EST, 26 February 1968, pp. 3–4, Historians files, CMH. 10 Rpt, OASD, Systems Analysis (Southeast Asia Programs), Statistical Tables through 

October 1968, n.d., table 5a; Communique, General William C. Westmoreland to Admiral 

Ulysses G. Sharp, 29 Mar 68, sub: Post-Tet Pacification, p. 6; MFR, MACV, 1 Jun 68, sub: 

MACV Commander’s Conference, 19 May 1968, p. 2. All in Historians files, CMH.
Staying the Course

440

Tet did not affect the countryside equally. The damage to the pacification 

program varied significantly from one region, province, district, and village 

to another. Nationwide, Tet had made a serious impact on thirteen of the 

nations’ forty-four provinces. It had a moderate impact on sixteen provinces 

and little to no effect on fifteen provinces. In general, I and IV Corps had 

suffered the worst. In I Corps, the attacks had brought widespread destruction to Revolutionary Development areas in Quang Tri and Thua Thien 

Provinces, while Quang Tin Province had escaped virtually untouched. In IV 

Corps, the fighting had created a large number of refugees for the first time 

in the war. The northeastern tier of delta provinces—Dinh Tuong, Go Cong, 

Kien Hoa, and Vinh Binh—saw particularly high numbers of refugees. Most 

of the outposts lost nationwide to abandonment or hostile action lay in the 

northeastern delta. Rural security had also vanished in the upper delta provinces that bordered Cambodia. In the central delta, the enemy had inflicted 

serious setbacks to the Revolutionary Development programs in Phong Dinh 

and Vinh Long Provinces. The least affected provinces in IV Corps were 

An Giang, dominated by the militantly anti-Communist Hoa Hao sect, and 

Chung Thien, which the enemy had ignored, preferring to use it as a staging 

area for attacks elsewhere in the region.11

11 Msg, Sec of State 120926 to All European Diplomatic Posts, 27 Feb 68, pp. 3–4. For 

somewhat different tabulations of the impact on pacification in the provinces, see Memo, 

Damaged houses in Saigon
441

Reverberations

Compared with the far northern and southern corps zones, central 

Vietnam, as represented by II and III Corps, had suffered far less. The Tet 

offensive most affected II Corps’ pacification programs along the northeastern coast and in the western highlands. Binh Dinh Province, formerly a showplace for progress through most of 1967, became more insecure than it had 

been at any point since the arrival of U.S. forces in early 1966. Its neighbor 

to the south, Phu Yen, was almost as bad. Rural security was likewise almost 

nonexistent in the highland provinces of Kontum, Pleiku, and Darlac. The 

situation on the central and southern coast, on the other hand, was better. 

In the southwest interior, Tuyen Duc Province sustained a major setback, 

while the offensive had largely bypassed the neighboring provinces of Quang 

Duc and Lam Dong. As for III Corps, the Tet offensive had severely damaged pacification in Saigon and in the neighboring provinces of Hau Nghia, 

Binh Duong, and Gia Dinh. Progress had also come to a standstill in Phuoc 

Long and Binh Long Provinces due to the withdrawal of allied forces to more 

populous areas. Pacification sustained moderate to minor setbacks in the 

provinces east of Saigon, while to the west, Tay Ninh, a stronghold of the 

anti-Communist Cao Dai sect, emerged unscathed. Long An Province suffered little for a different reason—most of the local Viet Cong had marched 

on Saigon.12

With the cities aflame and the government’s presence in the countryside 

weakened, President Thieu faced a difficult road ahead. Yet just as Hanoi’s 

leaders found silver linings among the clouds that darkened their horizon, 

Thieu also saw rays of hope. The government, after all, had survived, and 

the populace had spurned the enemy’s call for revolution. True, much of the 

countryside was in jeopardy, but this did not mean that the Communists had 

actually captured the areas vacated by the government, since the enemy, too, 

had focused his efforts on the cities. In fact, the allies maintained that the 

Communists had gained outright control over only 280,000 people as a result 

of Tet. The rest of the people who had fallen off the rolls of the “secured” 

population had become “contested,” with neither side holding an undisputed 

upper hand. If the allies acted with speed and purpose, they could reclaim 

many of the lost areas relatively quickly. Enhancing the prospects of a rapid 

restoration was the fact that the Revolutionary Development teams and the 

other entities most closely associated with pacification had suffered few 

losses thanks to the enemy’s focus on the cities and the withdrawal of most 

pacification personnel to protected areas.13

Mission Coordinator for Members of the Mission Council, 15 Mar 68, sub: U.S. Mission 

Assessment of Current Situation, pp. 2–3. Communique, Westmoreland to Sharp, 29 Mar 68, p. 

3; Memo, CIA, Saigon, for CIA HQ, Langley, 19 Mar 68, sub: Pacification in the Wake of the 

Tet Offensive in South Vietnam, pp. A-1, A-27; Rpt, Lt Col Clarence W. Hannon, I Corps Field 

Evaluator, CORDS, 28 Feb 68, sub: Visit to I Corps Tactical Zone 20–24 February 1968, p. 1. 

All in Historians files, CMH. . 12 Memo, CIA, 19 Mar 68, pp. A-8, A-19.

13 Communique, Westmoreland to Sharp, 29 Mar 68, pp. 2–5; Cosmas, Years of Withdrawal, 

1968–1973, p. 70.
Staying the Course

442

Bright spots appeared on the military front as well. Notwithstanding the 

fact that most units had been seriously understrength due to the Tet holiday, 

South Vietnam’s armed forces had performed remarkably well. This, combined with the beating the allies administered to the Communists, resulted 

in a noticeable improvement in morale. U.S. advisers reported that 42 of 

the South’s 149 regular army combat battalions deserved high praise, while 

only 8 had performed poorly. Standout units included the South Vietnamese 

Airborne Division, the Marine Brigade, certain ranger battalions and 

armored cavalry units, and elements of the 1st, 2d, 5th, 7th, and 21st Infantry 

Divisions. Most Regional and Popular Forces units had fought well too, playing key roles in the defense of provincial and district capitals. The territorials in I and II Corps had fared the best. Performance in III and IV Corps 

had been more varied—most had served competently, but there had been 

instances of treachery and desertion.14

Tet had also tested the mettle of Vietnamese officials at every level. 

Predictably the results were mixed, but overall MACV was pleased. President 

Thieu and Vice President Ky had provided strong and effective leadership, as 

had General Vien at the Joint General Staff and General Khang at III Corps 

headquarters. Of the division commanders, Colonel Truong of the South 

Vietnamese 1st Infantry Division, Colonel Toan of the South Vietnamese 

2d Infantry Division, and General Dong of the South Vietnamese Airborne 

Division had performed admirably. U.S. advisers gave strong ratings to nine 

province chiefs, including Lt. Col. Le Tri Tin of Quang Nam, Lt. Col. Nguyen 

Hop Doan of Kontum, Lt. Col. Bui Kim Nha of Long Khanh, and Lt. Col. 

Ly Trong My of Kien Tuong.15

Other South Vietnamese commanders had faltered during the crisis. 

The most conspicuous disappointments were General Vinh Loc, the II 

Corps commander who had spent the early days of Tet leading troops in 

Pleiku City like an infantry captain, and General Manh, the IV Corps 

commander who had become paralyzed with worry as the offensive broke 

across the Mekong Delta. Encouraged by the Americans to clean house, 

in mid-March, President Thieu replaced General Loc at II Corps with Lt. 

Gen. Lu Mong Lan. Lan had been the commandant of the Defense College 

and had at one point or another commanded the 18th, 23d, and 25th 

Infantry Divisions. The senior adviser in II Corps, Col. John W. Barnes, 

welcomed the news, calling Lan “extremely competent.” Likewise, General 

Manh made way for Lt. Gen. Nguyen Duc Thang at IV Corps. The former 

minister of Revolutionary Development, Thang was a dynamic and expe14 Cosmas, Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973, pp. 17–32; Enemy losses for the period 291800 

hrs Jan 1968 to 052400 hrs March 1968, 6 Mar 68, pp. 1–2, document 12, Westmoreland History 

files, CMH; Memo, Walt W. Rostow, National Security Adviser, for the President, 4 Mar 68, 

document 23, Vietnam 2G 7/67–12/67, Manpower Mobilization in SVN (1 of 2), box 75 (2 

of 2), NSF-Vietnam Country Files, LBJL; Rpt, General Wheeler, 27 Feb 68, sub: Report of 

Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Situation in Vietnam and MACV Force Requirements, p. 7, 

and Encl. 7, p. 3, Historians files, CMH. 15 Memo, JCS for Rostow, 13 Feb 68, sub: Status of RVNAF, pp. 1, 10, Historians files, 

CMH.
443

Reverberations

rienced commander. He brought his own handpicked staff from Saigon to 

Can Tho. Westmoreland stated that Thang was “like a breath of fresh air 

in IV Corps.” Thieu also replaced nine province chiefs who had performed 

poorly, and several others for miscellaneous reasons. “This housecleaning in the wake of [the] Tet offensive,” the MACV commander reported to 

Admiral Sharp, “is a distinct plus.”16

Indeed, U.S. officials hoped that the shock the Communists had 

administered to the South Vietnamese state would galvanize it into action, 

and there were some hopeful signs. Thieu initiated a nationwide mobilization and said he would consider other measures to rally public support. As 

the nation recovered from the trauma, groups of citizens began forming 

spontaneously either to provide relief for refugees, to help rebuild devastated areas, or to supplement existing defense forces with local militias. The 

movement eventually gave rise to the formation of the People’s Self-Defense 

Force, a vehicle for citizen mobilization that would eventually number in 

the millions.17

The sight of Communist agents running amok during Tet also galvanized the regime to take the threat posed by the infrastructure more seriously. Although the counterinfrastructure apparatus had ceased to function 

in many areas during the offensive, it had still managed to kill or capture 

between 500 and 600 infrastructure members in February in addition to the 

estimated 5,000 killed in battle. The number of killed or captured through 

the counterinfrastructure program rose dramatically in March to 1,323, and 

the monthly tally of neutralized cadre would continue to exceed 1,000 every 

month thereafter as the government redoubled its efforts to uproot the enemy’s clandestine organization. Aiding the government in this endeavor was 

the fact that many cadre had blown their cover during Tet and were now more 

vulnerable. In July, Thieu gave the effort a considerable boost when he finally 

issued full implementing instructions for the Phoenix program. Thanks to 

Tet, the South Vietnamese were finally moving forward on a number of fronts 

long advocated by MACV.18

If Tet opened the door for some long-term improvements in the way 

South Vietnam prosecuted the conflict, it also left the government with 

some immediate challenges. Providing shelter to those who had lost their 

homes during the fighting was perhaps the most pressing of these. President 

Thieu recognized the problem but was reluctant to tackle it until the overall situation had stabilized. Believing there was no time to waste, General 

Westmoreland stepped forward on 2 February to propose a combined 

U.S.–South Vietnamese rebuilding program. Thieu agreed to the initia16 First quote from Senior Ofcr Debriefing Rpt, Brig Gen John W. Barnes, 15 Dec 68, p. 

1, Historians files, CMH. Second quote from General William C. Westmoreland Hist notes, 

vol. 30, 1–31 Mar 68, p. 3, document 1, Westmoreland History files, CMH. Communique, 

Westmoreland to Sharp, 29 Mar 68, p. 8. 17 Hunt, Pacification, pp. 152–54. 18 Ibid.; Communique, Westmoreland to Sharp, 29 Mar 68, p. 5; Rpt, Pacification SubProgram, p. 3, Encl 1 to MFR, MACV, 10 Aug 68, sub: Status of Phoenix/Phung for period 

January–June 1968, Historians files, CMH.
Staying the Course

444

tive, dubbed Project Recovery, the following day. Under the rubric of a 

Central Recovery Committee led by South Vietnamese Vice President Ky 

and CORDS Director Komer, MACV made available 600 million piasters 

(roughly $5 million) of emergency aid, which it disbursed through U.S. field 

advisers. While the U.S. Agency for International Development provided 

raw materials and other necessary commodities, the U.S. Army applied its 

own unique skills to the effort. U.S. military engineers cleared away rubble 

and built new housing, Army logisticians provided supplies and labor, Army 

medical personnel treated the sick and injured and gave immunizations, 

and Army communications specialists repaired damaged telephone lines. 

Most of the money was spent by the end of February. Some funds were 

improperly distributed or went to projects that failed to achieve their goals. 

Nevertheless, the infusion of money played an important role in redressing 

urban destruction and kick-starting the South Vietnamese economy. After 

a burst of activity in February and March, the pace of progress slackened 

noticeably, but the program continued aided by the infusion of additional 

capital and material. By mid-May, all but 286,000 Tet refugees had been 

rehoused, and the United States and South Vietnam had distributed over 

36,000 tons of food, 66,000 tons of construction materials, 5,000 tons of 

miscellaneous relief supplies, 584,000 bags of cement, and nearly 634,000 

sheets of aluminum roofing. By this point, the South Vietnamese government had also disbursed over 483 million piasters in relief and resettlement 

allowances to 60,000 families. Other foreign nations and nongovernmental organizations had contributed 739 million piasters and relief supplies, 

while private Vietnamese individuals and organizations had raised another 

510 million piasters in a burst of patriotism and compassion.19

A second challenge facing Thieu was to bring his military back up to 

strength. All training had stopped on 31 January as the soldiers stationed 

at training centers and schools had joined the fighting, thereby disrupting 

the flow of replacements into units. Fortunately, the training establishment escaped with only minor damage. The Joint General Staff ordered 

all activity to resume on 11 February, and by the end of the month seven of 

the South Vietnamese Army’s nine individual training centers were back 

in action, as were seventeen of the twenty-four military schools, three of 

the ten division training centers, and eight of the thirty-seven Popular 

Forces training centers. The Joint General Staff expected the remaining 

facilities to be open by the end of March. With Thieu pledging to push 

recruitment, MACV estimated that the South Vietnamese infantry divisions in II and III Corps would regain their full strength by May, and the 

divisions in I and IV Corps by August. It likewise expected the Regional 

and Popular Forces to be back to full strength within three to six months. 

As for the thirty-five battalions in the Joint Strategic Reserve, the South 

Vietnamese Airborne Division would be out of action for several months, 

19 Hunt, Pacification, pp. 144–47; Cosmas, Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973, p. 69; MACV 

History, 1968, vol. 1, p. 540; Wiesner, Victims and Survivors, pp. 163–67.
445

Reverberations

but the Marine Brigade and the twenty-battalion ranger force recovered 

quickly.20

Whether veterans or new recruits, all of South Vietnam’s security forces 

were to be armed better than ever before. The fact that many Viet Cong local 

and guerrilla soldiers had sported newly delivered Communist Bloc weaponry during Tet spurred the United States to accelerate preexisting efforts 

to rearm the South Vietnamese with more modern weapons, including M16 

assault rifles. General Westmoreland identified the effort as one of his top 

priorities, and on 9 March MACV completed an ambitious plan to support 

a greatly enlarged South Vietnamese force structure with a plethora of new 

equipment, with the territorials to be armed and organized nearly on par 

with the regulars. By pushing South Vietnam to the brink of the precipice 

without completing the job, the Communists had triggered a reaction that 

would significantly improve its adversary’s strength.21

America Reacts

If the South Vietnamese were traumatized by Tet, Americans were no 

less shocked. An atmosphere of foreboding engulfed the nation, as the 

media depicted the situation in dire tones. General Westmoreland and 

Ambassador Komer tried to counter what they regarded as overly negative reporting, but their effort, Westmoreland later wrote, “was more than 

offset by the alarming headlines and the gloom-and-doom type editorials 

that proceeded to propagandize the limited successes of the Viet Cong.” 

To make matters worse, some in the administration, particularly those 

who already harbored doubts about the war and the way it was being 

fought, joined the Greek chorus. The Office of the Assistant Secretary of 

Defense for Systems Analysis, for example, declared that the Tet offensive had “killed the Revolutionary Development Program,” and that “to 

a large extent the Viet Cong now control the countryside.” Efforts by 

Westmoreland and Komer to boost the administration’s morale met with 

no more success than with the media. So convinced were some that the war 

was lost that they refused to believe evidence to the contrary presented 

by Westmoreland and Ambassadors Bunker and Komer. Embittered by 

the lack of receptivity, Komer later complained that it was as if official 

Washington “had turned off its hearing aid.”22

The sense of despair in the United States was symptomatic of deeper 

currents of weariness and doubt over what was becoming an increas20 Rpt, MACV, 21 Mar 68, sub: Assessment of RVNAF Status, pp. 1–3, 8, document 87, 31 

Mar Speech, vol. 7, Advisory Gp Papers, box 49 (1 of 2), NSF-National Security Council Hist, 

LBJL. 21 Cosmas, Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973, pp. 84–85, 121–22; Clarke, The Final Years, 

1965–1973, pp. 292–94. 22 Westmoreland quote from Hammond, Military and the Media, 1962–1968, p. 346. See also 

pp. 344–48, 355, 356 (quotes), 357, 369–72; Cosmas, Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973, p. 88; 

Hunt, Pacification, pp. 141, 143 (final quote).
Staying the Course

446

ingly controversial war. It also reflected the profound distrust that had 

developed over the years between the administration and the media, the 

result of a war that was both difficult to fight and to understand, of overly 

optimistic projections to which Westmoreland had contributed, and of 

deliberate disingenuousness by Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon 

B. Johnson. Just two months before Tet, General Westmoreland had told 

the National Press Club that the enemy “is certainly losing.” To be fair, 

he had also warned of a long, hard war ahead, and had anticipated some 

form of enemy offensive, but the enormity of Tet easily swept such qualifications from public memory. Nor could promises of future success as 

a result of the enemy’s recent defeat compete with the images of chaos, 

death, and destruction that television programs beamed into American 

living rooms on a nightly basis. Thus, when President Johnson claimed 

that the enemy offensive was “a complete failure,” and when MACV 

released astronomical estimates of enemy casualties, their credibility 

was so compromised as to render them ineffective in the public debate. 

What carried more weight with a growing number of Americans were pronouncements made by the widely respected newscaster Walter Cronkite, 

who in late February declared that the allies could not win the war and 

that the best America could hope for was a stalemate. “To say that we are 

closer to victory today,” he told his audience, “is to believe, in the face of 

evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past.”23

It is important to note that while many journalists, officials, and 

politicians adopted a pessimistic outlook after Tet, the American public 

moved more slowly. Prior to Tet, polls indicated that Americans identified themselves as prowar or antiwar by a margin of five to three. In early 

February, Americans reacted to the Communist offensive by rallying 

to the cause, with those identifying themselves as prowar “hawks” outnumbering antiwar “doves” by a margin of six to two. One poll indicated 

that 74 percent of Americans had confidence in U.S. military policies 

in Vietnam. Another poll showed that 53 percent of Americans actually 

wanted to intensify the war and another 10 percent wanted to maintain the 

current effort, while only 24 percent wanted to withdraw gradually. But 

by March, opinion had begun to shift under the weight of negative reporting. The number of people identifying themselves as doves rose to a level 

about equal to hawks, while the number of people expressing confidence 

in U.S. military policy dropped to 54 percent. About 63 percent of the 

public disapproved of President Johnson’s handling of the war—a view 

shared by hawks and doves alike, albeit for different reasons. The situation among the public was still fluid, but a plurality now viewed the war 

23 Quote from Transcript, General William C. Westmoreland’s speech at National Press 

Club, Washington, D.C., 21 Nov 67, p. 1, copy in Historians files, CMH. Willbanks, The 

Tet Offensive, A Concise History, pp. 152 (Johnson quote), 155; John Prados, Vietnam, The 

History of an Unwinnable War, 1945–1975 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009), pp. 

241 (Cronkite quote), 242–43; Hammond, Military and the Media, 1962–1968, p. 349; Cosmas, 

Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973, p. 104.
447

Reverberations

as a mistake. The result, General Abrams observed, was that “while the 

enemy failed in [the] Republic of Vietnam, he won in the United States.”24

Whither from Here? The Reinforcement Debate

While the nation struggled to understand the situation in Vietnam in an 

atmosphere of mounting doubt, President Johnson and his advisers grappled 

with questions about how best to respond to the challenge laid down by 

the Communists. Throughout Tet, General Westmoreland had presented a 

calm demeanor. He had conceded that the enemy landed a heavy blow, but 

he maintained that the situation was in hand and offered an unprecedented 

opportunity for the allies to launch a devastating, and perhaps war-changing, 

riposte. Indeed, the U.S. Army had weathered the storm fairly well. Losses in 

February were double the normal rate, but no U.S. unit had become combat 

ineffective, and the replacement system quickly filled the gaps. Other than in 

I Corps, where the enemy had disrupted the distribution of supplies, the U.S. 

logistical system had performed admirably, ensuring the flow of food, fuel, 

and ammunition to those who needed it. The Defense Department quickly 

replaced the aircraft losses suffered during Tet—22 for the U.S. Air Force 

and 89 (mostly helicopters) for the Army—with the Army alone sending 292 

aircraft to Vietnam by late February. Heightened consumption had eroded 

stocks, and shortages of certain parts existed, particularly for aircraft and 

armored vehicles, but all of these difficulties were fixable. There seemed to 

be no reason why the Army could not capitalize on the enemy’s dislocation 

to recoup the losses and score some gains. Thus when on 4 February General 

Wheeler asked Westmoreland if he needed emergency reinforcements, 

Westmoreland confidently responded that he did not.25

Temporarily assuaged, President Johnson’s anxiety about the situation 

in Vietnam returned in full force on 7 February when North Vietnamese 

troops overran the Lang Vei Special Forces camp near Khe Sanh. Just after 

midnight, two sapper companies and a flamethrower platoon led two battalions from the 304th Division and a battalion from the 325th Division through 

the wire. Supporting the North Vietnamese infantrymen were sixteen PT76 

light tanks from the 198th Tank Battalion and a platoon of armored cars. 

24 Leo Bogart, Silent Politics, Polls and the Awareness of Public Opinion (New Brunswick, N.J.: 

Wiley, 1972), pp. 91–92, n. 53. In addition, 4 percent wanted to withdraw U.S. forces to enclaves 

around important cities, and 9 percent expressed no opinion. Bennadette Rigal-Cellard, ed., La 

Guerre du Vietnam et la Societe Americaine (Bordeaux, France: University Press of Bordeaux, 

1991), p. 198; Patrick Hagopian, The Vietnam War in American Memory, Veterans, Memorials, 

and the Politics of Healing (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2009), pp. 26–27, 440; 

Hammond, Military and the Media, 1962–1968, pp. 371–73; Willbanks, The Tet Offensive, A 

Concise History, pp. 157, 159; MFR, MACV, 5 Apr 68, p. 5 (Abrams quote). 25 Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 01464 to Wheeler, 1 Feb 68, pp. 1–2; Westmoreland MAC 

01614 to Wheeler, 4 Feb 68, pp. 1–2. Both in Westmoreland Msg files, CMH. Cosmas, Years of 

Withdrawal, 1968–1973, pp. 64, 67; Rpt, JCS, 28 Feb 68, sub: Report of Chairman, Joint Chiefs 

of Staff, on Situation in Vietnam and MACV Force Requirements, pp. 7–9, Historians files, 

CMH.
Staying the Course

448

The dozen or so U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers and the several hundred 

Montagnard irregulars who manned the base responded with machine gun 

and recoilless rifle fire. The allies destroyed several of the Soviet-designed 

tanks but could not repel the tidal wave of North Vietnamese soldiers. Before 

long the allied position had been reduced to a handful of bunkers. 

The Special Forces personnel who manned those bunkers called artillery and air strikes on top of the camp to drive off the Communist troops. 

The enemy suffered losses but held fast. The senior commander at the Khe 

Sanh combat base, Colonel Lownds, contemplated sending a relief force even 

though it was still pitch dark and the road to Lang Vei was almost certainly 

blocked by the enemy. In the end, he decided that the risks outweighed the 

likelihood of success. Informed that a relief effort could not be organized 

until daybreak, the soldiers still manning Lang Vei decided to punch through 

the encirclement and regroup at a nearby village. Somewhere around a 

hundred men, including fourteen Americans, made it out before the North 

Vietnamese jaws finally snapped shut.26

The defeat at Lang Vei created a new sense of urgency in the president. He 

asked Wheeler what Westmoreland needed at this critical juncture, stating, 

“Everything he wants, let’s get it to him.” The chairman of the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff, who shared Johnson’s unease about the situation, relayed the offer 

to Westmoreland in a personal message on 8 February. Wheeler proposed 

sending a brigade from the 82d Airborne Division and a reinforced Marine 

regimental landing team right away. He underscored the urgency of the president’s message by saying, “The United States Government is not prepared to 

accept defeat in South Vietnam. In summary, if you need more troops, ask 

for them.”27

Westmoreland saw no reason for such anxiety. Replying to Wheeler that 

same day, he wrote that the allies “can probably hold our own and continue 

to make progress against the enemy in all areas except the DMZ–Quang 

Tri–Thua Thien area.” Nonetheless, the MACV commander agreed that it 

was “only prudent to plan for the worst contingency,” and indicated that he 

would welcome the deployment of several more brigades to northern I Corps 

by early spring if the administration wished to send them.28

Wheeler was not satisfied. The Joint Chiefs chairman wanted the MACV 

commander to submit an urgent request for reinforcements, believing that 

the president would dither if Westmoreland failed to express a strong need. 

“Please understand,” Wheeler wrote in a private message early on the morning of 9 February, “I am not trying to sell you on the deployment of additional 

forces.” Nevertheless, he made it clear that Westmoreland ought to ask for 

more troops while the offer was on the table. Later that morning, the MACV 

26 Thao, ed., The Spring-Summer 1968 Route 9-Khe Sanh Offensive Campaign, p. 28, 

Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, pp. 275–76; Cash et al., Seven Firefights in Vietnam, 

pp. 109–38. 27 First quote from Davidson, Vietnam at War, p. 494. Second quote from Msg, Wheeler JCS 

01590 to Westmoreland, 8 Feb 68, Westmoreland Msg files, CMH. 28 Msg, Westmoreland MAC 01810 to Wheeler, 8 Feb 68, Westmoreland History files, 29-41, 

CMH.
449

Reverberations

commander submitted a report to Sharp and Wheeler in which he said, “I 

would welcome reinforcements at any time they can be made available,” 

explaining how he might use some of the last remaining units of the nation’s 

active duty strategic reserve—the 82d Airborne Division and elements of the 

5th Marine Division—to strengthen his position in northern I Corps. “It is 

conceivable,” he concluded, “that a six-month loan of these units would turn 

the tide” and restore allied momentum in I Corps while bridging the gap until 

the South Vietnamese Army could make up its Tet losses and begin to enjoy 

the fruits of the accelerated weapons modernization program.29

With Westmoreland’s request in hand, General Wheeler met with the 

president and the other Joint Chiefs of Staff the next day. Surprised by the 

MACV commander’s request for troops, Johnson wanted to know what had 

happened in the last five days to change his mind. Wheeler explained that 

allied intelligence had detected another 15,000 North Vietnamese troops 

crossing into the South, principally massing around Khe Sanh and other 

Marine strong points near the Demilitarized Zone. The siege of Khe Sanh 

might go on for months. The fight to retake Hue was proving harder than 

expected. Given the precarious situation in northern I Corps, the chairman 

29 First quote from Msg, Wheeler JCS 01590 to Westmoreland, 9 Feb 68. Second quote from 

Msg, Westmoreland MAC 01858 to Wheeler, 9 Feb 68. Both in Westmoreland Msg files, CMH. 

Cosmas, Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973, p. 90.

An aerial view of destroyed bunkers and a burned-out PT76 tank after the 

fall of Lang Vei
Staying the Course

450

argued, it was necessary to give the MACV commander enough additional 

troops to deal with any contingency.30

There was, however, a caveat. “In all prudence,” Wheeler warned, “I do 

not think we should deploy these troops without reconstituting our strategic 

reserves in the United States.” Sending some of the last active duty combat 

units based in the United States to Vietnam would compromise America’s 

ability to respond rapidly to crises elsewhere in the world. Tensions were 

high on the Korean peninsula. For over a year, North Korea had initiated a 

series of border clashes and fostered an insurgency in South Korea, and on 25 

January 1968 it had seized the American spy ship USS Pueblo. It was conceivable that South Korea might withdraw its expeditionary force from Vietnam if 

the conflict back home escalated. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union could always 

provoke a new crisis in Europe or Africa that would demand a U.S. response. 

Mobilizing the reserve components would protect the United States against 

such eventualities and help rebuild units in the United States and Europe 

that were being hollowed out to support the war in Vietnam. But Wheeler 

knew that his suggestion would not be well received. The president had long 

resisted the idea of mobilizing the reserves. Pulling several hundred thousand men out of the civilian workforce would disrupt the economy and anger 

many middle-class families whose fathers or sons had joined the reserves or 

National Guard not expecting to see service in Vietnam. The political heat 

would be intense. By depicting the long-sought-for mobilization as an urgent 

necessity to meet an allegedly dire situation in Vietnam, Wheeler wanted to 

leverage the Tet offensive to his advantage. Johnson, however, would not be 

stampeded into taking such a controversial action. He deferred making a 

decision until he and his advisers had time to study a formal proposal from 

the Joint Chiefs of Staff.31

Over the next few days, Wheeler prodded and cajoled Westmoreland 

into transforming his statement that he would “welcome” more men into 

a “firm request.” The resulting plan, which the Joint Chiefs of Staff submitted to Secretary McNamara on 12 February, called for the immediate 

dispatch of about 10,000 men, while the Pentagon readied the remainder of 

the 82d Airborne and 5th Marine Divisions for possible deployment later in 

the year. Echoing what Wheeler had said three days earlier, the Joint Chiefs 

made the program contingent on a major mobilization to redress deficiencies 

in the existing force structure. McNamara quickly endorsed the call for an 

immediate reinforcement, recommending to the president that he deploy the 

10,300 men Wheeler had offered to Westmoreland on 8 February—the 27th 

Marine Regimental Landing Team drawn from the 5th Marine Division, the 

3d Brigade from the 82d Airborne Division, and some support troops. He 

30 Mtg Notes, 9 Feb 68, sub: Notes of the President’s Meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 

pp. 6–8, JCS, box 2, Tom Johnson’s Mtg notes, LBJL. 31 Quote from Mtg Notes, 9 Feb 68, pp. 6–8. Msg, Wheeler JCS 2590 to Westmoreland, 5 

Mar 68, p. 2, Westmoreland Msg files, CMH; Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 496–97.
451

Reverberations

stated, however, that this deployment should not be contingent on 

the larger question of calling up the 

reserves.32

Later that day, President 

Johnson held a meeting attended 

by National Security Adviser Walt 

W. Rostow, Secretary of State 

Dean Rusk, outgoing Secretary 

of Defense McNamara, incoming Secretary of Defense Clark M. 

Clifford, Director of the Central 

Intelligence Agency Richard M. 

Helms, General Wheeler, and several others. Everyone agreed with 

McNamara that the most prudent course of action was to send 

immediately the small number 

of men Wheeler had promised 

Westmoreland and to handle the 

question of the reserves later. 

President Johnson approved the 

group’s recommendation, putting 

aside the mobilization issue until 

Wheeler had a chance to visit Saigon 

and confer with Westmoreland. The 

airborne soldiers arrived in Vietnam on 18 February and the marines began 

landing on the twenty-third.33

When Westmoreland learned of the president’s decision, he was naturally 

pleased to have over 10,000 more men to shore up his position in northern I 

Corps. Writing to Wheeler on the thirteenth, the MACV commander stated 

that “despite the high priority accorded to the cities, I still see the enemy 

position in the Khe Sanh/DMZ area as the greatest single threat. It must be 

stopped or all of northern I CTZ [corps tactical zone] will be in jeopardy.” 

But he did not want the troop request misconstrued as a desperate plea. “I am 

expressing a firm request for additional troops, not because I fear defeat if I 

am not reinforced, but because I do not feel that I can fully grasp the initiative 

from the recently reinforced enemy without them.” Sending the remainder of 

the 5th Marine and 82d Airborne Divisions to Vietnam, he explained, would 

“permit me not only to contain his [the enemy’s] I Corps offensive but also to 

capitalize on his losses by seizing the initiative in other areas. Exploiting this 

32 Mike Gravel, The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States 

Decisionmaking on Vietnam, 5 vols. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971), 4:542–46; Cosmas, Years of 

Withdrawal, 1968–1973, p. 92 (quotes). 33 FRUS, 1964–1968, vol. 6, Vietnam, January–August 1968 (Washington, D.C.: Government 

Printing Office, 2002), pp. 188–96.

Secretary of Defense Clifford
Staying the Course

452

opportunity could materially shorten the war.” He urged the administration 

to adopt a more aggressive approach in Vietnam, saying, “If the enemy has 

changed his strategy we must change ours.”34

On 23 February, General Wheeler flew to Saigon with several White 

House advisers on a fact-finding mission for the president. Westmoreland 

was surprised by Wheeler’s haggard appearance and gloomy disposition. 

The MACV commander was solidly upbeat, noting that the enemy had sustained massive casualties, but the chairman and his group seemed fixated on 

the question of whether the enemy was capable of launching another round 

of urban attacks. Westmoreland was not unduly worried. He expected the 

enemy to try again, but believed that the allies were taking all of the necessary steps to prevent another Tet-style offensive.35

The following day, Wheeler and Westmoreland met to discuss the future 

direction of U.S. strategy. After considering several contingencies, they drew 

up a request for 206,000 personnel. Known as Program 6, the request consisted 

of three increments. The first increment of 108,000 troops consisted of the 5th 

Infantry Division (Mechanized), the 6th Armored Cavalry, the remainder of 

the 5th Marine Division, five Air Force tactical fighter squadrons (plus three 

more already promised in the Program 5 reinforcement package), and various support units. It was to arrive in Vietnam no later than 1 May 1968. The 

second package of 42,000 men was to be ready by 1 September, and the third 

increment of 56,000 was to be available by 1 December. The second and third 

groups would go to Vietnam only if the president decided to pursue a more 

aggressive strategy, such as allowing MACV to invade Laos or Cambodia, 

or if the Communists launched another major offensive. Otherwise, those 

98,000 troops would be used to reconstitute the strategic reserves in the continental United States.36

Wheeler left Saigon on 25 February, stopping in Hawaii to brief Admiral 

Sharp and to cable a summary report to the president, which he sent on the 

twenty-seventh. The proposal called for the mobilization of 400,000 reservists 

and guardsmen for at least two years. Half of those personnel would replenish 

the strategic reserve in the United States, and the other half represented the 

206,000 troops needed for the Program 6 deployment to Vietnam. Wheeler 

knew Johnson would be reluctant to approve the request. He also understood 

that most of Johnson’s civilian advisers except for National Security Adviser 

Walt Rostow opposed Westmoreland’s desire to make incursions into Laos, 

Cambodia, and the southern part of North Vietnam. He believed, therefore, 

that the only way to sell the troop augmentation to the president was to por34 Quotes from Cable, General William C. Westmoreland to General Earle G. Wheeler, 13 

Feb 68, document 32a, Walt Rostow, 10–13 Feb 68, vol. 61 (1 of 2), box 29 (1 of 2), NSF-Memos 

to the President from Walt Rostow, LBJL. Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, p. 352. 35 Msg, Wheeler JCS 02113 to Westmoreland, 21 Feb 68, Westmoreland Msg files, CMH. 

36 Westmoreland decided to request the 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized) rather than 

the rest of the 82d Airborne Division as the 5th’s heavy punch and ground mobility would be 

useful in I Corps, while the 82d Airborne would require significant helicopter augmentation 

to be adequately mobile, placing additional strain on the Army’s aviation resources. FRUS, 

1964–1968, 3:15; Davidson, Vietnam at War, p. 503.
453

Reverberations

tray the situation in the bleakest possible terms and to imply that the United 

States risked defeat if it did not fully mobilize.37

Wheeler’s 27 February cable reflected this approach. While not inaccurate, it dwelled on the negative. He reported that “the initial attack nearly 

succeeded in a dozen places and the margin of victory—in some places 

survival—was very very small indeed.” He indicated that the “pacification 

program has been brought to a halt” and the government faced “enormous 

problems with refugees, civilian casualties, morale and recovery.” If the 

enemy renewed the general offensive, General Westmoreland’s margin “will 

be paper thin” and “he might suffer some reverses” unless he obtained three 

extra divisions and fifteen more tactical fighter squadrons by the end of 1968. 

The general laid out his request for a 206,000-man force package and recommended that the first increment of 108,000 troops be sent without delay.38

When Wheeler returned to Washington on 28 February, he briefed the 

president and his key advisers on the full, nearly fifty-page report. Once 

again, the chairman stressed the negative consequences of Tet. He warned 

that the enemy was capable of launching a second round of attacks and raised 

the possibility that the allies would suffer a major setback, possibly even the 

loss of the two northernmost provinces, unless Westmoreland received major 

reinforcements.39

The request alarmed administration officials. President Johnson directed 

his incoming Secretary of Defense, Clifford, to convene a study group to 

examine the proposal. After being sworn in on 1 March, Secretary Clifford 

spent the next three days examining the pros and cons of the request. A successful lawyer who had advised the last four presidents on national security 

matters, Clifford brought a wealth of experience and a ruthless pragmatism 

to his new job. Like his predecessor, he had once been a strong proponent of 

the war who now had serious misgivings. Most of the civilian analysts that he 

spoke to at the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency reinforced his 

doubts, as they now believed that the war had become hopelessly deadlocked. 

Clifford’s military advisers disagreed, but when the new secretary asked the 

Joint Chiefs of Staff whether the 206,000 additional troops would be sufficient to guarantee success in the war, he received no satisfying answers. 

The secretary of defense came away from the meeting resolved to “level off 

our involvement, and . . . work toward a gradual disengagement” without 

abandoning the South Vietnamese state.40

Clifford forwarded the report prepared by his study group to the president on 4 March. The report recommended that Johnson grant Westmoreland 

a temporary augmentation representing a brigade from the 5th Infantry 

Division (Mechanized), the 6th Armored Cavalry, and a variety of support 

37 Cosmas, Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973, pp. 93–95. 38 FRUS, 1964–1968, 6:263 (first quote), 265 (second quote). 39 Ibid., 6:267–75; Zaffiri, Westmoreland, pp. 303–11. 40 Quote from Herbert Y. Schandler, The Unmaking of a President: Lyndon Johnson and 

Vietnam (Princeton, N.J.: University Press, 1977), p. 216. Cosmas, Years of Withdrawal, 1968–

1973, pp. 98–99; Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 514–15.
Staying the Course

454

and logistical units. In addition, the report endorsed sending three tactical 

fighter squadrons that had been deferred from last year’s program, producing a total deployment of 23,000 men. The study urged the president to call 

up approximately 262,000 reservists to reconstitute the strategic reserve and 

to provide Westmoreland with additional manpower if the need arose. Such 

a step was only prudent given the uncertain world in which the United States 

found itself. Clifford, however, advised against sending any additional men 

to Vietnam beyond the 23,000 until the U.S. government had conducted a 

top to bottom review of its war policy and the South Vietnamese government 

had taken concrete steps to improve its effectiveness and viability. Finally, 

the report recommended that the United States accelerate the delivery of war 

materiel to South Vietnam to enhance its ability to defend itself.41

Notably absent in the report were recommendations about strategy. 

Several civilians in the Departments of Defense and State believed that the 

war could not be won militarily no matter how many men the United States 

deployed. That being the case, they wanted the United States to adopt an 

enclave strategy in which U.S. forces would remain close to the major population centers, effectively ending the large search-and-destroy operations that 

took place in the countryside. Such a strategy, they argued, would be more 

effective in protecting the population than offensive operations, thereby creating the conditions South Vietnam needed to build a viable nation. Equally 

important, they believed that an enclave approach would reduce U.S. casualties, a key consideration if the U.S. government was to retain enough domestic political support to remain in this increasingly contentious conflict long 

enough to achieve an acceptable outcome. In contrast, General Wheeler and 

senior Army leaders, including Chief of Staff Harold K. Johnson, vigorously 

opposed the idea. Wheeler argued that the enclave strategy was untenable 

because it ceded large parts of the country to the enemy and gave him every 

opportunity to mass his forces near the population centers, free to attack 

whenever he chose. Unable to reach an agreement, the study group decided 

not to make any recommendations pertaining to strategy. Nevertheless, when 

Clifford briefed the president on the report, he offered the enclave concept 

as a possible alternative to the way the war was currently being prosecuted.42

After reading the study, President Johnson tentatively agreed to send 

the 23,000-man augmentation force Clifford recommended. He accepted the 

report’s recommendation that additional forces beyond the 23,000 not be 

sent unless the situation warranted it, and he made it more difficult for the 

military to prepare for such a contingency by balking at mobilizing a large 

number of reservists, opting instead for a limited call-up to replace those 

troops who were going to Vietnam. Johnson felt that the political and economic consequences of mobilizing several hundred thousand reservists was 

simply too high, even if most of those troops never ended up going overseas. 

41 FRUS, 1964–1968, 6:314–16. 42 Ibid.; Memo, Army Ch for the President, 1 Feb 68, sub: Validity of Present Strategy of 

Operations in South Vietnam, pp. 1–5, Historians files, CMH; FRUS, 1964–1968, 6:311–55; 

Gravel, The Pentagon Papers, 4:549–604.
455

Reverberations

He embraced the idea of beefing up the South Vietnamese armed forces as a 

way to boost allied capability, and he accepted in principle the idea of making 

future assistance conditional on the Vietnamese becoming more effective 

and accountable. President Johnson regarded these decisions as a change 

in strategy, yet the changes were marginal and reflected his predilection for 

piecemeal actions and incremental measures in response to immediate needs. 

He did not show any interest in Clifford’s call for a major strategy review and 

took no steps to initiate one. He refused to get involved in the debate over 

the enclave concept, preferring as he always had to leave the details of the 

ground war up to the MACV commander. He remained committed to the 

fight for an independent Vietnam, complaining in subsequent days over certain civilian officials in the Defense Department, such as Deputy Secretary 

of Defense Paul Nitze, who he accused of advocating “surrender.” And while 

he continued to oppose expanding the conflict into neighboring countries, he 

did not rule out the possibility of future troop increases. In short, a wholesale 

reevaluation of the war’s goals and methods was not in the cards.43

On 10 March, the New York Times disclosed Wheeler’s massive mobilization proposal. Leaked by the plan’s opponents, the news triggered a political 

firestorm that lowered morale, raised skepticism, and reinforced opposition 

to the war. If the plan was not already dead by the time the New York Times

broke the story, it was certainly so afterward.44

Feeling that he needed outside advice, the president convened a group 

of eminent public figures upon whom he had previously turned for policy 

recommendations. Among the group were former Secretary of State Dean 

Acheson, former commander of the United Nations troops in Korea General 

Matthew B. Ridgway, and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 

General Maxwell D. Taylor. Collectively known as the “Wise Men,” the group 

delivered its recommendations to Johnson the next day. Deeply divided, the 

majority concluded that the war had devolved into a stalemate. Even if more 

forces were deployed to Vietnam, there was still little chance of winning in 

a reasonable length of time and at a cost that would be acceptable to the 

American people. Reaching essentially the same conclusion as Secretary 

Clifford, the group recommended that the president seek a negotiated end to 

the fighting.45

The president was dismayed by the finding, but took the group’s recommendation under advisement. He realized that the Tet offensive had so 

weakened support both for the war and his own candidacy in the upcoming 

presidential election that some change in policy was necessary. He accepted 

the advice of the panel and others that the United States should seek to 

deescalate the conflict by entering into negotiations with North Vietnam. 

A partial cessation of the bombing of North Vietnam would accompany the 

offer as a sign of good faith. He had, however, no intention of abandoning the 

43 FRUS, 1964–1968, 6:327, 450 (quote). 44 Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, p. 358; Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 506–07; FRUS, 

1964–1968, 3:65–70; Zaffiri, Westmoreland, pp. 311–12. 45 FRUS, 1964–1968, 6:412–18, 471–74.
Staying the Course

456

South. Rather, he hoped the gesture would win him enough political support 

to continue the conflict in such a way as to secure South Vietnam’s survival 

as an independent, non-Communist nation.46

On 22 March, Johnson reduced the 23,000-man reinforcement package 

he had tentatively approved earlier in the month to just 13,500 men. The 

final Program 6 package consisted of the 1st Brigade, 5th Infantry Division 

(Mechanized), a squadron of the 6th Armored Cavalry (rather than the entire 

regiment), and some support personnel. The Defense Department planned to 

deliver these forces in September or October.47

The following day, President Johnson announced that he would be removing General Westmoreland as the commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam. 

Many assumed the decision was part of the fallout from Tet, but there was 

more to the matter than that. In 1967, President Johnson had made Abrams 

Westmoreland’s deputy with an eye toward having him succeed as MACV 

commander. By 1968, Westmoreland had been in Vietnam for four years, 

twice as long as the average tour for a senior officer. The administration was 

moving toward a decision when the Tet offensive and the furor it caused at 

home led President Johnson to delay announcing the change until the situation had settled down. Finally, on 23 March, President Johnson informed 

Westmoreland that he would become the next Army chief of staff when 

General Johnson retired in June. The timing of the announcement led pundits to claim that the president was removing Westmoreland for poor performance, kicking him “upstairs” to remove him from the scene, but President 

Johnson, General Wheeler, and Secretaries McNamara and Clifford all 

denied this was the case. Still, it is doubtful that a keen political tactician 

such as President Johnson was unaware of the fact that Tet had discredited 

Westmoreland in the eyes of many Americans, and that Johnson’s efforts to 

rally support for the conflict might benefit by removing the man who, rightly 

or wrongly, had become associated with the war’s perceived shortcomings. 

But changing the commander was not the same as changing strategy. When 

Johnson announced Westmoreland’s eventual departure from MACV on the 

twenty-third, he made a point of stating that the change in command had 

“nothing to do” with matters of strategy or tactics. That this was so became 

clear a few days later when Westmoreland’s heir apparent, General Abrams, 

met with the president and General Wheeler to discuss Vietnam. After 

Wheeler assured the president that “our basic strategy is sound,” Abrams 

declared “I don’t feel we need to change strategy.” With minor tactical adjustments, the ground war would proceed on the course Westmoreland had set 

for it. The president seemed satisfied.48

46 Ibid., 6:449–50, 454–55, 463, 479–80, 483–90.

47 Ibid., 6:459–65. 48 Zaffiri, Westmoreland, pp. 298–300, 311, 313–14 (quoted words), 316; General 

Westmoreland’s Hist notes, vol. 30, 1–31 Mar 68, pp. 12–13, document 1, Westmoreland History 

files, CMH; George C. Herring, LBJ and Vietnam: A Different Kind of War (Austin: University 

of Texas Press, 1996), p. 161; FRUS, 1964–1968, 6:447–48, 451–52, 463 (Wheeler and Abrams 

quotes), 465.
457

Reverberations

On 24 March, Wheeler met with Westmoreland at Clark Air Base in the 

Philippines to brief him about the decisions. He said that President Johnson 

understood Westmoreland’s rationale for requesting an additional 206,000 

men, but that he felt he lacked the political support to call up the requisite 

number of reservists. For the same reason there would be no expansion of the 

war into Laos, Cambodia, or North Vietnam. The arrival of the Program 6 

package would raise the troop ceiling to 549,500 personnel. Westmoreland 

was distressed by how the troop request was being perceived by the American 

public. He also believed that by not sending significant reinforcements, the 

United States was missing an opportunity to take the war to the enemy after 

he had just suffered a reversal. Yet he continued to believe that progress was 

possible, reporting several days later that “the current forces, augmented with 

the proposed reinforcement package, will provide us the means necessary to 

contain further enemy initiated actions while continuing forward progress in 

most areas.”49

On 28 March, President Johnson approved a call-up of 62,000 reservists. 

The bulk of them, almost 54,000 men, came from the Army Reserve and 

National Guard, while the remainder came from the Air Force and from the 

Navy. He saved the public announcement of the Program 6 troop increase for 

31 March when he addressed the nation on television in what would become 

one of the landmark speeches of his presidency.50

Speaking directly to the American people, Johnson summarized his 

efforts to achieve a lasting peace in Southeast Asia that would guarantee the 

security and independence of the Republic of Vietnam. To demonstrate his 

sincerity in achieving peace, he declared a unilateral bombing halt above the 

20th Parallel, putting most of North Vietnam off limits. He announced the 

increased troop ceiling supported by a limited call-up of reservists, and indicated that the United States would accelerate its program of equipping the 

South Vietnamese military with modern weapons. Johnson ended his speech 

with the unexpected announcement that he would not seek the nomination 

of his party to be president. By freeing himself from election year politics, 

Johnson hoped to heal the partisan divide at home and devote all of his energies to seeking peace in Vietnam. It would also free him from the anguish he 

had been feeling about the war for the past four years.51

Johnson’s stunning announcement that he would not seek reelection—a 

decision he had been debating for some time but which had received added 

impetus from the acrimony caused by Tet—represented a final confirmation 

that the offensive had changed the trajectory of the war. In a few months’ 

time, new men would lead the United States and its army in the field. For 

the first time in the war, U.S. and North Vietnamese negotiators would sit 

opposite each other at the conference table, with the United States hoping 

that negotiations would permit a de-escalation of the conflict and eventually 

49 Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, pp. 358–59; Msg, Westmoreland MAC 4192 to Wheeler, 

27 Mar 68, pp. 3–4 (quote), Westmoreland Msg files, CMH. 50 FRUS, 1964–1968, 3:76–77. 51 Ibid., 3:80–90; “Behind LBJ’s Decision Not to Run in 1968,” New York Times, 16 Apr 88.
Staying the Course

458

lead to an acceptable peace. What no one knew at the time was that years of 

fighting remained. 

Johnson wanted peace, but not at any price, and the North Vietnamese 

were uninterested in anything short of total victory. As appreciative as the 

Hanoi government was of the growing political crisis in the United States, 

it had not reached the point where it could compel Johnson or his successor 

to quit, and there was no guarantee that it would. Suspicious of Johnson’s 

motives, Communist leaders were disinterested in agreeing to anything that 

would prevent them from achieving their ultimate aim of destroying South 

Vietnam and absorbing it into the Communist state. They realized that 

Johnson’s suspension of bombing north of the 20th Parallel meant that U.S. 

bombers were concentrating even more firepower against Communist infiltration routes into South Vietnam south of that line. Likewise, if Johnson had 

approved a much smaller deployment to Vietnam than his generals had asked 

for, he had not foresworn sending more, and the entire history of America’s 

involvement to date—with one troop ceiling after another being replaced by 

an even higher one—did not give the Communists cause for confidence. Thus 

while Le Duan agreed to peace talks, he adopted a policy of “talking while 

fighting,” in which discussions at the conference table would be almost as 

confrontational as the battles in the field—a fact evidenced right from the 

start by weeks of debate over what shape that table would take. Moreover, 

Le Duan still considered military power to be his primary tool, refusing to 

give up his dream for achieving military victory in 1968. With the president 

determined not to be bullied and his generals committed to fighting the war 

along much the same lines as before, life for the American soldier in the field 

would not change much after Tet.52

52 Nguyen, Hanoi’s War, pp. 114–15; Cosmas, Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973, p. 103.
14

The Allies Strike Back

During the two months of deliberations that culminated in President 

Johnson’s speech on 31 March, the war in Vietnam continued 

apace. No sooner had the allies repulsed the initial attacks than General 

Westmoreland and Ambassador Komer began calling for a vigorous counteroffensive. They argued that it was imperative for the allies to act quickly, both 

to exploit the enemy’s military dislocation and to recover the people and territory that the government of Vietnam had abandoned. As rumors circulated of 

a second Communist offensive and word filtered back about the controversy 

over his troop request, Westmoreland added a third reason to act—to prove 

to “the people in South Vietnam and Washington” that “we are not waiting 

for either the Viet Cong to resume the initiative, or for someone to help us.” 

To drive home the point, Westmoreland and the chief of the Vietnamese Joint 

General Staff, General Vien, traveled the country to urge corps commanders and their U.S. counterparts to take to the offensive. President Thieu realized that Westmoreland was right, but felt torn by an equally pressing need 

to ensure that South Vietnam’s cities were truly secure. Still in shock over the 

offensive and receiving mixed signals from the government in Saigon, many 

local Vietnamese civil and military officials did little to restore order outside 

the urban centers. Only gradually as the weeks passed did they begin to act 

with varying amounts of vigor. Consequently, responsibility for much of the 

counteroffensive fell to the U.S. Army.1

Restoring Security in Central III Corps

Due to its strategic importance, the region around Saigon naturally 

received significant attention, not only from Westmoreland, but also from the 

South Vietnamese, who perhaps here more than any other area of the country 

committed themselves early on to the restorative effort. The challenges were 

formidable. At the beginning of March, more than twenty enemy battalions 

remained on the outskirts of Gia Dinh Province, raising the possibility that 

COSVN intended to resume its offensive against Saigon in the near future. The 

271st and 272d Regiments of the 9th PLAF Division as well as the D16, 267th, 

and 269th Main Force Battalions were reported to be somewhere in eastern 

1

 Hunt, Pacification, p. 149; Cosmas, Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973, pp. 66–67, 70; FRUS, 

1964–1968, 6:309–10, 311 (quote), 476; Telg, Embassy Saigon 20584 to Department of State, 27 

Feb 68; Notes, President’s Meeting to Discuss General Wheeler’s Trip to Vietnam, 28 Feb 68, p. 

5. Both in Historians files, CMH. 
Staying the Course

460

Hau Nghia Province. The 101st Regiment and the Dong Nai Regiment plus 

elements of the 165th Regiment had been spotted in southern Binh Duong 

Province. Five or six Viet Cong battalions remained on the loose in Long An 

Province. Several more, including one from the 5th PLAF Division, appeared 

to be in the Thu Duc area east of the capital. Most of the enemy units that 

had taken part in the initial wave of the Tet offensive were only marginally 

combat effective at this point, but COSVN could still maintain psychological 

and economic pressure on the capital by clinging to its suburbs while laying 

the groundwork for the next major assault.2

Westmoreland scrapped his original plan to invade War Zone D, a multidivision operation known as Dodge City, so Generals Weyand and Khang 

could sweep the districts that surrounded the capital. “As the circle expands,” 

Westmoreland wrote to Wheeler on 2 March, “ARVN [Army of the Republic 

of Vietnam] forces will continue operations on an inner belt around the city 

while U.S. forces fan out into peripheral areas.” The 1st, 9th, and 25th Infantry 

Divisions would provide most of the maneuver battalions, supported by the 

11th Armored Cavalry.3

At Westmoreland’s direction, Weyand and Khang merged their respective 

sweep-and-clear missions on the outskirts of Saigon into a combined effort 

known as Quyet Thang (“Resolved to Win”). The largest allied operation 

yet conducted in III Corps, Quyet Thang aimed to coordinate the efforts of 

six American and ten South Vietnamese brigade equivalents through centralized planning, better intelligence sharing, and a greater emphasis on combined 

operations at the company and battalion level. Quyet Thang also called for 

close cooperation between regular allied forces and the territorials that operated under South Vietnamese province and district chiefs. A Regional Forces 

company, for example, would be paired with a U.S. mechanized platoon for a 

rural patrol mission, or a National Police Field Force platoon would accompany a U.S. infantry company to identify Viet Cong cadre during a search of 

a contested hamlet.4

As Weyand and Khang developed a common planning system for II 

Field Force and III Corps, division and brigade commanders followed suit. 

The 199th Infantry Brigade (Light), which already had a relationship with 

the South Vietnamese 5th Ranger Group as a result of Operation Fairfax, 

created new liaison channels with the South Vietnamese Marine Brigade and 

the South Vietnamese Airborne Division in Gia Dinh Province. South of the 

capital, the 3d Brigade of the 9th Infantry Division partnered with the South 

Vietnamese 50th Regiment in Long An Province, while the 3d Squadron of 

the 11th Armored Cavalry, coming south from Binh Long Province after an 

operation with the 101st Airborne Division, moved into southeastern Hau 

Nghia Province to support the 49th Regiment from the South Vietnamese 

25th Infantry Division. In northern and western Hau Nghia, the 2d and 3d 

2

 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 10-68, II FFV, 3–9 Mar 68, 9 Mar 68, p. 4, Historians files, CMH.

3

 Msg, Westmoreland MAC 2960 to Wheeler, 2 Mar 68, p. 2, Westmoreland Msg files, CMH.

4

 ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, II FFV, 20 May 68, p. 45, box 18, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd 

Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP.
461

The Allies Strike Back

Brigades of the U.S. 25th Infantry Division worked with a cavalry squadron 

from the South Vietnamese 25th Infantry Division and territorial units. North 

of Saigon, the 2d and 3d Brigades of the 1st Infantry Division partnered with 

the 7th and 8th Regiments of the South Vietnamese 5th Infantry Division in 

Binh Duong Province. Weyand and Khang set 11 March as the start date for 

Quyet Thang.

5

General Weyand suspended several operations on the tenth to make way 

for the new territorial security mission. Operation Saratoga ended for the 

25th Infantry Division in Hau Nghia Province; its 1st Brigade continued a 

separate mission to defend Tay Ninh Province. Weyand suspended Lam Son

68 for the 1st Infantry Division in Binh Duong. The division’s 1st Brigade 

remained in Binh Long to protect Highway 13. Finally, he terminated 

Operation Enterprise for the 9th Infantry Division in Long An, leaving its 

1st and 2d Brigades to continue other missions in northern IV Corps. East of 

the capital, the 199th Infantry Brigade pressed ahead with a separate operation begun on 8 March called Valley Forge to destroy the rear services units 

linked to the 5th Division. Weyand ordered the 1st and 2d Squadrons of the 

11th Armored Cavalry to assist the 199th Infantry Brigade while keeping an 

eye on eastern Long Khanh Province with Operation Kittyhawk and Camp 

Blackhorse with Operation Adairsville.

6

5

 Ibid., p. 23; MacGarrigle, Taking the Offensive, October 1966 to October 1967, pp. 156–57; 

General Westmoreland’s Hist notes, 1–31 Mar 68, p. 4, document 1, vol. 30, Westmoreland 

History files, CMH. 6

 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 10-68, II FFV, p. 4; Monthly Sum, Mar 68, HQ, MACV, 25 May 68, 

p. 21, folder 4, box 1, John M. Shaw Collection, Vietnam Center and Archive, TTU.

M113 armored personnel carriers of Troop L, 3d Squadron, 11th Armored 

Cavalry, are in position at the start of Operation Quyet Thang.
Staying the Course

462

Eastern Hau Nghia Province proved to be the most active sector of Quyet

Thang during the first two weeks of the operation. The action started on 

12 March when Troop M of the 3d Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry, and 

a Regional Forces company discovered more than a hundred enemy soldiers 

from the 267th and 269th Battalions hiding in a wooded area about six kilometers north of Duc Hoa, a district capital that also served as the headquarters 

of the South Vietnamese 25th Infantry Division. The allied troops flushed 

the Viet Cong from their position, killing thirty-six and capturing ten more. 

U.S. losses were light, but among the wounded was the 11th Armored Cavalry 

commander, Colonel MacFarlane, who had been on hand to observe the fight. 

Col. Leonard D. Holder took over the regiment three days later, but when he 

died in a helicopter crash on 21 March, Col. Charles R. Gorder stepped in to 

take charge.7

During that period of change at regimental headquarters, the 3d Squadron, 

11th Armored Cavalry, and South Vietnamese troops from Duc Hoa discovered the 272d Regiment from the 9th Division hiding in the countryside 

between Duc Hoa and Cu Chi. Between 15 and 17 March, Troop M and South 

Vietnamese forces killed some 273 enemy soldiers with help from air and artillery strikes. After losing sight of the 272d Regiment, Troops L and M regained 

contact with the enemy on 20 March. Assisted by a South Vietnamese battalion, the cavalrymen killed 142 Communist soldiers that day and 57 more in 

the same area six days later. Reeling from the loss of more than 400 soldiers, 

the Viet Cong regiment withdrew to the relative safety of War Zone C.8

During the last week of March, the main area of contact in Operation 

Quyet Thang shifted north to the sector patrolled by the U.S. 25th Infantry 

Division. Allied intelligence had already seen signs of large infiltration groups 

moving south from War Zone C to camps along the Saigon River. Early on 

the morning of 25 March, one of those North Vietnamese filler battalions 

attacked a pair of Regional Forces outposts near Trang Bang in northern Hau 

Nghia Province. The Communists may have seen the outposts as easy pickings, but that impression vanished when the South Vietnamese 43d Ranger 

Battalion arrived on the scene with a U.S. mechanized force from the 4th 

Battalion, 23th Infantry, and the 2d Battalion, 34th Armor. The allies killed at 

least 287 Viet Cong soldiers in the ten-hour battle. Twenty-three allied soldiers 

lost their lives.9

Allied troops in the 25th Infantry Division sector clashed with more infiltration groups in the days that followed. On 26 March, South Vietnamese 

paratroopers found the bodies of 128 enemy soldiers east of Hoc Mon, a 

district town just northwest of Tan Son Nhut. They had apparently died in 

air and artillery strikes while moving toward the capital. The next day, the 

2d Battalion, 34th Armor, and two companies from the 2d Battalion, 14th 

Infantry, killed some ninety-seven Communists when they clashed with an 

7

 ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, II FFV, pp. 45–46; ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, 11th ACR, 10 May 

68, p. 2, box 48, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 8

 ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, 11th ACR, p. 6.

9

 ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, II FFV, p. 46.
463

The Allies Strike Back

infiltration group five kilometers northeast of Trang Bang, a district town just 

up the road from Cu Chi. Combined with a clash near Trang Bang on 24 

March between the 7th Cu Chi Battalion and the 1st Brigade, 25th Division, 

the allies had killed over 600 enemy fighters in the space of four days. As satisfying as that result was, it also highlighted the enemy’s ability to move large 

numbers of troops from Cambodia to central III Corps despite the increased 

tempo of allied operations.10

To interdict that infiltration channel closer to its source, Weyand moved the 

199th Infantry Brigade from Bien Hoa Province to Tay Ninh Province on 28 

March to help the 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, patrol the area between 

Tay Ninh City and Dau Tieng in a new operation called Wilderness. The 3d 

Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, covered the temporary absence of the 199th 

Infantry Brigade by moving the 1st and 2d Battalions of the 506th Infantry 

from Phuoc Vinh to Long Binh, leaving the 3d Battalion, 187th Infantry, to 

screen the western side of War Zone D. 

The previous three weeks had been somewhat frustrating for the 199th 

Infantry Brigade. When Operation Valley Forge had yielded small results 

in eastern Bien Hoa Province, the brigade had started a new mission called 

Box Springs with the 3d Battalion, 187th Infantry, from the 3d Brigade, 101st 

Airborne Division, to interdict the Communist supply routes that ran from 

War Zone D to the outskirts of the capital. The 199th Infantry Brigade found 

some large underground bases as well as a number of Soviet-made trucks, but 

few enemy soldiers.11

Operation Wilderness proved to be no more satisfying. The 199th 

Infantry Brigade had fleeting contact with rear service units and local guerrillas who contented themselves with mining the roads and harassing the Dau 

Tieng and Tay Ninh base camps with mortar fire. The 199th Infantry Brigade 

found two Communist camps and captured a large quantity of rice, but the 

only enemy forces it encountered were several platoons from the C14 Local 

Force Battalion that fled once they realized the odds they were facing. When 

Wilderness came to an end on 7 April, the 25th Division had killed between 

200 and 300 enemy soldiers while losing 7 of its own.12

In the first week of April, the number of enemy contacts in the Quyet

Thang zone took a sudden dip. In March, allied forces had killed an average 

of fifty-three enemy soldiers a day, a figure that fell by almost half in the first 

week of April. Allied intelligence saw numerous signs that the enemy battalions 

that had once been in the Quyet Thang zone had withdrawn to more remote 

locations. So far, the allies had killed some 1,420 enemy soldiers, captured 

over 500 weapons, and recovered approximately 107 tons of rice. Allied losses 

had been slight. Rocket attacks were less frequent thanks to Westmoreland’s 

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid., p. 47; ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, 199th Inf Bde, 15 May 68, p. 19, box 142, ORLLs, 

1966–1971, Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 12 ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, 25th Inf Div, n.d., box 71, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd Historian, 

HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP; ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, 199th Inf Bde, p. 20; AAR, Opn 

Wilderness, 1st Bde, 25th Inf Div, 21 May 68, p. 19, box 40, 18th Mil Hist Det, RG 472, NACP.
Staying the Course

464

efforts to push the enemy out of range of Saigon, and South Vietnamese security forces had returned to the districts near Saigon that they had abandoned 

during Tet. Convinced that the Vietnamese could handle the security situation 

in the newly cleared zone, and determined to pursue the enemy as he withdrew, 

the allies launched a new operation called Toan Thang (“Complete Victory”) 

on 8 April.13

Operation Toan Thang expanded allied military operations from the districts that surrounded Saigon to most of III Corps. With the South Vietnamese 

Army now back on its feet, Weyand’s forces enjoyed greater freedom to pursue 

COSVN’s main force units into the northern provinces of III Corps. 

Nearly every combat unit in III Corps joined the counteroffensive, although 

some units continued with missions such as base security that limited their 

participation. The South Vietnamese 18th Division joined the effort, which 

expanded the reach of Toan Thang into Long Khanh and Binh Tuy Provinces. 

The 199th Infantry Brigade returned to Bien Hoa Province to resume its interdiction efforts against War Zone D. The Royal Thai Army Volunteer Regiment, 

operating under the control of the 9th Division, continued to secure lines of 

communications and to protect Camp Martin Cox in eastern Bien Hoa Province. 

13 Bfg, II FFV, n.d., sub: Battles in III CTZ since Tet (11 Mar–31 May), p. 2, box 2, Historians 

background files, 7th Mil Hist Det, USARV, RG 472, NACP; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 15-68, II 

FFV, 7–13 Apr 68, 13 Apr 68, p. 4, Historians files, CMH.

Two soldiers of Company B, 3d Battalion, 22d Infantry, 25th Infantry 

Division, during a firefight
465

The Allies Strike Back

The 1st Australian Task Force also remained where it was for the moment, but 

by joining Toan Thang it made itself available for missions outside of Phuoc 

Long Province for the first time in the war. The 1st and 2d Squadrons of the 

11th Armored Cavalry terminated their separate missions in Bien Hoa and 

Long Khanh Provinces, and the 3d Squadron returned to Camp Blackhorse to 

refit after its month-long detail to the South Vietnamese 25th Infantry Division. 

A week later, the 1st and 3d Squadrons would be on their way to Binh Long 

Province to disrupt Military Region 10’s logistical network, while the 3d Brigade, 

101st Airborne Division, advanced in neighboring Phuoc Long Province. All 

told, some seventy-nine allied maneuver battalions would comb the length and 

breadth of III Corps for COSVN’s main force units.14

Operation Toan Thang produced steady though not spectacular results 

in its first month. Allied troops killed a total of 709 enemy soldiers during 

week one, which was comparable to the 693 enemy dead they had killed at the 

beginning of April. That figure grew to 892 killed during the second week of 

Toan Thang and then dipped slightly to 792 during the last full week of the 

month. The enemy body count grew in small increments, usually the result 

of squad- and company-size firefights that ended as soon as the enemy could 

break contact. Roving helicopter gunships, tactical air strikes, and artillery 

14 ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, II FFV, p. 49.

M113s of the 25th Infantry Division engage the enemy during Operation Toan Thang.
Staying the Course

466

fire missions accounted for the majority of the kills. The enemy struck back 

where he could, mostly with mortar and rocket attacks aimed at allied bases 

or at night defense positions. By keeping their forces dispersed and on the 

move, the Communists were able to avoid excessive losses, though those tactics 

complicated efforts to position themselves for another strike at Saigon.

The largest engagement of Toan Thang’s opening phase took place on 12 

April near the southeastern edge of War Zone C. The 3d Brigade, 25th Division, 

had just begun sweeping Base Area 355, a belt of woods five kilometers northwest of the Michelin Rubber Plantation, in search of the 9th Division. Several 

hours after midnight, sappers from the 271st Regiment crept forward to probe 

the night defense position of the 3d Battalion, 22d Infantry, targeting Company 

B on the southwestern portion of the perimeter. The Americans returned 

fire and then hunkered down in their foxholes as the first of several hundred 

mortar rounds began to hit. Around 0400, a battalion of soldiers from the 271st 

Regiment surged out of the trees and headed for the sector held by Company B. 

The Americans fought back desperately, but the enemy’s superior numbers soon 

began to tell. Within thirty minutes, the enemy had breached the line and was 

threatening to push into the heart of the battalion’s position.

An unrelenting wave of air and artillery strikes plus the arrival of helicopter gunships around 0500 helped stabilize the situation and gave the defending 

infantrymen time to organize a counterattack. The reconnaissance platoon 

from the 3d Battalion, 22d Infantry, soon arrived to help Company B, and 

at 0615 a group of armored personnel carriers from the 2d Battalion, 22d 

Infantry, roared onto the scene and put the Viet Cong to flight. The beaten 

enemy broke contact and withdrew around 0700, leaving behind 153 corpses. 

Sixteen U.S. soldiers died in the battle and forty-seven were wounded. The 3d 

Battalion, 22d Infantry, regained contact with the 271st Regiment later that 

day and killed another fifty-one enemy soldiers for its own loss of seven killed 

and forty-five wounded.15

Such pitched battles were rare in April. Only on five other occasions did 

allied forces clash with a company-size enemy force. The best result for the allies 

came on 18 April when Troop A, 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry, cornered an enemy 

force in a bunker complex nineteen kilometers east of Ben Cat. The enemy used 

riot control gas against the attacking Americans and eventually fought his way 

out, but not before losing at least fifty-seven of his soldiers killed.16

By April, security was still below pre-Tet levels in much of III Corps, but 

the situation was significantly better than it had been in February. Thanks to 

the shield provided by Operations Quyet Thang and Toan Thang, commercial traffic resumed and Revolutionary Development teams began returning 

to their hamlets. Generally speaking, the teams found the rural population 

dismayed by the allies’ failure to protect them, apprehensive over the muchrumored second enemy offensive, and eager for the government to provide 

effective security from the Viet Cong, who since the government’s withdrawal 

in February had been taxing, recruiting, and proselytizing at a prodigious rate. 

15 Ibid., pp. 50–51.

16 Ibid., p. 51.
467

The Allies Strike Back

But the Viet Cong’s concentration on preparing for the next offensive also 

meant that they had not devoted the time and resources to truly implant themselves in formerly government-controlled areas. 

Binh Long Province demonstrated the fluidity of the situation. The 

Communists had not conducted any major attacks in this remote province during Tet, but they fully exploited the withdrawal of U.S. and South 

Vietnamese military formations toward Saigon by increasing their harassment actions and by establishing governments in a number of hamlets. 

Communist rule proved both brief and unpopular. When the 1st Brigade, 

1st Division, returned to Loc Ninh District in March, 2,000 Montagnards 

from two hamlets took advantage of the opportunity to leave for government territory. The 1st Brigade helped 900 of these individuals evacuate 

with their possessions from one of those communities, Loc An, before setting the hamlet ablaze at the request of the hamlet chief. After a Viet Cong 

mortar barrage killed five civilians in the hamlet of Ninh Phu, the community declared that the Viet Cong were no longer welcome. As U.S. troops 

advanced, the newly established Communist governments of six hamlets 

fled for the jungle without a shot being fired. The province senior adviser, 

Thomas J. Barnes, reported that provincial officials were finally “beginning 

to stir from the paralysis” caused by Tet. 

By April, all of the province’s Revolutionary Development teams were 

back in the countryside, spreading out in oil-spot fashion from the provincial and district capitals. The 1st Brigade was helping to improve the 

territorials by conducting combined operations, by providing training, and 

by distributing for the first time M79 grenade launchers and light antitank weapons to Regional and Popular Forces soldiers to help them keep 

pace with guerrillas who were now armed with Soviet B40 rocket-propelled 

grenade launchers smuggled in via Cambodia. Like most other province 

advisers in areas where U.S. troops were operating, Barnes attributed 

the improved conditions largely to U.S. offensive operations. Still, serious problems remained on both the security and pacification fronts, with 

Barnes repeating the well-accepted adage that improved security was the 

sine qua non of pacification. At present, Binh Long was enjoying the benefits of U.S. military activity and the enemy’s decision to move his combat 

units elsewhere. “As long as main force units are absent,” he concluded, 

“the government of Vietnam appears able to make dramatic inroads in Viet 

Cong controlled areas. Should main force units return, government inroads 

into Viet Cong preserves could prove ephemeral.”17

Wherever they were located, U.S. units conducted offensive operations to 

keep the enemy’s major units in check while assisting with area security by 

performing patrols and undertaking combined operations with the Regional 

and Popular Forces. They also continued operating the many mobile training 

teams they had created in 1967 to improve the performance of the Regional 

17 Rpt, CORDS, Advisory Team 81, n.d., sub: Binh Long Province Report for March 1968, 

pp. 1 (first quote), 2–3, 6 (second quote), 7; Rpt, CORDS, Advisory Team 81, n.d., sub: Binh 

Long Province Report for April 1968, pp. 1–2, 5–8. Both in Historians files, CMH.
Staying the Course

468

and Popular Forces. Most divisions spoke highly of the effort, but the system 

was beginning to change. After several months of deliberation, MACV 

decided to assume control over the territorial training teams. The transition 

would occur gradually over the next few months. In many cases, MACV reassigned current team members from their parent divisions to CORDS. As their 

tours of duty expired, MACV would eventually replace these initial personnel 

with men drawn from the United States specifically for these assignments. The 

province senior advisers welcomed the move, as it gave them direct control 

over the entire territorial training effort in their provinces. 

One pacification-related function that U.S. formations continued to be 

involved fully was civic action. In March, the senior CORDS adviser in Hau 

Nghia Province praised “the outstanding support rendered by the U.S. 25th 

Infantry Division,” which had provided “food, cooking utensils, sleeping 

equipment, and clothing and engineering support to clean up Cu Chi town.” 

CORDS advisers in neighboring Binh Duong Province singled out the 3d 

Brigade, 25th Division, for its many civic actions in that province, while a district adviser in Bien Hoa Province reported that “the enthusiasm and cooperation of U.S. units in assisting in the rebuilding of Tet Offensive damaged public 

and private structures, and their desire to complete interrupted civic action 

programs and start new ones, have been major factors in re-establishing a successful pacification effort. Their assistance in securing population areas from 

Viet Cong incursions has been invaluable.” These and other actions undertaken 

by U.S. units throughout South Vietnam were of special significance because 

they came at a time when the South Vietnamese government, still reeling from 

the shock of Tet, was not doing enough to assist the population.18

Regaining the Initiative in the Northern Mekong

As allied forces tried to regain control over the countryside in III Corps, 

a similar process began in IV Corps. Westmoreland planned on consolidating 

the 9th Infantry Division in the northern Mekong Delta “to break the near 

stalemate which has existed for some time in that area.” The 1st Brigade would 

be reconfigured for operations with the Mobile Riverine Force, which meant 

giving up its tracked and wheeled vehicles so all three battalions could function as light infantry. Westmoreland also planned on moving several armed 

helicopter troops from the 7th Squadron, 17th Cavalry, from III Corps to 

IV Corps where they could strike the Viet Cong logistical routes that passed 

through the Plain of Reeds.19

18 Rpt, CORDS, 31 Mar 68, sub: Hau Nghia Province, p. 1; Rpt, Maj Hugh G. Waite, 

Senior Adviser, n.d., sub: Duc Tu District, Bien Hoa Province, period ending 26 March 1968, 

p. 1 (quote); Rpt, CORDS, 31 Mar 68, sub: Binh Duong Province, pp. 5–6; Rpt, Capt Wayne 

A. Rush, District Senior Adviser, 31 Mar 68, sub: Tri Tam District, Dinh Duong Province, 

p. 1; Memo, G–5, 25th Inf Div, for CG, 25th Inf Div, 5 May 68, sub: Operational Report 

for Quarterly Period ending 30 April 1968, pp. 1–10; ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, 199th Inf Bde 

(Light), 15 May 68, pp. 3, 39–42. All in Historians files, CMH. 19 Msg, Westmoreland MAC 2956 to Wheeler, 2 Mar 68, p. 2, Westmoreland Msg files, CMH.
469

The Allies Strike Back

In early March, most of the Viet Cong battalions in IV Corps had split into 

small groups to evade detection. That gave the new South Vietnamese corps 

commander, General Thanh, a bit of breathing space to repair the damage of 

Tet and to instill a more offensive spirit in his troops than had been present 

under General Manh. Showing the energy and initiative that had impressed 

U.S. advisers when Thanh had been minister of Revolutionary Development, 

the new IV Corps commander set to work putting the delta back in order.20

Containing the enemy in Dinh Tuong Province and keeping Highway 4 

open remained, as before, a key priority. On 7 March, the 1st and 2d Brigades 

of the 9th Division and elements of the South Vietnamese 7th Division commenced Operation Truong Cong Dinh to locate and destroy the enemy 

forces that had attacked My Tho. Their main target was the 261A Main Force 

Battalion, considered the most effective Viet Cong unit in the delta. It had 

recently been incorporated into the new Dong Thap I Regiment along with the 

261B and 263d Main Force Battalions. Starting on 17 March, the 1st Brigade, 

9th Division, initiated a related operation called People’s Road to provide 

security for the 20th Engineer Battalion as it repaired a 24-kilometer stretch of 

Highway 4 between Cai Lay and My Tho in Dinh Tuong Province.21

The 4th Battalion, 47th Infantry, and the 3d Battalion, 60th Infantry, 

backed by the gunboats and landing craft of the Mobile Riverine Force, 

kicked off Operation Truong Cong Dinh with a series of airmobile and 

beach assaults that took place northwest of My Tho. Toward the evening of 

the second day, 8 March, Company B, 4th Battalion, 47th Infantry, made contact with an unidentified enemy force some seven kilometers from the capital. 

Companies C and E from the battalion closed in on the area, and in a firefight that lasted all night the Americans killed thirty-seven Viet Cong soldiers 

while losing five of their own. The 4th Battalion, 47th Infantry, and the 3d 

Battalion, 60th Infantry, continued to clash with platoon- and company-size 

groups in the same area over the next two weeks, most notably on 11 March 

when they killed a total of sixty-four enemy soldiers, although the Americans 

were unable to trap the main body of the 261st Battalion. The elusive enemy 

struck back with nighttime mortar attacks, one of which on 9 March sank 

a pair of artillery barges and destroyed four howitzers. Thirteen days later, 

Viet Cong gunners on the south side of the My Tho River hit the floating 

headquarters of the Mobile Riverine Force, the USS Benewah, with a pair of 

75-mm. recoilless rifle rounds. One shell opened a hole below the water line, 

but the crew quickly contained the flooding.22

20 Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 2984 to Abrams, 3 Mar 68, p. 4; Westmoreland MAC 2960 to 

Abrams, 2 Mar 68, p. 2. Both in Westmoreland Msg files, CMH. General Westmoreland’s Hist 

notes, 1–31 Mar 68, p. 3; MFR, MACCORDS, 17 Feb 68, sub: Narrative Assessment, Post-TET 

Pacification Status, IV CTZ, p. 11, Historians files, CMH; Clarke, The Final Years, 1965–1973, 

pp. 309–10. 21 Monthly Sum, Mar 68, MACV, 25 May 68, p. 23; Traas, Engineers at War, p. 344. 22 AAR, Opn Truong Cong Dinh, 2d Bde, 9th Div, 23 Apr 68, pp. 5–6, box 2, AARs, 1965–

1971, Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP; Fulton, Riverine Operations, 1966–1969, 

pp. 161–62.
Staying the Course

470

In mid-March, all the South Vietnamese forces in the delta joined Operation 

Truong Cong Dinh, giving General Thanh greater flexibility in crafting his 

strategy. Armed with the authority to shift battalions from the South Vietnamese 

7th, 9th, and 21st Divisions to wherever they were needed most, Thanh drew up 

a list of the most threatened areas of IV Corps and then began flooding them 

with troops. By the end of March, the South Vietnamese units under his command had regained most of the territory lost during Tet and had begun to make 

inroads into areas normally dominated by the Viet Cong.23

Meanwhile, back in Dinh Tuong Province, the 4th Battalion, 47th Infantry, 

and the 3d Battalion, 60th Infantry, shifted their area of operations several 

times over the next two weeks, ranging as far east as the Co Gong provincial 

border and as far west as the city of Vinh Long. They found and destroyed 

hundreds of bunkers but rarely killed more than a handful of Viet Cong on 

any particular day. The enemy appeared to have withdrawn deeper into his 

20/7 Heartland Zone and Base Area 470 in western Dinh Tuong Province 

rather than contest the engineering project on Highway 4. As of 2 April, when 

the 3d Battalion, 60th Infantry, exchanged places with the 3d Battalion, 47th 

Infantry, which had been defending the Dong Tam Base, the cumulative enemy 

losses for Truong Cong Dinh stood at 150 killed and 14 soldiers taken as 

prisoners of war.

23 MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 399–400.

A barracks ship (APL–26)
471

The Allies Strike Back

In mid-April, the 3d and 4th Battalions of the 47th Infantry moved into 

northern Kien Hoa Province to sweep the area around Ben Tre. Their most 

productive day came on the seventeenth when the two battalions combined 

to kill ninety Viet Cong soldiers while losing five killed and fifty wounded 

themselves. For the most part, however, the enemy units in the area refused 

to give battle unless cornered, and even then they usually managed to slip 

away by dividing into small teams that concealed themselves in the foliage that 

grew along the canals. At the end of April, the official results for Operation 

Truong Cong Dinh came to 343 Viet Cong killed against U.S. losses of 51 

killed. Unlike the precarious situation that had prevailed throughout February, 

enemy units no longer hovered on the outskirts of the provincial or district 

capitals in northeastern IV Corps, and the frequency of mortar or recoilless 

rifle attacks on those cities had diminished to almost none.24

The combination of offensive actions by the 2d Brigade, 9th Infantry 

Division, operating with the Mobile Riverine Force and the security efforts 

by the 1st Brigade, 9th Infantry Division, in Dinh Tuong Province, had kept 

the enemy off balance in the northeastern delta, giving the South Vietnamese 

a chance to get back on their feet. Nearly all of the Regional and Popular 

Forces units that had withdrawn from the countryside at the start of Tet 

24 ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, II FFV, p. 49.

Troops from the 9th Infantry Division reboard Tango boats during an 

operation in the Mekong Delta.
Staying the Course

472

were now back in their rural stations. The South Vietnamese Army battalions that had been recalled to defend the cities were once again operating 

in their Revolutionary Development areas. The flow of traffic on Highway 

4 had almost returned to pre-Tet levels; the number of mining incidents on 

the road had dwindled from 159 in February to 21 in April. People ignored 

Viet Cong threats not to use roads and canals to ship their goods to market. 

Reconstruction of the urban areas destroyed during Tet was moving forward 

rapidly. Most of the Revolutionary Development teams in the northeastern 

delta had moved into the hamlets assigned to them in the 1968 Combined 

Campaign Plan, including fifteen of seventeen in Go Cong Province, twelve 

of fifteen in Kien Hoa Province, and all eleven in Dinh Tuong Province. The 

teams reestablished government presence in previously pacified hamlets that 

the Communists had taken over, as province chiefs adapted to the changed 

conditions on the ground. Often they found that the Communist tide that had 

swept over the delta had been relatively shallow. True, the Viet Cong had been 

able to tax and recruit in areas that had previously been off limits to them, 

but they had not had the time to root themselves deeply into the community 

due to their focus on rebuilding their shattered military units. In Go Cong, 

for example, advancing government troops found thirty-two hamlets that had 

been engulfed in the red tide but which had refused to let the Communists in. 

As difficult as the situation was, it appeared that fears that the countryside had 

been lost irrevocably had been overblown. 

In many places, the returning Revolutionary Development teams had to 

devote much of their initial effort not to pushing pacification forward, but 

to helping residents repair their shattered communities. The Viet Cong had 

done some of the damage, but allied air and artillery employed during the 

counteroffensive had done much harm as well. This fact, combined with the 

looting done by government soldiers in some of the delta’s chief towns during 

Tet, did not endear the population to the allied cause. However, here as elsewhere in Vietnam, destruction created complex psychological reactions that 

ranged from resentment to resignation. And, as was true in the cities, many 

rural residents came to blame the Viet Cong for their suffering, even if it had 

come at the hand of allied ordnance, because it had been the Communists 

who triggered the combat by occupying their communities. What one person 

and community after another told government officials was that they wanted 

safety and security more than anything else. If the government could protect 

them from future enemy incursions and the dangers they entailed, it would 

have their support.25

The 9th Division conducted psychological and civic action operations on 

a considerable scale to help the population recover from Tet. In addition to 

assisting local hospitals, the division’s medical civic action teams treated nearly 

25 Special Joint Narrative Rpts, RD, Go Cong Province, 30 Apr 68, pp. 1–2, 9–11; RD, Kien 

Hoa Province, 30 Apr 68, pp. 5, 10; RD, Dinh Tuong Province, 31 Mar 68, pp. 1–7; RD, Dinh 

Tuong Province, 30 Apr 68, pp. 1, 4–5; RD, Vinh Binh Province, 31 Mar 68, p. 4; RD, Vinh 

Long Province, 31 Mar 68, pp. 1–4; RD, Chau Doc Province, 31 Mar 68, p. 2. All in Historians 

files, CMH.
473

The Allies Strike Back

50,000 civilians during February, March, and April. The division provided 

water, 203,000 pounds of food, and a significant amount of building supplies 

to distraught communities. It also helped build or repair many structures, 

including a facility for 300 children orphaned as a result of the fighting. When 

General Westmoreland put out a call for soldiers to make voluntary contributions to a special Tet Aggression Relief Project, the men of the division 

responded by donating $2,700 of their own money.26

Operations on the Central Coast

Just as the allies endeavored to restart pacification by clearing the 

approaches to Saigon, I Field Force commander General Peers planned to 

maintain at least one brigade of troops in Binh Dinh and Phu Yen Provinces 

during the coming quarter to keep the 3d PAVN Division and the independent 95B Regiment in check so the South Vietnamese could reenergize the 

stalled pacification campaign. His new counterpart was General Lu Mong 

Lan. Westmoreland praised Lan for his “aggressive spirit,” but in truth he had 

a mixed reputation. Peers certainly hoped that General Lan could get the best 

out of the South Vietnamese 22d Infantry Division in Binh Dinh Province, for 

large swathes of the lowlands were still heavily influenced by the Viet Cong.27

In early March, the 3d Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, and its new commander, Col. Eugene P. Forrester, had just started Operation Patrick to help 

South Vietnamese and South Korean forces defend the lowlands of Binh Dinh 

Province. Working alongside Forrester’s brigade was the 1st Battalion, 50th 

Infantry, a mechanized unit that had been patrolling Binh Dinh Province since 

September 1967 and which was currently operating under the command of Lt. 

Col. Cheney L. Bertholf Jr. Farther south, the 2d and the 4th Battalions of the 

503d Infantry, 173d Airborne Brigade, helped contain the enemy in Phu Yen 

Province with Operation Bolling.

28

The 1st Battalion, 50th Infantry, saw the most action in the weeks that 

followed. On 9 March, the 22d Regiment of the 3d PAVN Division attacked 

the unit’s camp, Landing Zone Litts, two kilometers north of Phu My on the 

shoulder of Highway 1. A handpicked team of rocket grenadiers and the 8th 

Battalion, 22d Regiment, led the assault that failed to reach the well-dug-in 

infantry and sandbagged armored personnel carriers from Company D, 1st 

Battalion, 50th Infantry. Thirty-six North Vietnamese soldiers died in the 

failed attack. Six days later, the mechanized company killed another thirtyfour soldiers from the 22d Regiment while patrolling north of Phu My. After 

that second setback, the North Vietnamese regiment dropped out of sight 

for the remainder of March. Even so, its presence in the Mieu Mountains 

northeast of Phu My continued to impede pacification efforts, discouraging 

26 ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, 9th Inf Div, 12 May 68, pp. 39–48, Historians files, CMH.

27 Msg, Westmoreland MAC 2984 to Abrams, 3 Mar 68, p. 4 (quoted words).

28 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 9-68, I FFV, 25 Feb–2 Mar 68, 2 Mar 68, p. 4, Historians files, 

CMH; 3d Division, p. 81.
Staying the Course

474

government officials from working in the hamlets that lay in the shadow of 

the coastal hills.29

Otherwise uneventful, Operation Patrick terminated on 30 March 

when the 3d Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, moved to the Central Highlands 

to rejoin its parent division. At the same time, Peers redeployed the 1st, 2d, 

and 3d Battalions of the 503d Infantry, 173d Airborne Brigade, as well 

as its headquarters from Kontum Province to the coastal plain. The 1st 

Battalion, 503d Infantry, went to Camp Radcliff to conduct Operation 

Walker, while the 2d and 3d Battalions, 503d Infantry, moved to the new 

brigade headquarters at Landing Zone English. The 4th Battalion, 503d 

Infantry, 173d Airborne Brigade, remained in Phu Yen Province. Now commanded by Brig. Gen. Richard J. Allen, who replaced General Schweiter 

on 20 March, the brigade kicked off Operation Cochise in Binh Dinh to 

carry on the mission of Patrick.

30

General Allen began Cochise by targeting a busy Communist supply 

route in the Vinh Thanh Mountains known as the Oregon Trail. Intelligence 

suggested that the 3d Division’s command post and elements of the 2d and 

22d Regiments were in the area. Allen committed all of the troops that he 

could spare—parts of the 2d and 3d Battalions, 503d Infantry, plus a South 

Vietnamese battalion and some CIDG soldiers—but the 3d Division avoided 

contact for the entire twelve days of the operation and throughout the rest of 

April. Though the 173d Airborne Brigade failed to locate its quarry, the sweep 

kept North Vietnamese soldiers out of the heavily populated Bong Son and 

Phu My lowlands for six weeks. Farther south toward Qui Nhon, the South 

Korean Capital Division did its part to defend the Revolutionary Development 

area in Tuy Phuoc District by organizing a thirty-company operation called 

Maeng Ho 11 that killed 202 enemy soldiers and captured another 84 in the 

second half of April.31

As security improved in Binh Dinh’s lowlands as a result of allied military 

activities, South Vietnamese officials returned to the countryside to restart 

Revolutionary Development programs. By March, all fifty Revolutionary 

Development teams were back in the field, nearly all of them in hamlets slated 

for pacification in the 1968 Combined Campaign Plan. As was true elsewhere, 

however, much of their initial work was devoted to rebuilding damaged homes 

rather than performing routine pacification tasks. According to CORDS, their 

efforts to reestablish the government’s presence was facilitated by the fact that 

29 ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, 3d Bde, 4th Div, 4 May 68, p. 5, box 26, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd 

Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 10-68, I FFV, 3–9 Mar 68, 9 

Mar 68, pp. 5–6, Historians files, CMH. 30 ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, 3d Bde, 4th Div, p. 5; 3d Division, p. 77; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 

13-68, I FFV, 24–30 Mar 68, 30 Mar 68, p. 6, Historians files, CMH. 31 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 14-68, I FFV, 31 Mar–6 Apr 68, 6 Apr 68, p. 4, Historians files, 

CMH; ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, 173d Abn Bde, 15 May 68, pp. 9, 32, box 138, ORLLs, 1966–

1971, Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP; 3d Division, p. 85.
475

The Allies Strike Back

in Binh Dinh “a great number of infrastructure cadres have been uncovered, 

and their ranks have been severely decimated.”32

Economic conditions were also getting better, spurred by improved rural 

security and the reopening of Highway 1. The April rice harvest was better 

than expected, yielding 2 tons per acre compared to the 1.9 tons usually gathered that month. Food prices returned to pre-Tet levels and supplies were adequate everywhere. The province chief was taking vigorous action to combat 

corruption, black marketeering, and price gouging. He insisted, for example, 

that all shopkeepers display their prices prominently in their storefronts as a 

way of discouraging illegal profiteering. Reconstruction efforts were visible in 

Qui Nhon and many of the hamlets damaged during Tet. By the end of April, 

the provincial government had distributed 34,400 bags of cement and sheets 

of roofing to families that had lost their homes. A broad recovery appeared to 

be under way in the lowland districts of Binh Dinh Province, but full recovery 

was many months away and would require, in the opinion of the senior province adviser, continued “large unit, sustained operations” and frequent local 

patrolling to keep the enemy’s conventional forces at bay. 33

U.S. units contributed to the restoration in a variety of ways beyond providing the necessary military shield. They sought to improve the performance 

of South Vietnamese regulars by conducting combined operations with them 

at the company level. In coordination with CORDS and South Vietnamese 

government officials, they sponsored the usual set of medical, humanitarian, 

and construction projects associated with the Army’s civic action program. 

Finally, in April the 173d Airborne Brigade organized and trained three 

adviser teams to assist the territorials. Each team consisted of a lieutenant, an 

infantry noncommissioned officer, and three enlisted men with the specialties 

of infantry, medicine, and engineering. The teams, which the brigade placed 

under the control of CORDS advisers in three of Binh Dinh’s districts, then 

began providing eleven-day training cycles for Regional Forces companies and 

five-day training for Popular Forces platoons. The trainers emphasized learning by doing rather than classroom instruction, and accompanied the territorial soldiers on patrols and ambushes. Eventually, the teams would work with 

all sixteen Regional Forces companies and seventy-one platoons that were 

stationed in the three serviced districts.34

Separate from the effort to secure the lowlands, the 1st Battalion of the 

503d Infantry, 173d Airborne Brigade, conducted Operation Walker in the 

interior highlands of the province to defend Camp Radcliff and to protect 

Highway 19 around An Khe. Screening the road was a vital, if unglamorous, 

task. The allied bases in the highlands depended on the large, slow-moving 

truck convoys that traveled back and forth from Qui Nhon. Although the 

32 Rpt, CORDS, 31 Mar 68, sub: Binh Dinh Province, pp. 1, 9 (quote), Historians files, 

CMH. 33 Ibid., p. 15; Memo, CORDS, 25 Mar 68, sub: Status of Pacification—Binh Dinh Province 

(Tet Offensive), pp. 1–3; Special Joint Narrative Rpt, RD, Binh Dinh Province, Apr 68, pp. 1–2, 

11–17. Both in Historians files, CMH. 34 ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, 173d Abn Bde, pp. 31, 37.
Staying the Course

476

allies had used Rome plows and defoliants to strip a wide belt of vegetation 

from either side of Highway 19, there were still numerous places where the 

Communists could lay in wait. In a typical ambush, enemy soldiers would 

attempt to disable the lead and the rear vehicles using a combination of rocketpropelled grenade launchers, mines, or claymores to trap the rest of the convoy 

and thus make it an easier target for the ambushing force. The subsequent 

firefights rarely lasted for more than few minutes because the Communist soldiers did not want to expose themselves to air and artillery strikes by lingering 

in the area.35

The enemy concentrated his attacks in the Mang Yang Pass, a narrow and 

twisting section of Highway 19 approximately halfway between An Khe and 

Pleiku City where the 2d Squadron of the 1st Cavalry, 4th Infantry Division, 

passed off eastbound convoys to the 1st Battalion, 503d Infantry, or acquired 

those coming west. The 5th Battalion, 95B Regiment, and the 124th Mortar 

Company periodically tried to shut down the strategic pass. On 5 March 1968, 

for example, a platoon of North Vietnamese soldiers attacked a convoy nearing the Mang Yang Pass from the south side of Highway 19, employing a 

35 AAR, Opn Walker, 173d Abn Bde, 2 Mar 69, p. 1, box 38, AARs, 1965–1971, Cmd 

Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 10-68, I FFV, p. 4.

A military police officer from the 173d Airborne Brigade and a policeman 

from the South Vietnamese National Police at a checkpoint near Bong Son 

during Operation Cochise
477

The Allies Strike Back

combination of RPG2 rocket-propelled grenades, claymore mines, and automatic weapons fire. The brief but well-coordinated ambush destroyed one 

truck, damaged three others, and killed two U.S. soldiers. Just west of the 

Mang Yang Pass on 15 March, North Vietnamese troops destroyed a passing 

fuel truck with a rocket-propelled grenade and then triggered two commanddetonated mines as the column came to a halt. The attackers fled the scene 

before the defenders could engage them.36

One of the largest but least successful attacks came on 10 April when a 

company from the 95B Regiment ambushed a column of trucks in the Mang 

Yang Pass. The North Vietnamese opened fire several minutes too early, probably because they mistook the sound of a dud 105-mm. howitzer shell being 

blown up by an ordnance disposal team a short distance away for the initial 

round of an incoming barrage. The error proved disastrous. A section of tanks 

that was spearheading the convoy and two platoons of paratroopers immediately converged on the concealed North Vietnamese troops, killing forty-five 

of them and capturing seven crew-served weapons. The convoy reached its 

destination without loss.37

Meanwhile, the remaining element of the 173d Airborne Brigade, the 4th 

Battalion, 503d Infantry, commanded by Lt. Col. David L. Buckner, continued Operation Bolling in northern Phu Yen Province to defend the capital 

of Tuy Hoa and the heavily populated districts that surrounded it. Batteries 

C and D of the 3d Battalion, 319th Artillery, supported the battalion, as did 

Task Force Mitchell, made up of Company D, 16th Armor, and Troop E, 

17th Cavalry. The primary threat to the city came from elements of the 95B 

Regiment and the 85th Local Force Battalion, but they remained largely out of 

sight during March and April while they waited for reinforcements to bring 

them back up to strength. Thanks in part to this passivity, the province made 

significant progress in pacification in April. According to the province senior 

adviser, security, while still inadequate, was “qualitatively better now than 

before the Tet offensive,” and rural residents seemed more willing to report on 

Viet Cong activities.38

A similar lack of hostile activity prevailed in the southern provinces of II 

Corps. In Khanh Hoa Province, where the withdrawal of government troops 

during the Tet offensive had produced a two-month delay in meeting pacification goals, CORDS reported “a spectacular breakthrough in the government 

of Vietnam’s attack on the infrastructure” in which 110 Viet Cong cadre were 

incarcerated thanks to their surfacing during Tet. Progress was less notable 

in Ninh Thuan Province, which like Khanh Hoa contained no U.S. combat 

formations, but where authorities made little headway against the infrastructure. Finally, in the southernmost coastal province of II Corps, a U.S. air36 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 10-68, I FFV, p. 4; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 11-68, I FFV, 10–16 Mar 

68, 16 Mar 68, pp. 4–5, Historians files, CMH. 37 AAR, Opn Walker, 173d Abn Bde, p. 6; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 15-68, I FFV, 7–13 Apr 

68, 13 Apr 68, p. 5, Historians files, CMH. 38 ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, 173d Abn Bde, p. 33; Rpt, CORDS, 30 Apr 68, sub: Phu Bon 

Province, p. 1, Historians files, CMH.
Staying the Course

478

borne task force built around the 3d Battalion, 506th Infantry, 101st Airborne 

Division, continued Operation McLain from its base at Phan Thiet, Binh 

Thuan Province. Rural security had declined significantly after Tet, as much 

from the government’s withdrawal to the towns and subsequent passivity as 

from enemy action. Modest gains began to accrue in April when, goaded by 

MACV and I Field Force headquarters, the Vietnamese finally began to go 

onto the offensive. The men of the 3d Battalion assisted in the rejuvenation 

by conducting low-level combined operations with government forces and by 

training a Regional Forces intelligence squad as a long-range reconnaissance 

patrol. Still, the paratroopers rarely caught sight of the enemy, as the commander of Military Region 6, General Chau, reverted to his traditional strategy of attacking lines of communications and isolated outposts, and withdrew 

his main units, the 840th Main Force Battalion and 482d Local Force Battalion, 

into the interior hills to rest until orders came for a second general offensive.39

39 Memo, CORDS, 25 Mar 68, sub: Status of Pacification—Khanh Hoa Province (Tet 

Offensive), pp. 1–2, 3 (quote); Rpt, CORDS, 31 Mar 68, sub: Khanh Hoa Province, pp. 

1–3; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 11-68, I FFV, p. 7; Memo, CORDS, 25 Mar 68, sub: Status of 

Pacification—Binh Thuan Province (Tet Offensive), pp. 1–5; Rpt, CORDS, 30 Apr 68, sub: 

Binh Thuan Province, pp. 1–11. All in Historians files, CMH.

Artillerymen from the 173d Airborne Brigade prepare for a fire mission.
479

The Allies Strike Back

Patrolling the Highlands

In the western part of II Corps, the commander of the 4th Infantry Division, 

General Stone, continued his screening mission in the borderlands, Operation 

MacArthur, for signs of the 1st PAVN Division and three North Vietnamese 

regiments—the 24th, 33d, and 95B—controlled by the B3 Front. Stone relied 

on intelligence to make the most of his limited resources. Reconnaissance 

patrols from the 4th Infantry Division and Montagnard teams led by Army 

Special Forces soldiers silently watched the dozens of trails that led into Laos 

and Cambodia. Supporting the scouts high overhead were airplanes equipped 

with infrared tracking systems and chemical sniffers that detected the smoke 

from campfires and vehicle engines. Racing low and fast over the treetops were 

scout helicopters looking to catch unwary North Vietnamese soldiers out in 

the open or to spot clues betraying their presence, such as newly dug trenches 

or a still-smoldering campfire. An enemy force discovered by any of those 

means would face a gauntlet of air and artillery strikes and then a swarm of 

helicopter-backed infantry if he dared come within striking distance of one of 

the few towns that dotted the highlands. General Stone felt he could afford to 

let the enemy come to him because, as he put it, “I have everything the enemy 

wants and he has nothing I want.”40

In early March, U.S. forces were distributed evenly across Kontum, Pleiku, 

and Darlac Provinces. The 1st and 2d Battalions of the 503d Infantry, 173d 

Airborne Brigade, were looking for the 33d Regiment near Ban Me Thuot, 

although it now appeared that the enemy had retreated far to the southwest to 

lick his wounds. The 2d Brigade of the 4th Division guarded Pleiku Province, 

aware that the 32d Regiment had recently moved somewhere southwest of the 

provincial capital. The 1st Brigade, 4th Division, had an even greater responsibility in Kontum Province, for it had to monitor the 24th Regiment that was 

somewhere north of Kontum City as well as the 66th and 174th Regiments 

that were in the Dak To area. Bruised though the enemy might be, he could 

still launch regimental-size attacks. While General Stone and I Field Force 

commander General Peers doubted the B3 Front would initiate another major 

offensive in the next few months—partly because of its Tet losses and partly 

because of the seasonal onset of the rains of the southwest monsoon—they 

expected the enemy to seek small gains whenever he could, and they were prepared to thwart those local offensives at every turn.41

After Tet, the commander of the B3 Front, General Thao, decided to shift 

his main focus away from Dak To. While he would continue to threaten the 

allied bases there, he believed the thickening defenses between Ben Het and 

Tanh Canh had substantially reduced his chances for success. By contrast, 

areas to the south were less well protected and thus offered a greater opportunity to pick off an isolated base or to ambush an unwary unit. The CIDG 

40 Senior Debriefing Rpt, Maj Gen Charles P. Stone, 15 Nov 68, pp. 3, 5, box 5, Senior Ofcr 

Debriefing Rpts, Cmd Historian, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 41 Quarterly Evaluation Rpt, Jan–Mar 68, MACV, 9 May 68, p. 32, box 189, NSF-Vietnam 

Country Files, LBJL.
Staying the Course

480

camps at Plei Kleng, twenty-two kilometers west of Kontum City, and Plei 

Mrong, some thirty kilometers southwest of the capital, were especially enticing targets because they were lightly defended with little or no road access 

to the main allied bases. All the while, Thao would continue to restock his 

forward supply areas and to integrate replacements coming down the Ho Chi 

Minh Trail in anticipation of the next major phase of the 1968 general offensive–general uprising.42

The allies learned more about Thao’s intentions on 1 March when the 

commander of the 9th Battalion, 66th Regiment, Vu Nhu Y, turned himself 

in and spoke at length to allied interrogators. He explained that the post-Tet 

mission of the 1st Division was to draw allied units into the region in order to 

create opportunities for Communist units elsewhere in the country. The division and elements of the 40th Artillery Regiment would continue to harass 

Ben Het and Dak To with indirect fire, while the 66th Regiment looked for 

opportunities to assault outposts. The same was true for the 174th Regiment. 

The North Vietnamese officer admitted that the 1st Division still had not fully 

recovered from the Dak To campaign, even though it had recently obtained a 

fresh regiment, the 320th, to replace the battered 32d, which had moved south 

to Darlac Province to operate under front control with the 33d Regiment.

The 320th Regiment—formerly the 209th Regiment, 312th Division—had just 

arrived from North Vietnam and was near full strength. General Thao could 

also reinforce an attack along Route 512 with the independent 24th Regiment

if the need arose.43

For the next several weeks, the allies caught only fleeting glimpses of those 

regiments. Enemy activity increased toward the end of March as the B3 Front 

began funneling more men and supplies through the network of trails that 

crisscrossed the highlands. U.S. patrols spotted groups of North Vietnamese 

soldiers on almost a daily basis, although the Communists usually broke contact and disappeared as quickly as possible. Allied intelligence warned that 

the 320th Regiment of the 1st PAVN Division was likely to make its presence 

known before long because General Thao would want to season his new unit. 

There were also clear signs that the 1st Division headquarters had moved from 

Cambodia back into western Kontum Province, strengthening the theory that 

the division headquarters intended to test its newly acquired regiment.44

Proof of that came on 26 March when two battalions of the 320th Regiment

attacked Firebase 14. Companies A and B of the 3d Battalion, 4th Infantry, 

8th Infantry Division, had established the outpost a few days earlier to protect the Polei Kleng CIDG camp twelve kilometers to the east. Employing 

flamethrowers in addition to automatic weapons and RPG2 rocket launchers, 

the North Vietnamese penetrated the northwest perimeter and briefly occu42 Col Gen Nguyen Huu An, Chien Truong Moi [New Battlefield] (Hanoi: People’s Army 

Publishing House, 1986), pp. 91–92. 43 Special Rpt, CMIC, no. 03-053-68, 18 Apr 68, sub: Organization of the 1st Division, B.3, 

pp. 29–30, Vietnam Enemy Order of Battle vol. 1, box 151, NSF-Vietnam Country Files, LBJL; 

Periodic Intel Rpt no. 9-68, I FFV, pp. 3, 8, H-1. 44 ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, 173d Abn Bde, p. 26.
481

The Allies Strike Back

pied a few bunkers until 

driven off by a U.S. counterattack. The brutal fight 

claimed the lives of 19 

Americans and 135 North 

Vietnamese soldiers.45

Whatever the future 

plans of the B3 Front, the 

173d Airborne Brigade 

would no longer be in its 

immediate line of fire. On 

30 March, the brigade 

ended its grueling fivemonth stint in the Central 

Highlands when it flew 

to Binh Dinh Province 

to swap places with the 

3d Brigade, 4th Infantry 

Division, bringing all 

three brigades of the 4th 

Infantry Division together 

for the first time in the war. 

The 1st Division immediately challenged the 

incoming unit. Beginning 

on 1 April and continuing for eight days, gunners 

lobbed some 400 mortar 

and recoilless rifle rounds 

into Firebase 14, which the 

3d Battalion, 8th Infantry, 

had relinquished to Lt. 

Col. William W. Taylor Jr. 

and his 1st Battalion, 35th 

Infantry. On 5 April, Companies A, B, and C from Colonel Taylor’s battalion 

encountered a battalion from the 320th PAVN Regiment west of the base and 

killed forty-eight enemy soldiers before the Communists broke contact. Ten 

days later, Company C from the 1st Battalion, 35th Infantry, clashed with 

another large force in the same area. Air and artillery strikes killed dozens of 

North Vietnamese soldiers, but an accurate body count was impossible because 

the enemy had sufficient time to clear the battlefield before he withdrew. 

The sudden spike in activity around Firebase 14 came into clearer focus 

on 20 April. A pair of North Vietnamese deserters told their interrogators 

that the B3 Front was trying to strengthen its infiltration and supply routes 

that led from the tri-border area to the central plateau where the major cities 

45 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 13-68, I FFV, p. 2.

A North Vietnamese flamethrower

and captured cannon shells
Staying the Course

482

were located. General Stone responded to this report by establishing a second 

outpost a short distance to the west of Firebase 14 manned by elements of the 

4th Infantry Division’s 1st Battalion, 14th Infantry, and the 1st Battalion, 22d 

Infantry. Like Firebase 14, it was situated on a key piece of terrain that overlooked the surrounding area. The North Vietnamese sent a battalion to attack 

the new base on 29 April, but the defenders, Company B of the 1st Battalion, 

14th Infantry, turned back the assault and killed forty-six Communist soldiers. 

As long as Stone controlled the high ground west of Kontum City, the enemy 

would find it difficult to mass his forces to attack the provincial capital.46

Another reason for the surge in enemy activity in Kontum Province was the 

arrival of the 325C Division, minus its 29th Regiment, which it had left behind 

in northern Quang Tri Province. Scout helicopters from the 7th Squadron, 

17th Cavalry, noticed a rise in enemy activity around Dak To in early April as 

the 95C and the 101D Regiments moved into the area. The towering forest that 

greeted the North Vietnamese soldiers was vastly different from the barren 

moonscape that characterized the Khe Sanh area, and it would take the division’s troops and their commander, Senior Col. Chu Phuong Doi, several 

weeks of learning the terrain and sorting out supply arrangements before the 

division was fully ready for offensive action. In the meantime, the 1st Division

shifted south toward the Kontum-Pleiku border where it was better positioned 

to threaten the respective provincial capitals.47

Meanwhile, starting in mid-March and continuing through April, all three 

border provinces reported significant improvements in rural security and 

pacification. According to Kontum’s CORDS adviser, “Progress was attributable to the success of U.S. military units in isolating major North Vietnamese 

Army units from the populated areas and also to a new offensive spirit on the 

part of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam.” The senior province adviser in 

Darlac agreed. CORDS personnel also took note of the 4th Division’s wellestablished civic action program, which often represented the only military 

civic action during the period as South Vietnamese units proved disinterested 

in such work. One U.S. officer died from a mishap at one of the twenty-eight 

well-digging projects the division undertook for Montagnard communities 

between February and April. In addition to dispensing 39,000 medical treatments, distributing several tons of food and relief supplies, and helping on 

several community construction projects, the division also provided logistical 

support to the consolidation of nineteen Montagnard hamlets into three villages. The hamlet chiefs of these communities had requested the consolidation 

to enhance their security, and the moves went well. The division reported that 

its activities continued to win the populace’s favor and to generate intelligence. 

But here, as throughout Vietnam, all of these achievements depended on secu46 ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, 3d Bde, 4th Div, p. 6.

47 Man, Time of Upheaval, pp. 481–82; Pham Gia Duc, 325th Division, 1954–1975, vol. 2 

(Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 2002) p. 65; An, New Battlefield, p. 90; Minh et al., 

History of the Resistance War Against the Americans, p. 194.
483

The Allies Strike Back

rity, and the ominous movements of major North Vietnamese combat formations in April raised concerns over whether the recent gains would last.48

The Americal Division in Southern I Corps

Westmoreland’s principal goal in southern I Corps after Tet was to restore 

security to the densely populated, rice-growing areas that were clustered near 

the major cities. He directed General Cushman to clear the lowlands south 

of Da Nang with the 1st Marine Division and the South Korean 2d Marine 

Brigade, while the Americal Division and the South Vietnamese 2d Infantry 

Division worked to restore security around Tam Ky, Quang Ngai City, and 

the populated zones in Quang Tin and Quang Ngai Provinces. Cushman’s 

force would shrink in late March when the 3d Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, 

moved from the Que Son Valley to Binh Dinh Province, leaving just the 196th 

Infantry Brigade (Light) to carry on with Operation Wheeler/Wallowa. 

Fortunately, the Americal Division would soon get more troops. Individual 

replacements arriving in April and May were to form a fourth rifle company 

in the battalions of the 196th and 198th Infantry Brigades (Light), and two 

new independent battalions activated for Vietnam service, the 5th Battalion, 

46th Infantry, and the 4th Battalion, 21st Infantry, were set to join the 11th 

and 198th Infantry Brigades (Light) in the Quang Tin–Quang Ngai sector.49

The allied situation in southern I Corps remained in turmoil at the beginning of March. Quang Tin Province had weathered the Tet offensive well, but 

Quang Nam Province to its north and Quang Ngai Province to its south were 

still reeling from the effects of Tet. The National Priority Area that stretched 

south of Da Nang to the An Hoa Valley had experienced several weeks of 

fighting during Tet. Many of the Revolutionary Development teams and associated pacification officials assigned there were still taking refuge in Da Nang 

or Hoi An. Security had plummeted in Quang Ngai, reducing the government’s control to the major towns. Even under the best of circumstances, U.S. 

analysts believed it would probably take three months to erase the setback. 

The Americal Division retained the lead role in fighting the 2d PAVN 

Division and more than a dozen Viet Cong battalions that were based in the 

coastal hills from the Que Son Valley to Duc Pho. Its commander, General 

Koster, also had to be ready to come to the aid of the Special Forces camps 

that dotted the mountainous interior. On top of that, Koster anticipated two 

more months of organizational turmoil as his unit evolved from a provisional 

outfit into a standardized infantry division of three organic brigades. His 11th 

and 198th Infantry Brigades were still getting acclimated to Vietnam, both 

48 Rpt, CORDS, 31 Mar 68, sub: Kontum Province, pp. 1–4, 8; Rpt, CORDS, 30 Apr 68, sub: 

Kontum Province, pp. 1 (quote), 2–3; Rpt, CORDS, 31 Mar 68, sub: Darlac Province, pp. 1–10; 

Rpt, CORDS, 30 Apr 68, sub: Darlac Province, pp. 1–12; ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, 4th Inf Div, 

n.d., pp. 25–30. All in Historians files, CMH. 49 ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, Americal Div, 7 May 68, p. 26, box 66, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd 

Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP.
Staying the Course

484

having arrived only a few months earlier. Koster’s most experienced unit, the 

3d Brigade, 4th Division, which had been in southern I Corps since April 1967, 

had left the Que Son Valley at the end of February. As a result, the general 

had to commit the division’s armored reconnaissance unit, the 1st Squadron, 

1st Cavalry, led by Lt. Col. Walter C. Cousland, to help the 196th Infantry 

Brigade pick up the slack. That left the 198th Infantry Brigade to watch the 

area around the division base at Chu Lai in southeastern Quang Tin Province 

and his newest unit, the 11th Infantry Brigade, to patrol southeastern Quang 

Ngai Province.50

One of Koster’s main priorities was to prevent the enemy from attacking 

the district and provincial capitals that had suffered so badly during Tet. When 

allied intelligence noticed a spike in Viet Cong activity near Quang Tin’s capital, Tam Ky, in the last week of February, elements of the 1st Squadron, 1st 

Cavalry, and the South Vietnamese 2d Division went looking for the enemy. 

On 26 February, they searched a wooded area some three kilometers southwest of Tam Ky known as the Pineapple Forest, a well-known enemy base 

area. Koster’s cavalrymen flushed from cover around 500 Viet Cong soldiers 

belonging to the 72d Local Force Battalion, the 70th Main Force Battalion, and 

the V13 and V15 Local Force Companies, which had been hiding in a forward 

staging area, apparently intent on attacking Tam Ky at some point in the near 

future. The allies killed an estimated 201 Viet Cong soldiers over the next three 

days and thus removed an incipient threat to the capital.51

In the Wheeler/Wallowa zone that covered Quang Nam’s Que Son 

Valley, the 196th Infantry Brigade and the 1st Squadron, 1st Cavalry, continued their hunt for the 2d Division. At the beginning of March, Koster learned 

that part of the 2d Division had come down from the western hills into the 

Que Son Valley, most likely to find food. On the fourth day of the month, 

elements from the 196th Infantry Brigade and the 1st Squadron, 1st Cavalry, 

converged on the south-central part of the valley, which turned out to be teeming with soldiers from the 3d PAVN Regiment. Over the next eight days, the 

Americal troops killed an estimated 436 North Vietnamese soldiers in dozens 

of squad- and company-size firefights. If that tally was correct, it meant that 

the 3d Regiment would need at least a month or two to recover its offensive 

capability, giving local authorities more time to pacify the valley without fear 

of a main force attack.52 

Koster’s headquarters continued to look closely for any signs pointing to 

a new round of attacks against the cities. Some of the information it gathered 

amounted to little more than unsubstantiated rumor, but in late March an 

enemy soldier surrendered and told his captors that a large Viet Cong force 

was massing near Quang Nam’s capital of Hoi An. Acting on the information 

he provided, elements of the 1st Squadron, 1st Cavalry, and the 198th Infantry 

Brigade searched the coastal flats south of the city and discovered the 70th 

Main Force Battalion and several local Viet Cong units less than ten kilometers 

50 ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, Americal Div, p. 13.

51 Ibid.

52 Ibid.
485

The Allies Strike Back

from the provincial capital. Using the mobility and shock of the armored personnel carriers to great advantage, the Americal troops killed an estimated 263 

enemy soldiers before the Communists were able to break contact. Hoi An, for 

the moment at least, appeared to be out of danger.53

In early April, the 198th Infantry Brigade shifted south to the Que Son 

Valley to fill the gap left by the departure of the 3d Brigade, 4th Infantry 

Division. One of its first missions was to help the 1st Squadron, 1st Cavalry, 

and the 39th Engineer Battalion open a road connection between Tam Ky and 

a Special Forces camp near the district capital of Tien Phuoc, some twenty 

kilometers to the southwest of Tam Ky along Route 533. Elements from the 

South Vietnamese 2d Division would also help the U.S. forces search Base 

Area 117 in the mountains south of Route 533 for Viet Cong units such as the

72d Main Force Battalion and the 74th Local Force Battalion.

The 198th Infantry Brigade kicked off the new mission, named Operation 

Burlington Trail, on 8 April when Companies C and D of the 1st Battalion, 

46th Infantry, landed on a pair of hilltops approximately ten kilometers southwest of Tam Ky that provided excellent observation of the surrounding terrain. 

The following day, the 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry, landed on Hill 218, another 

key piece of high ground several kilometers west of where Companies C and 

53 Ibid.

A scout from the 196th Infantry Brigade scans for the enemy with a 

sniper scope mounted on an M14.
Staying the Course

486

D had landed the previous day. The battalion immediately began constructing 

Firebase Bowman to serve as the primary artillery fire support base for the 

operation.54

That same day, Troop A and a platoon from Troop C of the 1st Squadron, 

1st Cavalry, advanced toward Tien Phuoc along Route 533. Soldiers from 

the 72d Main Force Battalion tried to block its progress, but the armored 

force fought its way through the ambush, killing thirty-three enemy soldiers. 

Four Viet Cong soldiers who were taken prisoner claimed that their units 

had recently been equipped with Soviet-made antitank hand grenades, but it 

remained to be seen whether such weapons would prove effective against the 

U.S. tanks and armored personnel carriers. The antitank grenades could only 

be employed at short range and would therefore demand considerable bravery 

and a good measure of luck from their users. As it turned out, the enemy never 

got close enough to the cavalrymen over the next week to use such weapons if 

they had them. The mechanized column reached Tien Phuoc on 14 April and 

three days later declared Route 533 open to regular traffic.55

Viet Cong activity remained light around Bowman for the first few days 

of the operation apart from a flurry of enemy mortar rounds that struck the 

base on 10 April, killing two Americans and wounding eight others. The pace 

quickened on the afternoon of 13 April, when Company A of the 1st Battalion, 

6th Infantry, encountered a Viet Cong platoon five kilometers southwest of 

the firebase. The U.S. infantrymen killed seven of the enemy while air strikes 

claimed at least nineteen others. Later that evening, the Viet Cong exacted 

revenge by hitting Company B from the 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry, with a 

concentrated storm of mortars and automatic weapons fire that wounded 

twenty-two Americans.56

Contact with the enemy around Firebase Bowman again dropped to low 

levels for the remainder of April. During that time the balance of the 1st 

Battalion, 46th Infantry, joined the operation, as did Company A of the 1st 

Battalion, 52d Infantry, which assumed the security duties at Bowman. On 

the last day of the month, a Viet Cong force attacked the firebase with small 

arms and rocket-propelled grenades, but the defenders repulsed the assault 

and killed four enemy soldiers for a cost of eight wounded. 

The spike in action continued the next day, 1 May, when Company A 

from the 1st Battalion, 46th Infantry, was inserted by helicopter into a hot 

landing zone some eleven kilometers southwest of Bowman. The Americans 

killed thirty-one Viet Cong before the enemy withdrew. As before, contact in 

the Burlington Trail area once again dropped off, suggesting that the Viet 

Cong wished only to hide.57

Meanwhile, northwest of the Burlington Trail area in the heart of the 

Que Son Valley, the 196th Infantry Brigade turned over its role in Wheeler/

Wallowa to the 198th Infantry Brigade on 19 April so that the 196th Infantry 

54 AAR, Opn Burlington Trail, 198th Bde, n.d., p. 4, Historians files, CMH. 55 ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, Americal Div, p. 14.

56 AAR, Opn Burlington Trail, 198th Bde, p. 5. 57 Ibid.
487

The Allies Strike Back

Brigade could assume the defense of Camp Evans, while the 1st Cavalry 

Division conducted Operation Delaware. Over the previous two months, 

the 196th Infantry Brigade claimed to have killed 262 North Vietnamese and 

417 Viet Cong soldiers, captured or destroyed 180,000 pounds of rice, and 

destroyed a large number of camps. The Americans had compelled the enemy 

units that normally operated in the Que Son Valley to spend much of their time 

in the mountains of western Quang Nam Province where they were safer from 

allied patrols but also farther removed from their source of food. Because of 

their isolation, the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops also exerted less 

influence over the people who lived on the coastal plain. As spring brought a 

change from the wet northeast monsoon to the drier southwest monsoon, it 

now became the responsibility of the 198th Infantry Brigade to preserve and 

expand the hard-won allied gains in the Que Son.58

The third major component of the Americal Division, the 11th 

Infantry Brigade, worked alongside the South Vietnamese 2d Division to 

restore security in Quang Ngai Province following Tet. The 4th Battalion, 

3d Infantry, conducted Operation Muscatine in the heavily populated 

lowlands that lay northwest of the provincial capital. Also participating in 

Muscatine was Task Force Barker, a group composed of three infantry 

companies and a partial artillery battery drawn from various parts of the 

58 ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, Americal Div, p. 13.

Soldiers of Company D, 5th Battalion, 46th Infantry, 198th Infantry Brigade, 

move out from a landing zone in Quang Ngai Province.
Staying the Course

488

11th Infantry Brigade that was commanded by the brigade’s operations 

officer, Lt. Col. Frank A. Barker. It patrolled a sector formerly held by 

the South Korean 2d Marine Brigade that lay northeast of Quang Ngai 

City and which included the Batangan Peninsula. Elements from the South 

Vietnamese 2d Division guarded the districts immediately surrounding 

Quang Ngai City. The 3d Battalion, 1st Infantry, and the 1st Battalion, 

20th Infantry, operated in the southeastern part of the province from the 

brigade headquarters at Duc Pho. The 11th Infantry Brigade, therefore, 

had a huge amount of territory to cover, a problem exacerbated by the fact 

that it was physically split in two by the South Vietnamese zone.59

The My Lai Massacre

In the wake of Tet, allied units based near Quang Ngai City searched 

the countryside for the enemy forces that had attacked the provincial capital. 

The Viet Cong had suffered tremendous casualties but would bounce back 

unless the experienced cadre that formed the nucleus of their units could be 

destroyed. South Vietnamese troops and U.S. gunships scored a success on 6 

February when they killed fifty men from the 406th Sapper Battalion southwest of Quang Ngai City and another ninety-two soldiers from the 83d Local 

Force Battalion near the same location the next day. 

The 48th Local Force Battalion proved more elusive. The unit typically 

operated out of the sprawling village of Son My, made up of over a dozen 

59 William R. Peers, The My Lai Inquiry (New York: Norton, 1979), pp. 27, 39.

A grenadier from Company B, 3d Battalion, 1st Infantry, 11th Infantry Brigade, 

looks through an underground storage area during a hamlet search near Duc Pho.
489

The Allies Strike Back

hamlets that dotted the lower coast of the Batangan Peninsula. The community of rice farmers and fisherman had been a Communist stronghold 

since its founding by Viet Minh supporters in 1945. Technically the area was 

in the South Vietnamese zone of operations, but the government’s repeated 

reluctance or inability to clear the area led the allies to authorize Task Force 

Barker to enter Son My in search of the 48th Local Force Battalion. On U.S. 

military maps, the area surrounding the largest of the settlements, My Lai (1), 

was colored pink to reflect its Viet Cong–controlled status. Before long, the 

men of Task Force Barker came to refer to the whole area as “Pinkville.”60

Although there was some question as to whether the 48th Battalion was 

recovering from Tet in the village or in the hills to the northwest, Colonel Barker 

conducted regular sweeps through Son My looking for the unit. Whenever the 

soldiers from Task Force Barker did so, they faced a landscape that was filled 

with mines and booby traps. Snipers shot at them from concealment and then 

vanished without a trace. The Americans rarely caught a glimpse of their foes, 

in part because the area was riddled with tunnels that the local inhabitants had 

built to protect themselves and which the Viet Cong had turned to their own 

uses. The villagers, most of whom either actively supported the Communists 

or else were too frightened to resist their demands, almost never warned the 

Americans when they were in danger.61

The soldiers became increasingly angry and frustrated as a steady stream 

of their comrades suffered grievous injuries, while the local inhabitants pretended not to know where the minefields were and who was doing the sniping. It mattered little that South Korean troops rather than Viet Cong soldiers 

had probably laid the minefields for their own defense. Morale plummeted 

after a catastrophic incident on 25 February when a company walked into 

an unmarked minefield near the village of Lac Son. The resulting explosions 

killed three Americans and wounded twelve others, one more example of how 

everything and everyone seemed to be against them in Pinkville. 

Revenge was therefore on the minds of many soldiers in Company C of 

the 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, when they disembarked from helicopters on 

the morning of 16 March at the edge of a hamlet known to the Vietnamese as 

Thuan Yen and to the Americans as My Lai (4). The latest intelligence from 

Task Force Barker suggested that the headquarters and two companies from 

the 48th Battalion, some 200 men, had congregated in the hamlet. It was also 

home to some 400 civilians thought to be Viet Cong sympathizers. The commander of Company C, Capt. Ernest L. Medina, had told his men that all of 

the inhabitants would be away at market at the time of the assault, and that 

they had permission to burn down the huts, kill the livestock, cave in the wells, 

and cut down the crops so the enemy could no longer use them. The company 

was to advance east through the village, killing any Viet Cong they saw, and 

60 Ibid., p. 41.

61 ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, Americal Div, pp. 16, 20; Michael Bilton and Kevin Sim, Four 

Hours in My Lai (New York: Viking Press, 1992), pp. 57, 90.
Staying the Course

490

then link up with Company B from the 4th Battalion, 3d Infantry, after it 

finished a separate sweep through My Lai (Map 38).62

What happened next reflected a near-complete breakdown of leadership 

in both companies. Soldiers in both units, most notoriously the 1st Platoon 

of Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, led by Lt. William H. Calley Jr., 

rounded up and executed dozens of children, women, and old men in retaliation for their presumed support of the Viet Cong. Some soldiers raped women 

or participated in acts of torture. Others refused to partake in the orgy of 

killing, while a brave few tried to stop the shootings. Captain Medina, who was 

monitoring the sweep from outside of the village, later said that he had been 

unaware of these events. Nevertheless, he should have become suspicious when 

he heard the steady discharge of American weapons without noting a single 

enemy weapon fired in return. The captain let several hours elapse before he 

entered the hamlet and restored order.

The most conspicuous attempt to halt the massacre took place when an 

OH–23 Raven helicopter pilot from Company B, 123d Aviation Battalion, 

Warrant Officer (WO1) Hugh Thompson Jr., his crew chief Sp4c. Glenn 

Andreotta, and his gunner Sp4c. Lawrence Colburn, spotted numerous dead 

civilians and decided something was amiss. After seeing some soldiers execute 

62 Peers, The My Lai Inquiry, pp. 167, 170; Bilton and Sim, Four Hours in My Lai, pp. 83–85, 

95–98.

A Viet Cong guerrilla with his SKS rifle
491

The Allies Strike Back

a wounded woman lying prone on the ground, Thompson’s worst fears were 

confirmed. Flying on, he spotted a ditch that contained a mass of wounded 

civilians and landed his helicopter, intent on rescuing the people. When he got 

out and asked some nearby soldiers what was going on, an officer—Lieutenant 

Calley, as it happened—told him to mind his own business. As Thompson 

returned to his aircraft and flew away, his crew chief, Specialist Andreotta, 

witnessed Calley and some of his men execute the wounded civilians with their 

Map 38

C 1-20

I

B 4-3

I

A 3-1

I

B 123

I

LZ-2

LZ-1

U.S. NAVY

SWIFT BOATS

to Quang Ngai

Song Tra Khuc

Song Diem Diem

Song Ham Gia ng

My Khe (4)

Co Lay (2)

Co Lay (1)

Co Lay (3)

Ky Xuyen (1)

Ky Xuyen (2)

My Lai (1)

My Lai (2)

An Ky

My Lai (4)

Chau Thanh

SON MY OPERATIONS

PLANNED SCHEME OF MANEUVER 

16 March 1968

Planned Objective

Ground Movement

Screen

0

0 1 Kilometers

Miles 1
Staying the Course

492

M16 rifles. Stunned, Thompson flew on until he saw a group of civilians huddled around a bunker and a second group of soldiers approaching them with 

weapons drawn. Landing his helicopter between the two, Thompson got out 

and informed the soldiers that he intended to evacuate the civilians by helicopter. They backed off, and soon a UH–1 gunship landed at Thompson’s request 

to rescue the civilians. Afterward, Thompson and his crew flew back to the 

ditch where Calley and some of his men had executed more than one hundred 

civilians. Checking the mangled remains of what had been old men, women, 

and children, they discovered one survivor, a girl of about five or six years old, 

who was in shock but otherwise unhurt. They flew her to a hospital in Quang 

Ngai City and then returned to base. Thompson reported what he had seen to 

his superior, the commander of Company B, 123d Aviation Battalion, Maj. 

Frederic Watke, who in turn informed the battalion commander, Lt. Col. John 

Holladay. Colonel Holladay forwarded the report to Colonel Barker, Medina’s 

immediate superior, and to the commander of the 11th Infantry Brigade, Col. 

Oran K. Henderson. It was Henderson’s second day as brigade commander.63

After receiving the report, Colonel Barker radioed Captain Medina to 

clarify the situation. Medina told Barker that his company had engaged the 

Viet Cong and that about twenty civilians had been caught in the cross-fire. He 

stated that he had no knowledge of U.S. soldiers deliberately killing civilians. 

Barker accepted Medina’s explanation, apparently believing that Thompson 

had not seen things clearly. Later in the day, Colonel Henderson flew out to 

speak with Medina in person. Getting the same explanation from Medina, he 

flew back to his headquarters considering the matter closed. 

On 16 March, soldiers from Company C of the 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, 

and Company B of the 4th Battalion, 3d Infantry, had killed between 350 and 

500 civilians in various parts of Son My Village, most notably in My Lai (4) 

and My Khe (4). That evening, when General Koster received the daily briefing 

at division headquarters, Task Force Barker claimed to have killed 128 Viet 

Cong soldiers in the Son My area, though it had captured only three weapons. 

Barker stated that air and artillery strikes had inadvertently killed around a 

dozen civilians. Some of those in attendance scoffed at the report, noting the 

disparity between the body count and the number of weapons recovered. The 

inconsistency irritated General Koster, who instructed his deputy, Brig. Gen. 

George H. Young Jr., to look into the matter.64

On the morning of 17 March, General Young met the officers from the 

123d Aviation Battalion—Major Watke and Colonel Holladay—to discuss 

Warrant Officer Thompson’s report. Watke and Holladay later testified that 

they told Young that Thompson had seen soldiers executing civilians, but 

Young later said that he had gotten the impression that only a few civilians had 

been killed, and by accident, not on purpose. After speaking with Watke and 

Holladay, General Young briefed General Koster, apparently giving him the 

less inflammatory version of his recent meeting. Young then flew out to speak 

63 William Thomas Allison, My Lai: An American Atrocity in the Vietnam War (Baltimore: 

Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012), pp. 43–44. 64 Allison, My Lai, p. 52; Bilton and Sim, Four Hours in My Lai, p. 169.
493

The Allies Strike Back

with the executive officer of Task Force Barker, Maj. Charles Calhoun. The 

major stood by the official story of 128 Viet Cong dead, though he allowed 

that some of them might have been civilians killed by artillery fire.65

The following morning, 18 March, General Young met with Colonel 

Henderson, Colonel Barker, Colonel Holladay, and Major Watke to reconcile 

the discrepancies in their stories. Young supposedly warned the four officers, 

“We are the only five that know about this. . . . Something happened yesterday.” Unable to reach a consensus, General Young ordered Henderson to 

investigate the matter further and to report to him within seventy-two hours. 

According to the official Army investigation of the My Lai massacre conducted in 1969, Colonel Henderson’s three-day inquiry was “little more than 

a pretense” designed to sweep the incident under the rug. The report that 

Henderson gave to General Young on 19 March, an oral explanation without a written copy, was cursory and misleading. Henderson briefed Koster 

the next day, explaining that up to twenty civilians might have been killed by 

accident during the operation, but claiming that he could find no evidence that 

any U.S. soldiers had deliberately executed innocent people. Apparently satisfied, General Koster indicated that the matter was closed. Neither Henderson, 

Young, nor Koster filed a written report. Neither General Peers at I Field 

Force nor General Westmoreland at MACV had any inkling of what had 

transpired. The 11th Infantry Brigade continued its operations in Quang Ngai 

Province as if nothing had happened.66

Revelation of the My Lai massacre would not occur until the following 

year. In March 1969, a recently discharged soldier, Ronald Ridenhour, sent a 

letter describing the atrocity to over thirty officials in Washington. Ridenhour, 

who had served in the 11th Infantry Brigade, had not witnessed the massacre 

himself, but had learned of it from talking to men who had been present. His 

letter reached General Westmoreland, now Army chief of staff, who ordered 

an investigation. The Office of the Inspector General launched a wide-ranging 

criminal probe, and on 5 September 1969 the Army filed murder charges 

against Lieutenant Calley.67

In late October 1969, an Associated Press reporter named Seymour Hersh 

got a tip that the Army was investigating an alleged massacre in Vietnam. 

After interviewing Calley, Hersh broke the story in thirty newspapers around 

the country on 13 November. That piece and a follow-on article published a 

week later unleashed a wave of anger and revulsion through American society. 

Like Tet and the controversy over Wheeler’s large troop request, news of the 

incident further undermined public support for the war.68

The disclosure prompted Secretary of the Army Stanley R. Resor to establish a separate board of inquiry to investigate the cover-up that had occurred 

when General Koster had commanded the Americal Division. Led by General 

65 Allison, My Lai, pp. 61–62. 66 Ibid., p. 65.

67 Ibid., pp. 76–85. For Westmoreland’s reaction to My Lai and the issues it raised, see Zaffiri, 

Westmoreland, pp. 333–52. 68 Allison, My Lai, pp. 84–85; Bogart, Silent Politics, pp. 93–94.
Staying the Course

494

Peers, the inquiry began on 26 November 1969, eventually producing a report 

in March 1970 consisting of over 20,000 pages of testimony from more than 

400 witnesses, plus hundreds of other pieces of evidence. The Peers Report 

accused thirty individuals of having knowledge of the killings, of making false 

reports, of suppressing information, and of committing similar derelictions of 

duty. Of the thirty, four were deceased, including the task force commander, 

Colonel Barker. Seven had left the Army and were not prosecuted because the 

service maintained it lacked jurisdiction, leaving nineteen active duty officers 

who could be charged in the cover-up. Of those, only the brigade commander, 

Colonel Henderson, went to trial. The court-martial returned a verdict of not 

guilty. The Army dropped charges against the rest for lack of evidence, but 

meted out administrative punishments to several individuals. Among those 

were General Koster, then the superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at 

West Point. The Army censured Koster, demoted him to the rank of brigadier 

general, and stripped him of his Distinguished Service Medal for failing to 

conduct an adequate investigation.69

Meanwhile, the separate inspector general’s investigation of the My Lai 

massacre ultimately resulted in thirteen members of Task Force Barker, 

including the commander of Company C, Captain Medina, and the leader 

of the 1st Platoon, Lieutenant Calley, being charged with various counts of 

murder or assault with the intent to commit murder. The first two trials went 

badly for the Army. Prosecutors had difficulty getting sufficient evidence from 

witnesses to prove their case, and both soldiers were found not guilty. Given 

the outcome of those initial trials, the Army decided to drop the charges 

against all but Medina and Calley, who stood the strongest chance of being 

convicted.70

Lieutenant Calley, charged with six counts of premeditated murder of 109 

Vietnamese civilians, went on trial on 17 November 1970. When the military 

court delivered its verdict on 29 March 1971, it found Calley guilty of murdering no fewer than twenty-two Vietnamese civilians, for which he received a 

sentence of life in prison with hard labor and dismissal from the Army. His 

lawyers appealed, and bowing to strong public sentiment that the Army was 

making Calley a scapegoat, President Richard M. Nixon intervened, ordering 

that Calley be placed under house arrest in lieu of prison until the appeal 

process was resolved. After several years of additional court decisions and 

complex legal maneuvering, Calley won release on parole in November 1974 

after having served just four months in a stockade. As for Captain Medina, 

who went on trial on 16 August 1971 for the murder of 175 civilians, Army 

prosecutors had trouble getting conclusive testimony from witnesses, and 

Medina was found not guilty on 29 April 1972.71

69 Allison, My Lai, pp. 82–84; Fred L. Borch, “Samuel W. Koster v. The United States: A 

Forgotten Legal Episode from the Massacre at My Lai,” Army Lawyer (November 2015): 1–4. 70 Bogart, Silent Politics, pp. 91–94. 71 Ibid., pp. 95–121. According to a Gallup poll, 79 percent of Americans disapproved of the 

initial guilty verdict and life sentence in the Calley case. Bogart, Silent Politics, p. 94.
495

The Allies Strike Back

All of these developments were far in the future. For the Americal Division 

in the spring of 1968, the war proceeded much as it had before My Lai. In early 

April, the 11th Infantry Brigade obtained intelligence that the 401st PLAF 

Main Force Regiment and the 81st PLAF Local Force Battalion were gathering 

in Base Area 121 near a horseshoe bend in the Tra Khuc River some fourteen 

kilometers west of Quang Ngai City. Believing that another attack against 

the provincial capital might be imminent, the brigade organized a sweep of 

the area named Operation Norfolk Victory. On 8 April, elements of the 

1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, as well as Company C from the 4th Battalion, 3d 

Infantry, helicoptered into several landing zones that were between seven and 

fifteen kilometers southwest of the provincial capital. Ground fire brought 

down an OH–23 Raven helicopter, but enemy contact was otherwise light that 

day. 

Over the next eleven days, the companies uncovered a moderate haul of 

food and supplies while fending off a number of small hit-and-run attacks. 

They destroyed several company-size camps and located a supply station that 

held over 3,600 hand grenades and 2,250 pounds of explosives. When the 

operation came to an end on 19 April, the 11th Infantry Brigade soldiers had 

killed forty-three Viet Cong while losing five of their own. For the time being, 

at least, there was little sign that the enemy was massing for another assault 

against Quang Ngai City.72

The remainder of April passed quietly in Quang Ngai Province apart 

from one notable clash that took place near the northeastern boundary of the 

Muscatine zone. On 23 April, a Viet Cong force led by the 95th Local Force 

Sapper Company and supported by elements of the 48th Local Force Battalion 

attacked a hamlet that was occupied by Marine Combined Action Program 

Team 135. Americal soldiers came to the aid of the defenders and with their 

help killed some forty-nine Viet Cong soldiers. The enemy carried away most 

of the bodies as he withdrew. According to local villagers, one of the dead had 

been a battalion commander, but the Americans could not confirm whether 

the 48th Battalion had indeed lost its senior officer during the firefight.73

In addition to conducting its primary combat mission, the Americal 

Division continued to work closely with CORDS and Vietnamese officials in 

Quang Ngai and Quang Tin Provinces. Between February and April the division’s medical teams treated 62,000 civilians. Koster used his vehicles to move 

over 2,000 tons of CORDS supplies, while the division disbursed $3,500 in 

cash and distributed over 104 tons of food, clothing, and construction materials to the population. The division supported an orphanage and helped build 

or repair 130 houses, a church, 17 wells, 18 schools, 3 dispensaries, and 2 marketplaces. Last but not least, the officers and men of the Americal Division 

responded to Westmoreland’s call for acts of charity in the wake of Tet by 

donating $1,800 of their own money to the relief effort. None of these actions 

could wash away the stain of My Lai, but they indicated the genuine desire of 

72 AAR, Opn Norfolk Victory, 1st Bn, 20th Inf, 4 May 68, pp. 1–5, box 1, AARs, 1965–

1971, Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 73 ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, Americal Div, p. 18. 
Staying the Course

496

the United States, the U.S. Army, and the vast majority of servicemen to help 

the Vietnamese people during difficult times.74

A Sense of Urgency

By the end of March, the allies were beginning to restore the government’s presence in the countryside. Most of the Revolutionary Development 

teams were back in hamlets, with the remainder working out of district 

and provincial capitals doing refugee and reconstruction work. On the 

other hand, only thirty-one of the fifty-one Vietnamese Army battalions 

assigned to support Revolutionary Development had returned to their 

assigned sectors, as commanders and province chiefs continued to express 

concern over the safety of urban areas. As far as General Westmoreland 

and Ambassador Komer were concerned, the recovery process was moving 

far too slowly. On 31 March, the same day President Johnson delivered his 

speech to the American people but before officials in Saigon had heard it, 

Westmoreland held a meeting of the senior U.S. and South Vietnamese 

military leaders to reemphasize the need for aggressive action.75

The keynote was one of urgency. Westmoreland spoke of exploiting 

the enemy’s weakness before he could recover to launch another offensive. 

Abrams, who had just returned from Washington, warned that although 

President Johnson was fully behind the war effort, Tet had caused public 

opinion to swing against America’s participation in the conflict. Komer 

emphasized the importance of making gains in pacification to restore the 

confidence of the American and Vietnamese peoples. All three emphasized 

that the time had come for the Vietnamese to assume greater responsibility for their own destiny. Timidity, ineffectiveness, and half measures 

could not be tolerated. Last but not least, Westmoreland and his deputies asserted that the U.S. political situation meant that the allies only had 

two or three months in which to demonstrate to the American people that 

genuine progress was being made. If they failed, they feared that America’s 

patience might run out.76

The solution that Westmoreland, Komer, and Abrams agreed upon was 

a nationwide general offensive to regain the countryside, hurt the enemy, 

and dispel the adverse psychological climate of fear (in Vietnam) and 

despair (in the United States). This of course was not new—all three men 

had been saying this since early February, but Abrams’ dire warnings about 

how the war was being perceived back home gave renewed urgency to the 

call. “There must be a spectacular reversal in attitude and military performance,” declared Westmoreland. “No lethargy can be permitted in our 

74 Ibid., pp. 49–51.

75 Msg, COMUSMACV 08814 to CINCPAC, 29 Mar 68, sub: Post-Tet Pacification 

Assessment, pp. 2–3, 4–5, Historians files, CMH. 76 MFR, MACV, 5 Apr 68, sub: MACV Commanders’ Conference, 31 March 1968, pp. 2, 5, 

7–12, Historians files, CMH.
497

The Allies Strike Back

commanders . . . we must sharpen our intelligence, go on the offensive, and 

stay on the offensive. We must achieve results.” He characterized what was 

needed as “a military explosion,” with the Vietnamese armed forces in the 

vanguard, to “win faster” than the allies had been able to do so far. Poor 

commanders must be relieved and strong ones promoted. During the day 

the allies would target the enemy’s stockpiles, while at night they would use 

patrols and ambushes to disrupt the supply lines that fed those depots. The 

result, he hoped, would be a strangulation of the enemy’s ability to make 

large-scale attacks of the kind recently witnessed. Military victories would 

dispel the gloom that had seized the American public and demonstrate “to 

the world at large that we are winning.” Recognizing the role the media 

played in shaping perceptions at home, he stated, perhaps plaintively, “The 

press must report victories; for these are facts and the press must report 

facts. I am confident the press will report fairly.”77 

Equally important as the military and psychological benefits to be 

accrued through aggressive military operations were the gains to be made 

via political and institutional action. Westmoreland called for attacking 

the full spectrum of the enemy’s presence in Vietnam, including his political infrastructure and the local guerrillas that supported it. Vietnam must 

fully mobilize, with the United States redoubling its efforts to modernize 

the expanded force. Finally, the MACV commander pressed on his audience the importance of pacification and nation building, “emphasizing the 

necessity for imposing a mantle of security to succeed in pacification.” 

MACV’s deputy for Revolutionary Development amplified this theme, 

with improvements in the Regional and Popular Forces being the main 

vehicle for achieving pacification security. Allied military forces could help 

the economy revive through their reconstruction and road and waterway 

security efforts, but much of the burden would fall on the Vietnamese, who 

needed to accelerate the Revolutionary Development effort, end political 

bickering, and restore public confidence. The only thing new about these 

prescriptions was the urgency in which they were conveyed.78

Komer had in fact already begun talking with the Vietnamese about 

finding a “quick fix” for restoring order to the countryside. Believing that 

the allies could not afford the time it took for Revolutionary Development 

teams to fully pacify a hamlet, a process that required the completion of 

ninety-eight standardized tasks, the CORDS chief advocated jettisoning 

current procedures. Instead of a 59-man Revolutionary Development 

team spending six months in one hamlet, he suggested that the team be 

split in half and rotated through six to twelve hamlets at a time, thereby 

producing pacified communities at an accelerated rate. He likewise suggested that teams focus just on security and counterinfrastructure matters, 

leaving socioeconomic development for a later date. The allies would not 

make a decision on his proposals at the 31 March conference, but General 

77 Ibid., pp. 7, 13.

78 Ibid., p. 8.
Staying the Course

498

Vien concurred in Westmoreland’s assessment and pledged that his nation 

would amplify its efforts in the coming months.79

There was indeed an acceleration of progress during April, but not 

enough to merit categorizing it as an explosive event. South Vietnamese 

leaders became more active and their military and political forces moved 

deeper into the countryside, yet Thieu and many of his subordinates remained 

fundamentally cautious. Enemy activity dropped 30 percent from March, 

as did his casualties, and he avoided conflict as much as possible. Still, the 

allies reported killing over 29,000 enemy soldiers during March and April 

while capturing over 10,200 weapons. Allied losses during the same period 

included 5,982 dead (2,949 American) and 1,200 weapons. Desertions were 

up in the South Vietnamese armed forces, but so was recruitment, with 

nearly 77,000 joining the colors, 70 percent as volunteers. By the end of April, 

32 percent of South Vietnam’s provinces reported that conditions had been 

restored to pre-Tet levels. Fourteen percent reported making significant 

progress toward that goal, 47 percent reported slight to moderate gains, 

and 7 percent little to none. Twelve provinces registered significant success 

against the Viet Cong infrastructure, but progress remained slow in the rest 

of the country for a variety of reasons. Last but not least, hamlet evaluation 

scores indicated that the counteroffensive had yet to translate into tangible 

pacification gains. Since February, the allies had restored a state of relative 

security to 2 percent of South Vietnam’s population. This meant that by 

the end of April only 62 percent of the nation’s people were considered 

relatively secure, compared to 67.2 percent at the end of January. Unless 

the allies accelerated the pace at which they restored their control over the 

countryside, Komer fretted that they would not be able to reach January’s 

pre-Tet level of pacification until the end of the year. With only modest gains 

in pacification and no perceptible improvement in the popular mood in the 

United States, Westmoreland’s counteroffensive had not yet achieved either 

the military, or more importantly, the political and psychological objectives 

he had set out for it. With increasing reports that the enemy had regained 

sufficient strength to renew his offensive, the balance remained in doubt.80

79 Ibid., pp. 7–10; Msg, COMUSMACV 08814 to CINCPAC, 29 Mar 68, p. 8; Hunt, 

Pacification, pp. 149–50. 80 Rpt, OASD, Systems Analysis (Southeast Asia Programs), Statistical Tables through 

October 1968, n.d., tables 1c, 2d, 2e, 4a, 4e, 5a, Historians files, CMH. Conditions in the provinces based on provincial Revolutionary Development reports for the month of April. 
15

To Khe Sanh and the A Shau

At the beginning of March, as the battle for Hue concluded and 

the allies began pushing back into the countryside, General 

Westmoreland directed General Abrams at MACV Forward to move ahead 

with the long-delayed offensive in northern I Corps that the two men had 

developed during the York planning back in November 1967. As flying 

conditions improved in late March because of the waning strength of the 

northeast monsoon, they intended a multifaceted campaign. First, they 

would lift the siege of Khe Sanh in western Quang Tri Province. Then, they 

would launch a raid into the A Shau Valley in western Thua Thien Province 

to destroy the supply depots that fed Base Area 114 near Hue and Base 

Area 101 near Quang Tri City, thereby complicating the enemy’s ability to 

supply the large conventional forces he maintained in Northern I Corps. 

As the offensive moved forward, the 3d Marine Division would continue 

its vigil along the Demilitarized Zone, while the 101st Airborne Division, 

consisting of its 1st and 2d Brigades and reinforced by the newly arrived 

3d Brigade of the 82d Airborne Division, helped the South Vietnamese 1st 

Infantry Division secure the populated lowlands around Hue. To better 

control the effort, Westmoreland directed Abrams to transform his temporary command post at Phu Bai into a robust joint headquarters known as 

Provisional Corps, Vietnam.1

At first glance, the allied situation in northern I Corps appeared to be 

no more promising in early March than it had been in late January. Two 

North Vietnamese divisions, the 304th and 325C, continued to besiege the 

26th Marines at Khe Sanh. The 320th Division, fresh and fit after sitting 

out the Tet offensive, lurked somewhere near Con Thien, Gio Linh, and 

the other allied strong points in Leatherneck Square. South Vietnam’s 

third-largest city, Hue, now lay in ruins. At least sixteen of the enemy 

battalions that had attacked the city during Tet were now on the loose in 

the densely populated lowlands of Thua Thien Province. The 4th, 5th, and 

6th Regiments were in poor shape after five straight weeks of fighting, but 

other units that had joined the battle later, such as the 90th and the 803d 

Regiments of the former 324B Division, were still combat effective. The 

other regional capital, Quang Tri City, had escaped Tet with little damage 

due to the quick intervention of the 1st Cavalry Division’s 3d Brigade, 

but an informant working for the allies reported that the 812th Regiment, 

the main enemy attack force during Tet, was planning a second strike 

against Quang Tri City. Most of the South Vietnamese units that had been 

1

 Msg, Westmoreland MAC 2951 to Wheeler, 2 Mar 68, Westmoreland Msg files, CMH. 
Staying the Course

500

working on rural pacification were now holed up in the nearest town, 

leaving dozens of Revolutionary Development hamlets undefended.2

Upon closer inspection, however, General Westmoreland’s position in 

northern I Corps was substantially stronger than it had been six weeks 

earlier. Operation Niagara II, the tactical bombing campaign he had initiated on 22 January to defend Khe Sanh, had been hitting the 304th and 

325C Divisions with an average of 1,500 tons of ordnance each day. The 

U.S. Seventh Air Force and the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing had sorted out 

most of the command and control problems that had arisen, and improving weather had made targeting and damage assessment easier. Prisoners 

reported that both divisions had sustained heavy casualties, with one battalion losing half of its strength in a single B–52 raid, and that at least 300 

soldiers had deserted.3

Down in the coastal lowlands, the MACV commander now had two 

full Army divisions instead of a single Marine regiment to assist the South 

Vietnamese 1st Infantry Division. The 1st Cavalry Division had regained 

its 2d Brigade on 1 March, giving General Tolson a chance to display 

the full potential of his airmobile division. The headquarters of the 101st 

Airborne Division, meanwhile, was preparing to move from Bien Hoa Air 

Base to Camp Eagle in order to take control of its 1st and 2d Brigades 

and the attached 3d Brigade, 82d Airborne Division. The mechanized 3d 

Squadron, 5th Cavalry, on loan from the 9th Infantry Division, provided 

an armored punch to complement the six airmobile brigades. 

The supply situation in northern I Corps had also improved considerably. Navy Seabees and Army engineers had just completed an over-theshore logistical facility twenty kilometers east of Quang Tri City called 

Utah Beach (more commonly known as Wunder Beach). By 10 March, it 

was expected to increase the supply flow from 2,000 tons a day to almost 

3,300 tons, well above the 2,600 tons needed for daily operations. Farther 

down the coast at Tan My, ten kilometers northeast of Hue, the U.S. Navy 

petroleum, oil, and lubrication offloading dock and pumping station continued to fill storage tanks at Camp Eagle and Phu Bai as quickly as engineers could build them, a vital task since the 1st Cavalry Division consumed an average of 120,000 gallons of aviation fuel every day. Without 

those and other improvements such as the new C–130 airfield built 

near Quang Tri City to support the York operations, General Abrams 

noted, “I don’t believe that what has been done could have been done.” 

Westmoreland was pleased with the progress. “With over 20 percent of 

all U.S./ARVN maneuver battalions in [northern I Corps], and with the 

2

 Periodic Intel Rpt, Provisional Corps, 10–23 Mar 68, 25 Mar 68, pp. 1–2, box 1, XXIV 

Corps, Asst Ch of Staff, Intel G–2, Periodic Intel Rpts, MACV, RG 472, NACP; Intel Rpt, CIA, 

19 Mar 68, sub: Pacification in the Wake of the Tet Offensive in South Vietnam, an. A, pp. 1–4, 

Historians files, CMH. 3

 Rpt, CHECO, 13 Sep 68, sub: Khe Sanh (Operation Niagara), 22 January–31 March 

1968, PACAF, pp. 86, 90, 92–93, Historians files, CMH.
501

To Khe Sanh and the A Shau

logistical situation improving daily,” Westmoreland wrote Wheeler on 3 

March, “we are in an excellent posture to commence a broad offensive.”4

On 10 March, Westmoreland flew to Phu Bai to talk with Abrams and his 

second in command at MACV Forward, General Rosson, about the coming 

campaign. They agreed that it would begin with a brigade of the 101st Airborne 

Division moving into the hills west of Hue to clear Route 547, a rutted road 

bisecting Base Area 114 that had become the enemy’s main transportation corridor from the A Shau Valley. Along the way, the paratroopers were to build 

a series of artillery bases from which 8-inch and 155-mm. howitzers could 

hit targets throughout Base Area 114. When the weather improved in early 

April, the 1st Cavalry Division and elements of the 9th Marines and the South 

Vietnamese Airborne Division would clear Highway 9 to Khe Sanh and lift the 

siege of the Marine base. After both of those missions had been accomplished, 

the 1st Cavalry Division was to send a brigade into the A Shau Valley to search 

for the North Vietnamese supply dumps hidden there, while its remaining 

two brigades turned their attention to Base Areas 101 and 114. Later in the 

summer, the 1st Cavalry Division and elements of the 101st Airborne Division 

4

 First quote from Msg, Abrams PHB 218 to Westmoreland, 4 Mar 68, p. 1, Westmoreland 

Msg files, CMH. Second quote from Msg, Westmoreland MACV 02984 to Wheeler, 3 Mar 68, 

p. 3, Westmoreland Msg files, CMH. Pearson, War in the Northern Provinces, pp. 59–62.

An M110 8-inch self-propelled howitzer
Staying the Course

502

would strike into the eastern portion of the Demilitarized Zone to clear North 

Vietnamese forces around Dong Ha and Con Thien.5

Also that day, Westmoreland officially activated the Provisional Corps, 

Vietnam, and named General Rosson as its new commander. Abrams 

returned to Saigon to resume his duties as Westmoreland’s deputy. For the 

time being, Rosson also remained the nominal head of I Field Force in 

order to hold his three-star rank; his deputy in II Corps, General Peers, 

became the acting commander of I Field Force. Rosson’s new position gave 

him tactical control over all U.S. combat units north of the Hai Van Pass, 

including the 3d Marine Division and Task Force Clearwater, a MarineNavy amphibious group that operated on the Perfume River and the Cua 

Viet channel. Westmoreland remained mindful of Marine pride, however, 

raising III Marine Amphibious Force to Field Army status to ensure that 

the senior Army officer in I Corps remained subordinate to the senior 

Marine officer. The MACV commander assured General Cushman that 

the creation of Provisional Corps was based on “tactical and management considerations and have nothing to do with the performance of the 

Marines, which is, and always has been, excellent.” Fortunately, Rosson 

had developed a good rapport with Cushman and other Marine officers 

during his tenure as commander of Task Force Oregon and its successor, 

the Americal Division, in the later part of 1967. That relationship was sure 

to be tested in the coming weeks as the U.S. Army eclipsed the U.S. Marine 

Corps as the principal fighting force in northern I Corps.6

Operation Carentan

After meeting with Westmoreland and Abrams, General Rosson discussed the new mission of the 101st Airborne Division with its commander, 

General Barsanti. Operation Carentan I called for the 2d Brigade, 101st 

Airborne Division, and the 3d Brigade, 82d Airborne Division, to patrol 

Highway 1 between Camp Eagle and PK–17, the South Vietnamese military camp north of Hue, gradually taking over the Jeb Stuart area from 

the 1st Cavalry Division so it could prepare for the relief of Khe Sanh. 

Barsanti gave the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, the mission of 

clearing Route 547 (Map 39).7

5

 Cable, Lt Gen Robert E. Cushman to General William C. Westmoreland, 10 Mar 68, pp. 

3–4, Westmoreland History files, CMH; Interv, Capt Joseph W. A. Whitehorne with Maj Gen 

John J. Tolson, 24 Jun 68, p. 6, Historians files, CMH; MFR, 11 Mar 68, sub: COMUSMACV 

visit to I CTZ, MACV, Historians files, CMH. 6

 Statement, General William C. Westmoreland, 6 Mar 68, p. 1 (quote), document 11, vol. 

30, Westmoreland History files, CMH. See also Rpt, XXIV Corps, n.d., sub: The Critical Year, 

1968: The XXIV Corps Team, p. 23, Historians files, CMH; Msgs, Johnson WDC 3234 to 

Westmoreland, 3 Mar 68, p. 1; and Westmoreland MAC 4367 to Wheeler, 27 Mar 68, p. 2. Both 

in Westmoreland Msg files, CMH. Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, pp. 238–40. 7

 AAR, Opn Carentan, 3d Bde, 82d Abn Div, 31 May 68, p. 4, box 1, Organization Hist, 

101st Abn Div, RG 472, NACP.
Map 39

BIRMINGHAM

BASTOGNE

BOYD

PANTHER I

PANTHER II

ROUT E B R O WN

R O U T E B L AC K

R O U T E P U R P L E

AO GREEN

AO YELLOW

AO BLUE

AO BLACK

RECON ZONE

AO BROWN

X

X

X

II

II

III

III

I

X

X

X

3/82

2/101

1/101 2/101

1/101 3/82

1–505 1–508

1–508 2–505

LRP B/1–17 Cav

2–505 B/1–17 Cav

2–505 LRP

1/101 2/101

2/101

3/82

3/82 2/101

1

547

547

Song Bo

Song Huong

Song Huu Trach

S ong Ta

Trach

Thon Luong Quan

Huong Thuy

Nam Hoa

Thon Than Phu

Hue

OPERATION CARENTAN

AREA OF OPERATIONS

3 May 1968

Operational BoundaryMilitary InstallationElevation above 300 meters

0

0 3 Kilometers

Miles 3
Staying the Course

504

That push toward the A Shau Valley began on 18 March when the 1st 

Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, completed a sweep south of Hue with the 

1st Cavalry Division and returned to General Barsanti’s control. The brigade commander, Colonel Collins, established his command post at Firebase 

Birmingham, ten kilometers southwest of the city on a high point overlooking 

Route 547. The next day, Collins sent the 2d Battalion, 327th Infantry, commanded by Lt. Col. Robert C. Yerkes, to seize an old French fort a few kilometers farther west on Route 547, while the 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry, commanded by Lt. Col. Gerald E. Morse, advanced along the north side of Route 

547, and the 2d Battalion, 502d Infantry, commanded by Lt. Col. Howard H. 

Danford, screened the area to the south. Recent intelligence indicated that the 

29th Regiment, 325C Division, was in the area, but the paratroopers encountered only sporadic rifle fire that day. The French fort proved to be empty. 

The three battalions stopped there for the night, while Army engineers began 

building a new base named Henry.

The paratroopers’ next objective was a proposed firebase site eight kilometers farther up the road. When the Americans neared the site on 21 March, 

Company C of the 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry, ran into a small enemy outpost on the north side of the road. Overcoming that position, Company C then 

ran into a larger cluster of bunkers. Company A joined the fight and together 

they took that position as well, losing six killed and twenty wounded in the 

process. Evidence suggested that the dead North Vietnamese belonged to the

29th Regiment, 325C Division. A few hundred meters farther on, the paratroopers ran into an even more elaborate fortification. This time their assault 

failed, costing the two companies another six killed and fifty-two wounded. 

Colonel Collins withdrew his battered companies so air and artillery strikes 

could pound the position. When the Americans returned the next morning, 

the enemy was gone. The paratroopers found more bunkers along Route 547 in 

the days that followed, but their defenders—typically a squad or two of North 

Vietnamese soldiers—withdrew from those positions as soon as they had been 

spotted.8

As the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, continued its steady westward movement on Route 547, General Barsanti ordered Colonel Cushman 

and his 2d Brigade to search the foothills west of Hue, thereby squeezing the 

enemy forces in Base Area 114 from two sides. On 22 March, Cushman sent 

the 2d Battalion, 501st Infantry, commanded by Lt. Col. Richard J. Tallman, 

and the 1st Battalion, 502d Infantry, led by Lt. Col. Bertram J. Bishop, into 

those densely vegetated hills to look for the 90th Regiment. Cushman’s brigade 

saw heavy action in the weeks that followed. Several company-size firefights 

claimed the lives of thirty-five paratroopers, and a misplaced artillery barrage 

killed another eleven U.S. soldiers. Enemy losses came to 175 soldiers killed. 

The paratroopers captured some Communist supplies, including nearly 7,000 

8

 ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, 101st Abn Div, 24 May 68, pp. 3–4, box 127, ORLLs, 1966–1971, 

Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP; AAR, Opn Carentan, 3d Bde, 82d Abn Div, 

p. 3, Encl 1; AAR, Opn Carentan II, 1st Bde, 101st Abn Div, 29 Apr 68, p. 4, and p. 5, Encl 2, 

box 1, AARs, 1965–1971, Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP.
505

To Khe Sanh and the A Shau

pounds of rice. Better still, enemy prisoners revealed that the incursion had 

forced the 90th Regiment to abandon a rice-gathering mission it had planned 

for that month.9

Meanwhile, the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, kept pushing west on 

Route 547 and on the twenty-seventh reached its next objective point. Army 

engineers transformed that clearing into Firebase Bastogne, a battalion-size 

strong point that became the brigade’s forward operating base. Within a few 

days of its opening on 31 March, it contained more than twenty artillery pieces, 

including several 8-inch and 175-mm. guns that could reach the eastern part of 

the A Shau Valley. Colonel Collins stationed the 2d Battalion, 503d Infantry, 

at Bastogne for its security and ordered the 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry, 

based farther east at Birmingham, to patrol the stretch of Route 547 between 

the two posts. On 2 April, General Barsanti moved Collins’ remaining unit, the 

2d Battalion, 327th Infantry, to Landing Zone Jane south of Quang Tri City 

to help the 2d Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, now headquartered at Camp 

Evans, cover the territory recently vacated by the 1st Cavalry Division. To 

reflect its expanded mission, the 101st Airborne Division changed the name of 

the ongoing operation to Carentan II.

10

9

 AAR, Opn Carentan I and II, 2d Bde, 101st Abn Div, 29 May 68, p. 7; AAR, Opn 

Carentan, 101st Abn Div, 29 May 68, p. 4. Both in Historians files, CMH. 10 AAR, Opn Carentan II, 1st Bde, 101st Abn Div, pp. 7, 10.

Soldiers from the 3d Brigade, 82d Airborne Division, patrol the hills near Hue.
Staying the Course

506

Despite a warning from the South Vietnamese I Corps headquarters that 

an attack against Hue was imminent, over the next two and a half weeks the 

situation remained fairly quiet in the coastal lowlands and along the stretch 

of Route 547 that connected Firebases Bastogne and Birmingham. The 1st 

Brigade reported only a handful of skirmishes, and most of those were initiated by U.S. troops. When Carentan II came to an end on 18 April, the 

total number of North Vietnamese dead stood at 224. More importantly, the 

101st Airborne Division had severed the enemy’s main line of communications 

between the A Shau Valley and the Hue lowlands. As worrisome as Bastogne

and Birmingham must have been to the North Vietnamese, however, they had 

an even larger problem to deal with in early April—the long-awaited allied 

effort to lift the siege of Khe Sanh.11

Operation Pegasus

The relief of Khe Sanh, Operation Pegasus, was the largest and most 

complex allied operation yet undertaken in I Corps, involving eight cavalry 

11 Ibid., p. 8; AAR, Opn Carentan, 3d Bde, 82d Abn Div, p. 4, Encl 1; Msg, CIA to White 

House, 31 Mar 68, sub: I Corps Situation Report as of 1300 Hours Local Time on 31 March 

1968, document 72, box 67 (1 of 2), NSF-Vietnam Country Files, LBJL.

The 101st Airborne Division at Firebase Bastogne
507

To Khe Sanh and the A Shau

battalions, seven infantry battalions, three airborne battalions, a ranger battalion, and over one hundred artillery pieces, the most powerful being the 

seventeen 175-mm. guns at Camp Carroll capable of hitting targets thirty-four 

kilometers away. The senior officer in charge of the operation, General Tolson, 

controlled the 1st Cavalry Division, the 1st Battalion, 9th Marines, and the 

South Vietnamese 3d Airborne Task Force as well as the 26th Marines and the 

South Vietnamese 37th Ranger Battalion at Khe Sanh. Backing those forces 

were the 1st Cavalry Division’s 450 aircraft, ranging from two-seat OH–13 

scout helicopters to massive CH–54 heavy-lift helicopters, as well as several 

dozen U.S. Air Force C–7, C–123, and C–130 transport aircraft. Numerous 

strike aircraft from the U.S. Seventh Air Force and the 1st Marine Aircraft 

Wing provided tactical air support (Map 40).12

Operation Pegasus got under way on 20 March when the 8th Engineer 

Battalion (Combat), 1st Cavalry Division, and the 11th Marine Engineer 

Regiment began building a forward operating base near Ca Lu, a Marine outpost on Highway 9 some twenty kilometers east of Khe Sanh. Within a few 

days, it featured an airstrip capable of handling C–7 and C–130 aircraft as well 

as an 8-inch battery and two 155-mm. howitzer batteries. The 2d Battalion, 1st 

Marines, assumed the security duties at the firebase.13

The marines had only a vague idea of the strength and disposition of the 

enemy forces between Ca Lu and Khe Sanh, so General Tolson relied heavily 

on Lt. Col. Richard W. Diller’s 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry, to gather the tactical intelligence he needed. The unit began flying reconnaissance missions out 

of Landing Zone Stud on 26 March. Tolson used the information gathered 

by the aircrews to identify the most suitable landing zones for his infantry 

battalions. When the scout helicopters encountered ground fire, they provided 

targeting data for air and artillery strikes as well as B–52 Arc Light missions. 

Fighter-bombers from the Seventh Air Force also dropped several dozen huge 

bombs called “daisy cutters” that were rigged to explode a short distance above 

the ground so as to blast a ready-made landing zone out of the forest. The vegetation proved to be so dense in some areas, however, that the combined effect 

of several bombs provided just enough space for a single helicopter to land. In 

the meantime, the 26th Marines at Khe Sanh began sending larger and more 

aggressive patrols to gain further information about the enemy’s position and 

capabilities.14

Although it was not immediately obvious to the allies, the number of 

enemy troops in the area had fallen from around 20,000 in mid-January to 

about 7,000 North Vietnamese soldiers. The 95C and 101C Regiments of 

12 Interv, Whitehorne with Tolson, 17 Jun 68, p. 6, Historians files, CMH; Shulimson et al., 

U.S. Marines in Vietnam, p. 284; Rpt, XXIV Corps, n.d., pp. 28, 35. 13 Interv, Whitehorne with Tolson, 17 Jun 68, p. 3; AAR, Opn Carentan I and II, 2d Bde, 

101st Abn Div, p. 3; Rpt, 31st Mil Hist Det, May 1968, sub: Historical Study 3-68, Operation 

Pegasus, pp. 4, 8–9, 18, box 24, AARs, Asst Ch of Staff, J–3, RG 472, NACP. 14 Interv, Whitehorne with Tolson, 17 Jun 68, p. 2; AAR, Opn Pegasus/Lam Son 207A, 

1st Cav Div, 11 Jul 68, p. 5, box 24, AARs, Asst Ch of Staff, J–3, RG 472, NACP; Interv, 

Whitehorne with Col Hubert S. Campbell, CO, 3d Bde, 1st Cav Div, 12 May 68, p. 6, VNIT 96, 

CMH; Rpt, XXIV Corps, n.d., p. 33.
Staying the Course

508

the 325C Division had already departed for the western highlands, while 

the 7th and 9th Battalions, 29th Regiment, had stayed near Hue after Tet. 

Only the 8th Battalion, 29th Regiment, remained behind to block Highway 

9 between Khe Sanh and Ca Lu. A pair of light tank battalions that had 

once been stationed near Lang Vei had withdrawn to the Laotian border. 

That left only the 304th Division, composed of the 9th, part of the 24th, and 

the 66th Regiments, as well as the 12th Battalion, 68th Artillery Regiment, 

and the 241st Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment to carry on the siege. Months 

of bombardment, combat, and disease had reduced the infantry battalions 

to a half or a third of their original size. They were supported by the 2d 

Battalion, 675th Artillery Regiment, equipped with 122-mm. guns, and 

the 45th Artillery Regiment, equipped with 122-mm. rockets. The North 

Vietnamese high command continued to see Khe Sanh as a way to lure 

allied combat units into the hinterlands to relieve pressure on Communist 

forces elsewhere in the country, but as an enemy history of the battle would 

Map 40

USMC

1 1

I I

1 5 Cav

I I

2 5 Cav

I I

5 7 Cav

I I

1 7 Cav

I I

2 7 Cav

I I

2 12 Cav

I I

USMC

26

III

USMC

1 9

I I

USMC

2 3

I I

USMC

2 1

I I

KHE SANH

COMBAT BASE

LZ STUD

LZ MIKE

LZ THOR

LZ Cates

LZ TOM

LZ WHARTON

Old French Fort

Hill 471

9

9

Lang Vei

Khe Sanh

Ca Lu

2–4 April 1968

SKETCH NOT TO SCALE

RELIEF OF KHE SANH

OPERATION PEGASUS

Air Assault

Ground Advance

Military Installation
509

To Khe Sanh and the A Shau

later admit, the DMZ Front worried that its forces “were too small and 

were spread too thin” to handle a determined allied attack.15

General Rosson had to make sure that the 320th Division, which operated near Gio Linh and Con Thien, did not make a sudden lunge west toward 

Landing Zone Stud to disrupt Operation Pegasus. On 30 March, he sent a 

mechanized group known as Task Force Kilo, composed of the 2d Battalion, 

4th Marines, and the 3d Squadron, 5th Cavalry, to sweep the coastal plain 

northeast of Dong Ha where the North Vietnamese division had last been 

spotted. Two battalions from the South Vietnamese 2d Regiment joined the 

diversionary attack known as Lam Son 203. Rosson expected Task Force 

Kilo to encounter heavy resistance, but the group made faster progress than 

expected, reaching its objectives on the afternoon of the first day. The attackers killed an estimated 150 North Vietnamese while losing nineteen of their 

own as well as two M113s. Rosson had planned the mission to last only forty15 Quote from Khe Sanh-Route 9 Offensive Campaign, pp. 23–24. See also AAR, Opn 

Pegasus, Provisional Corps, Vietnam, 11 Jul 68, p. 9, Historians files, CMH; Phao Binh Nhan 

Dan Viet Nam: Nhung Chang Duong Chien Dau, Tap II [People’s Artillery of Vietnam: Combat 

History, Volume II] (Hanoi: People’s Army Artillery Command, 1986), pp. 161–62 (hereafter 

cited as People’s Army Artillery of Vietnam); 304th Division, p. 103.

A CH–54 Tarhe, or Flying Crane, picks up a sling load.
Staying the Course

510

eight hours, but was so encouraged by its success that he decided to keep it 

going for several more days.16

Taking advantage of the distraction created by Task Force Kilo, Tolson 

moved his 3d Brigade from Camp Evans to Landing Zone Pedro, northwest 

of Quang Tri City, on 30 March. The South Vietnamese 3d Airborne Task 

Force was already in position at the Quang Tri City airfield, having flown in 

from Saigon on C–130s a few days earlier. A trio of Marine battalions waited at 

Landing Zone Stud. Operation Pegasus began at 0801 on 31 March, ending 

Operation Jeb Stuart for the 1st Cavalry Division and Operation Scotland

for the Marine forces at Khe Sanh.17

On 1 April, the 2d Battalion, 1st Marines, and the 2d Battalion, 3d 

Marines, pushed west up Highway 9 under foggy and overcast skies. The 

weather made little difference to the Marine infantry but delayed the movement of Colonel Campbell’s 3d Brigade until 1330. The headquarters of the 

brigade along with the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, and Battery B, 1st Battalion, 

21st Artillery, equipped with 105-mm. howitzers, went into Landing Zone 

Mike, a hilltop just north of Highway 9 some seven kilometers southwest of 

16 AAR, Opn Pegasus, Provisional Corps, Vietnam, pp. 12, 23, 26; Historical Study, 31st Mil 

Hist Det, May 1968, sub: Operation Pegasus, p. 37, Historians files, CMH. 17 ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, 1st Cav Div, 13 Jun 68, p. 2, box 2, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd 

Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP; Historical Study, 31st Mil Hist Det, May 68, p. 28.

An OH–13 Sioux helicopter
511

To Khe Sanh and the A Shau

Landing Zone Stud. The 2d Battalion, 7th Cavalry, flew into Mike later in 

the day. Meanwhile, the 5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry, and Battery C from the 

1st Battalion, 21st Artillery, equipped with 105-mm. howitzers, deployed to 

Landing Zone Cates two kilometers south of Mike. Despite the late start, 

Colonel Campbell got all three of his battalions and two artillery batteries into 

the field before dark.18

On 2 April, the cavalry and Marine forces advanced four kilometers 

along Highway 9, clashing with squad- and platoon-size elements of the 8th 

Battalion, 29th Regiment, manning outposts on the high ground that overlooked the road. The outnumbered enemy gave way after offering a disorganized resistance. Marking the limit of the day’s progress, the 2d Battalion, 

7th Cavalry, established Landing Zone Thor on the northern shoulder of 

Highway 9, which became the base of operations for Battery A from the 1st 

Battalion, 21st Artillery, and its 105-mm. howitzers.19

By now the enemy knew that an operation to lift the siege of Khe Sanh was 

under way. Back in February the DMZ Front commander, General Hai, would 

have welcomed this battle. He knew that his chances of overrunning Khe Sanh 

had always been small; his real intent had been to maul an allied relief force as 

it inched its way up the gutted and washed-out Highway 9 toward the embattled Marine base. However, that plan had died with the departure of the 325C 

18 Historical Study, 31st Mil Hist Det, May 1968, p. 29; Interv, Whitehorne with Tolson, 17 

Jun 68, p. 4. 19 Historical Study, 31st Mil Hist Det, May 1968, p. 32.

Artillerymen of Battery A, 6th Battalion, 33d Artillery, build 

protective sandbag walls around their 105-mm. howitzers.
Staying the Course

512

Division. The best that Hai could do now was fight for time and hope to land 

a lucky blow at the right moment.

Knowing that the 1st Cavalry Division could land troops almost anywhere, the headquarters of the 304th Division ordered the 8th Battalion, 29th 

Regiment, to mass its troops at an old French fort just west of Landing Zone 

Thor, where it could establish a blocking position overlooking Highway 9. 

The 66th Regiment, 304th Division, established a second blocking position on 

Highway 9 just east of Khe Sanh and the 9th Regiment remained in its siege 

positions around Khe Sanh. The 24th Regiment stayed in reserve to the southwest near the old Special Forces camp at Lang Vei.20

Tolson was encouraged by the 3d Brigade’s swift progress and by the 

enemy’s apparent disorder. The allied bombing had cut many of the field 

telephone lines used by the headquarters of the 8th Battalion, 29th Regiment, 

to communicate with its subordinate companies and with the division headquarters. The battalion resorted to using runners, but that method was slow 

and unreliable. As a result, the North Vietnamese fought as isolated platoons 

and companies and often had trouble getting support from their own artillery, 

rocket, and mortar units. In addition to leaving many of their supply caches 

virtually unguarded, the enemy also left behind an inordinately large number 

of bodies and weapons when he retreated. In the words of the 3d Brigade commander, Colonel Campbell: “The enemy simply bugged out.” Tolson decided 

to speed up the deployment of his remaining forces.21

The 1st Cavalry Division commander sent the 2d Brigade under Col. Joseph 

C. McDonough into action on 3 April. The 2d Battalion, 12th Cavalry, went 

into Landing Zone Wharton, four kilometers south of Landing Zone Thor, 

with the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry, arriving a short time later. Meanwhile, 

the 2d Battalion, 5th Cavalry, went into Landing Zone Tom two kilometers 

to its southeast. Batteries A, B, and C from the 1st Battalion, 77th Artillery, 

equipped with 105-mm. howitzers, joined the brigade at its forward bases that 

same day. North Vietnamese gunners peppered the landing zones with recoilless rifle and mortar fire, killing four soldiers and wounding five more, but 

otherwise the enemy did little to hinder allied progress.22

Westmoreland flew to Khe Sanh that same day to confer with the commander of the 26th Marines, Colonel Lownds, and to assess the situation 

firsthand. On his way in to the airfield by helicopter, the MACV commander 

got a bird’s-eye view of the enemy trenches extending from the village of Khe 

Sanh to the edge of the wire surrounding the combat base, a distance of some 

three kilometers. Lownds informed Westmoreland that the fortifications, 

built to shelter a division or more, now held perhaps a third of that number. 

Westmoreland left the meeting confident that the counterattack that Lownds 

had scheduled for the next day would succeed in breaking through that ring. 

The MACV commander saw a bit of action himself later that day when hostile 

20 Khe Sanh-Route 9 Offensive Campaign, p. 25; 304th Division, p. 98. 21 Quote from Interv, Whitehorne with Campbell, 12 May 68, p. 6. See also AAR, Opn 

Pegasus, Provisional Corps, Vietnam, p. 9. 22 Historical Study, 31st Mil Hist Det, May 1968, pp. 35–36.
513

To Khe Sanh and the A Shau

ground fire hit his helicopter as it was leaving Khe Sanh, but no one on board 

was injured.23

On the morning of 4 April, the 1st Battalion, 9th Marines, set out along 

a coffee plantation road that led from Khe Sanh to Highway 9. The unit’s 

objective was Hill 471, three kilometers to the south of the combat base that 

had a commanding view of Highway 9. Air and artillery strikes softened up 

the hill for several hours before the Marine infantry began its assault at 1500. 

It encountered a reinforced North Vietnamese platoon, partially decimated by 

the rain of shells and bombs, that put up a brave fight before finally giving way. 

The marines lost ten dead and recovered thirty enemy bodies. The Americans 

had hardly caught their breath when enemy gunners from the 2d Battalion, 

675th Regiment, and the 45th Artillery Regiment began shelling the hill with 

82-mm. mortar rounds and 122-mm. rockets. The barrage lasted well into the 

night, killing seven marines and wounding thirty-four others.24

Around 0430, elements of the 7th and 9th Battalions, 66th Regiment, 304th 

Division, came out of the predawn darkness to retake Hill 471. The three 

23 General William C. Westmoreland’s Hist notes, 1–30 Apr 68, pp. 2–3, document 1, 

Westmoreland History files, CMH; AAR, Opn Pegasus/Lam Son 207A, 1st Cav Div, p. 3. 24 Historical Study, 31st Mil Hist Det, May 1968, p. 37; People’s Army Artillery of Vietnam, 

p. 162.

UH–1D Huey helicopters deliver 1st Cavalry Division soldiers to 

forward landing zones.
Staying the Course

514

Marine companies stood their ground with help from air and artillery strikes 

and drove the enemy back, killing a reported 140 North Vietnamese troops 

while losing one killed and twenty-eight wounded. The fight was over by 0630. 

With that victory, the marines secured control of the intersection where the 

coffee plantation road that led to the combat base met Highway 9.25

Meanwhile on 4 April, the 1st Cavalry Division met its first real challenge 

of the campaign two kilometers south of Landing Zone Thor. As the 1st 

Battalion, 5th Cavalry, closed in on the old French fort that overlooked a 

narrow switchback on Highway 9, the soldiers discovered that it was already 

held by North Vietnamese troops from the 8th Battalion, 29th Regiment. The 

cavalrymen tried to maneuver within grenade-throwing range of the fort but 

found it impossible to do so without bringing down a torrent of machine-gun 

and mortar fire. The 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry, spent the next three days trying 

to seize the position, but to no avail. 

Colonel McDonough broke the deadlock on the morning of 7 April by airlifting a pair of companies from the 2d Battalion, 5th Cavalry, deep behind the 

enemy position and then attacking the fort from the opposite direction. The 

attacking companies faced almost no resistance. Apart from six enemy soldiers 

who died resisting the morning assault, the bulk of the North Vietnamese 

defenders had slipped away during the night. The capture of the fort removed 

the last major strong point between the 1st Cavalry Division and Khe Sanh.26

As the fight for the fort was still under way, Tolson sent his 1st Brigade 

into action. On the afternoon of 5 April, the 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry, the 1st 

Battalion, 12th Cavalry, and Battery A, 2d Battalion, 19th Artillery, equipped 

with 105-mm. howitzers, flew into Landing Zone Snapper approximately 

seven kilometers south of the Khe Sanh combat base. Battery B from the 

2d Battalion, 19th Artillery, arrived the next day, as did Battery B of the 1st 

Battalion, 30th Artillery, armed with 155-mm. howitzers.27

The most notable action of the day occurred near Snapper when a rocketarmed helicopter from the 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry, spotted a PT76 light 

tank under some camouflage. A flurry of 2.75-inch rockets killed approximately two dozen North Vietnamese soldiers who were hiding nearby but 

missed the vehicle, which scurried away toward Laos.28

The following day, 6 April, Companies C and D of the 5th Battalion, 7th 

Cavalry, landed by helicopter immediately northeast of the combat base and 

began scouring the crater-pocked hills for enemy soldiers. Meanwhile, troops 

from the 2d Battalion, 7th Cavalry, approached the base on foot from the southeast. The 2d Battalion ran into a well-concealed network of trenches, bunkers, 

and fighting pits manned by a small group of North Vietnamese soldiers from 

the 9th Regiment. The Communists made up for their lack of numbers with 

25 Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, p. 285. 26 AAR, Opn Pegasus/Lam Son 207A, 1st Cav Div, p. 3; Interv, Whitehorne with Campbell, 

12 May 68, p. 7. 27 Interv, Whitehorne with Tolson, 17 Jun 68, p. 5; Historical Study, 31st Mil Hist Det, May 

1968, p. 45. 28 AAR, Opn Pegasus, Provisional Corps, Vietnam, p. 10; Historical Study, 31st Mil Hist 

Det, May 1968, pp. 41, 43.
515

To Khe Sanh and the A Shau

a superior knowledge of the terrain and their skills in camouflage. They were 

also highly disciplined, often holding their fire until the Americans were only a 

few steps away and then disappearing down a tunnel or through a side trench 

before they could be cornered. The commander of Company A, Capt. Al W. 

Degyansky, later said that they were the best enemy soldiers he had ever faced. 

The 2d Battalion, 7th Cavalry, settled into a game of cat and mouse with the 

North Vietnamese soldiers that would last for more than two days.29

On the afternoon of 6 April, a company from the South Vietnamese 3d 

Airborne Task Force flew into Khe Sanh, marking a symbolic end to the siege. 

It joined forces with the South Vietnamese 37th Ranger Battalion and marched 

out of Khe Sanh to reconnoiter a site recently hit by allied air strikes. The government troops found seventy North Vietnamese bodies and a large amount 

of equipment, including four mortars and a heavy machine gun. The enemy’s 

failure to collect his weapons and his dead suggested that he was beginning to 

lose cohesion.30

Also on 6 April, Colonel Lownds sent the 1st Battalion, 26th Marines, 

to attack a bunker complex south of the base. The marines found no enemy 

soldiers but recovered the bodies of twenty-one Americans who had been 

killed back in February and March. The other force in Lownds’ command that 

was operating outside of the wire, the 1st Battalion, 9th Marines, turned over 

Hill 471 to the 2d Battalion, 12th Cavalry, when the Army unit came in that 

afternoon by helicopter. The landing was unopposed. The Marine battalion 

headed for Hill 689, a high point some four kilometers to the west that the 

enemy had occupied for the last three months. The North Vietnamese cordon 

around the base was disintegrating.31

Unwilling to let the 304th Division slip away into Laos, General Tolson 

tried to block its withdrawal by sending the South Vietnamese paratroopers 

under his control deep into the enemy’s rear. On 7 April, a flight of helicopters 

began landing the South Vietnamese 3d Airborne Task Force at Landing Zone

Snake, a site some five kilometers southwest of Khe Sanh and two kilometers northeast of the Lang Vei Special Forces camp. The next day, a South 

Vietnamese patrol made contact with the 5th Battalion, 24th Regiment, which 

appeared to have been headed for the landing zone. The resulting firefight grew 

to involve the entire South Vietnamese battalion and left at least seventy-four 

enemy soldiers and eleven paratroopers dead. The North Vietnamese withdrew without having reached the landing zone. The remaining two battalions 

of the airborne task force and its headquarters arrived at Snake later that day. 

With that maneuver, Tolson now had all four of his brigades in the fight.32

On 8 April, the headquarters of the 3d Brigade flew into Khe Sanh to 

set up a tactical operations center. Meanwhile, two companies from the 2d 

Battalion, 7th Cavalry, reached the base by foot from the southeast after 

29 Cavalair, vol. 2, no. 74, 1 May 68, p. 8; 304th Division, pp. 109–10. 30 Historical Study, 31st Mil Hist Det, May 1968, p. 44.

31 Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, p. 285. 32 AAR, Opn Pegasus, Provisional Corps, Vietnam, p. 10; Khe Sanh-Route 9 Offensive 

Campaign, p. 27.
Staying the Course

516

having finally overcome the enemy blocking force that had delayed their 

progress for two days. Early that morning the battalion commander, Lt. Col. 

Roscoe Robinson Jr., had airlifted Companies C and D behind the enemy’s 

position and launched a sudden attack that caught the North Vietnamese by 

surprise. Fourteen air strikes and over 1,000 rounds of artillery compounded 

the enemy’s disorder, forcing him to abandon his positions as well as fifteen 

bodies and dozens of weapons.33

The remainder of the 2d Battalion, 7th Cavalry, as well as the 5th Battalion, 

7th Cavalry, marched onto the base the next day. Hundreds of marines stood 

on top of bunkers waving, taking pictures, and handing out C-rations as the 

cavalrymen passed through the front gate. A soldier from the 5th Battalion, 

7th Cavalry, Pfc. Claude S. Brown, said that what he noticed most about the 

marines was the extreme paleness of their skin, a result of spending months on 

end living in underground bunkers. The 2d Battalion, 7th Cavalry, took over 

responsibility for defending the perimeter, allowing the entire 26th Marines to 

go at last on the offensive after months of hunkering down. As elements from 

the regiment counterattacked northward out of Khe Sanh, the 1st Battalion, 

33 Cavalair, vol. 2, no. 74, 1 May 68, p. 8; 304th Division, pp. 109–10. Robinson would later 

become the first African American to become a full four-star general in the U.S. Army.

South Vietnamese paratroopers arrive at Khe Sanh by CH–47 Chinook 

helicopters during Operation Pegasus.
517

To Khe Sanh and the A Shau

9th Marines, seized Hill 689 after pressing through a mortar barrage that 

claimed nine American lives.34

Tolson’s men spent the next several days patrolling their respective sectors, finding a number of large supply caches but relatively few enemy soldiers. 

Even the far-ranging 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry, saw little sign of the enemy, 

the most noteworthy discovery being a PT76 tank found nestled in a camouflaged position near Highway 9 a short distance from the Laotian border. A 

tactical air strike destroyed the vehicle before it could get away.

On 10 April, General Westmoreland instructed Rosson to start winding down Operation Pegasus so the 1st Cavalry Division could prepare for 

Operation Delaware, a brigade-size raid into the A Shau Valley planned for 

the end of the month. The Provisional Corps commander relayed the message to General Tolson, who immediately began reorienting his division for 

its new mission. On 11 April, he airlifted most of the 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry 

Division, from the Khe Sanh area to Landing Zones Betty and Sharon south 

of Quang Tri City. He kept the 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry, behind to search 

through the destroyed Lang Vei camp. The South Vietnamese 37th Ranger 

Battalion redeployed to Da Nang the same day. Meanwhile, the Marine and 

Navy engineers wrapped up their work on Highway 9 after refurbishing fourteen kilometers of road, repairing or replacing nine bridges, and constructing 

seventeen bypasses.35

The 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry, entered the ruins of the Lang Vei Special 

Forces camp on the morning of 12 April after pushing through a small 

blocking force and killing forty North Vietnamese soldiers. The Americans 

found little of interest in the bombed-out compound but discovered a trove 

of weapons and ammunition at a former Special Forces camp a kilometer 

to the east. The haul included twenty-one .30-caliber machine guns, four 

81-mm. mortar tubes, three 57-mm. recoilless rifles, 5,300 mortar rounds, 

1,050 recoilless rifle shells, and over 100,000 rounds of ammunition for U.S. 

rifles and machine guns.36

Between 12 and 14 April, the 3d Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, the 1st 

Battalion, 12th Cavalry, and the division command post airlifted from the Khe 

Sanh area to Camp Evans. The last major contact of the operation occurred 

on the morning of 14 April when the 3d Battalion, 26th Marines, assaulted the 

8th Battalion, 29th Regiment, on Hill 881 North, the last enemy position that 

posed a direct threat to Khe Sanh. The marines took the objective with supporting fire from dozens of artillery pieces and eight 106-mm. recoilless rifles, 

killing 106 enemy soldiers while losing six of their own.37

Pegasus ended the next day, 15 April, giving way to Operation Scotland

II under the control of the 3d Marine Division. Tolson kept elements of the 2d 

34 Historical Study, 31st Mil Hist Det, May 1968, pp. 48–52; Cavalair, vol. 2, No. 74, 1 May 

68, p. 1; Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, p. 287. 35 Interv, Whitehorn with Tolson, 17 Jun 68, p. 6; Rpt, 31st Mil Hist Det, May 1968, p. 62; 

AAR, Opn Pegasus/Lam Son 207A, 1st Cav Div, pp. 9–10. 36 Rpt, 31st Mil Hist Det, May 1968, p. 63.

37 AAR, Opn Pegasus, Provisional Corps, Vietnam, p. 10.
Staying the Course

518

Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, in the vicinity of Khe Sanh to give the marines 

an extra measure of airmobile striking power. The South Vietnamese 3d 

Airborne Task Force airlifted from Khe Sanh to Hue on 15 April so it could 

reorganize itself for the coming A Shau operation.38

Pegasus was an unquestioned success. The enemy lost an estimated 1,325 

personnel and over 700 weapons during the fifteen-day operation. Friendly 

losses came to 41 Army personnel, 51 marines, and 33 South Vietnamese 

troops killed in action. The North Vietnamese had been oriented to stop a 

ground advance along Highway 9 but seemed completely unprepared to 

handle the series of vertical envelopments that bypassed his strong points. 

Some units from the 66th Regiment that were guarding the intersection of 

38 Ibid., p. 62.

Troops from the 1st Cavalry Division arrive at Khe Sanh during 

Operation Pegasus.
519

To Khe Sanh and the A Shau

Highway 9 and the Khe Sanh coffee plantation road, for example, abandoned 

their positions and some of their heavy weapons once they realized that they 

had been outflanked by helicopter assaults. Not a single aircraft from the 1st 

Cavalry Division went down to antiaircraft fire during the entire operation. 

Despite the enemy’s long-standing goal of drawing allied forces into the Khe 

Sanh area, the 304th Division had only offered haphazard resistance before 

retreating. Highway 9 between Khe Sanh and Ca Lu was once again open.39

Into the A Shau Valley

The 1st Cavalry Division’s next destination was the A Shau Valley, a glacial cut in the mountains of western Thua Thien Province approximately thirty 

kilometers long and oriented from the northwest to the southeast. The valley 

averaged around one and a half kilometers wide but suddenly broadened into 

a small plateau near its midpoint. Its jungle-covered slopes ranged in height 

from 380 and 600 meters with an average inclination of twenty degrees. The 

undulating valley floor was covered by a mixture of brushwood and clear 

forest interspersed with areas of elephant grass that grew to a height of over 

three meters.40

A two-lane packed earth road, Route 548, ran the length of the valley. After 

exiting the northern tip it doubled back and then turned west into Laos. The 

enemy kept the road in serviceable condition because it was the easiest way to 

transport supplies across the border. North Vietnamese engineers added logs 

and steel plates to heavily trafficked or damaged sections and built bypasses 

around bomb craters that were too difficult to be repaired. Near the midpoint 

of the valley, the road intersected Route 547, which remained hardly more 

than a footpath until one reached the Hue lowlands some twenty kilometers to 

the east. Some five kilometers northwest of the intersection was an abandoned 

airfield near the destroyed village of A Luoi that had once been used to resupply a U.S. Army Special Forces outpost.41

Allied intelligence estimated that the valley held approximately 3,000 

North Vietnamese soldiers, the equivalent of seven battalions, when the operation began. Most were thought to be engineer or rear support troops, but one 

was the 280th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment equipped with dozens of fourbarreled 23-mm. cannons as well as 37-mm. cannons, the latter capable of 

hitting targets at an altitude of 7,620 meters. The 3d Battalion, 203d Armored 

Regiment, had a forward support base in the valley, but most of its PT76 light 

tanks were stationed across the border in Laos. A few hundred security per39 AAR, Opn Pegasus/Lam Son 207A, 1st Cav Div, pp. 9–10; AAR, Opn Pegasus, 

Provisional Corps, Vietnam, p. 16; ORLL, 1 Feb–30 Apr 68, 1st Cav Div, p. 2. 40 AAR, Opn Delaware, 1st Cav Div, 11 Jul 68, pp. 1–2, box 11, Hist Background files, 31st 

Mil Hist Det, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 41 Ibid.
Staying the Course

520

sonnel guarded the logistical sites in the A Shau, but there were no dedicated 

infantry units in the valley at that time.42

The Provisional Corps, Vietnam, was to be the headquarters in charge of 

Operation Delaware, with General Tolson and his 1st Cavalry Division to 

play the leading role. Fresh from his success at Khe Sanh, Tolson arrived at 

Phu Bai on 14 April to present his operations plan to Rosson, Cushman, and 

Westmoreland. He proposed sending the 1st and 3d Brigades from his division 

plus the South Vietnamese 3d Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, into the valley 

for a month-long reconnaissance-in-force mission. The MACV commander 

endorsed the plan, and instructed Tolson to be ready to support a limited 

incursion by the South Vietnamese 3d Regiment into Base Area 607 across the 

Laotian border if President Johnson gave the authorization. A great deal of 

war materiel transported down the Ho Chi Minh Trail was deposited in Base 

Area 607, and then carried by rear service units across the border through 

winding mountain passes into the A Shau Valley. Westmoreland stressed the 

need to keep the A Shau operation a secret from the press until it was over, since 

the raid was “possibly more dangerous than any offensive operation we have 

ever undertaken in Vietnam . . . because of the marginal weather, the difficult 

terrain, and enemy reinforcement possibilities from Laos.” Allied intelligence 

also expected the air defenses in the A Shau Valley to be among the most formidable yet faced by the 1st Cavalry Division. Moreover, the operation would 

mark the first time that the division would make a major air assault beyond 

the range of supporting fire from its 105-mm. and 155-mm. howitzers.43

Tolson was not overly concerned by the risks. His division had braved 

heavy antiaircraft fire during Tet and around Khe Sanh. As for the weather, 

he felt confident that his pilots could make it through the intermittent fog and 

clouds with enough supplies until his troops reopened the A Luoi airfield. He 

also expected to win control of the high ground early in the operation and 

felt he had plenty of artillery and infantry to do the job. In fact, Tolson told 

Westmoreland that he “would like to see the enemy come after us for a change, 

particularly the forces from Laos.”44

Rosson accepted Tolson’s plan with one minor change. Tolson had wanted 

to send the South Vietnamese 3d Airborne Task Force into Base Area 114, but 

Rosson decided instead that it should help the 101st Airborne Division clear 

Route 547A that led from Hue to the A Shau Valley. To cover the temporary 

absence of the 1st and 3d Brigades of the 1st Cavalry Division from the piedmont and coastal lowlands, Westmoreland approved Tolson’s recommenda42 Nhung Tran Danh Cua Phao Binh Vietnam Trong Cac Cuoc Chien Tranh Giai Phong Va Bao 

Ve To Quoc, Tap II [Battles of Vietnamese Artillery during the Wars of Liberation and to Defend 

the Fatherland, Volume II] (Hanoi: Artillery Command Publishing House, 1990), pp. 216–17 

(hereafter cited as Battles of Vietnamese Artillery). 43 Msg, Westmoreland MAC 5536 to Honorable P. G. Goulding, 21 Apr 68, p. 1 (quote), 

Westmoreland Msg files, CMH; AAR, Opn Delaware, 1st Cav Div, p. 3; Transcript, VNIT 

96, p. 7. 44 Msg, Tolson FCV 346 to Westmoreland, 29 Apr 68, p. 1, Westmoreland Msg files, CMH.
521

To Khe Sanh and the A Shau

tion to shift the 196th Infantry Brigade (Light) from the Que Son Valley area 

to Camp Evans.45

The 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry, began reconnaissance missions into the 

A Shau on 13 April, three days before the scheduled start of Delaware. The 

weather remained poor for the next several days, so Tolson recommended—

and Rosson agreed—to postpone the start of the operation until 19 April. 

Tolson had planned to send his 1st Brigade into the central portion of the 

valley during the opening phase of Delaware but changed his mind when 

scout helicopters encountered heavy concentrations of antiaircraft weapons 

around the village of A Luoi and the abandoned airstrip. He decided instead 

to land Colonel Campbell’s 3d Brigade into the northern part of the valley 

where antiaircraft fire had been lighter and where it could cut Route 548 at the 

mouth of the A Shau. Strike aircraft made extensive use of daisy cutter bombs 

to blast open landing sites on ridge lines and on the valley floor. Fighterbombers from the Seventh Air Force and the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing flew 

over 200 tactical sorties to suppress antiaircraft positions, while B–52 bombers 

flew 21 missions against targets in the valley (Map 41).46

45 Interv, Whitehorne with Tolson, 21 May 68, p. 2, Historians files, CMH; AAR, Opn 

Delaware, 1st Cav Div, p. 12. 46 Interv, Whitehorne with Tolson, 21 May 68, p. 3; AAR, Opn Delaware, 1st Cav Div, p. 8.

Soldiers of the 2d Battalion, 7th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division, rest after 

disassembling their equipment in the A Shau Valley.
Staying the Course

522

The 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, the 5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry, and an 

artillery battery flew into the northern end of the valley on 19 April, carried 

by helicopters from the division and the 11th Aviation Group. The North 

Vietnamese antiaircraft defenses were ferocious, hitting twenty-three aircraft 

on the first day of the operation. Ten of the helicopters crash-landed or else 

were too badly damaged to continue flying. Despite the constant stream of 

machine-gun rounds and exploding cannon shells, the 3d Brigade still landed 

with most of its men and equipment intact. Casualties came to four killed and 

twenty wounded. General Tolson told reporters that “by far it’s the hottest 

place we’ve ever gone into, and the most [helicopter] losses we’ve taken in a 

single day.”47

47 Rpt, XXIV Corps, n.d., p. 46.

Map 41

3 1 Cav

X

1 1 Cav

X

1 101

X

A SHAU

5/7

1/7

2/7

1/327

Song Bo

Song Bo

Rao Trang

Rao La

Rao Nho

Rao Lao

Rao Nai

547

548

548

548

548

616

547

A Shau

A Sap

Ta Bat

Kon Tom

A Luoi

S O U T H V I E T N A M

L A O S

BAT TLE OF A SHAU VALLEY

FRIENDLY SITUATION

19 April–12 May 1968

0

0 5 10 Kilometers

Miles 5 10

0 300 800 1400 and Above

ELEVATION IN METERS

Air Assault

Ground Advance

Military Installation
523

To Khe Sanh and the A Shau

The 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, got to work building the main base for the 

3d Brigade known as Landing Zone Tiger. The 5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry, 

established a small firebase nearby known as Landing Zone Vicki. Patrols sent 

out by the two battalions encountered only a handful of North Vietnamese 

soldiers in addition to several 37-mm. antiaircraft guns that the enemy had 

abandoned when the U.S. troops had touched down. Before long, a battery of 

105-mm. howitzers was in place at Landing Zone Tiger and was firing at the 

A Luoi airfield. Six 175-mm. guns at Landing Zone Bastogne added to the 

bombardment.48

Meanwhile, the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, left Operation

Carentan IIto join Delaware. On 19 April, it sent the bulk of the 2d Battalion, 

327th Infantry, and a company from the 2d Battalion, 502d Infantry, to push 

west from Firebase Bastogne along Route 547. The Americans encountered 

only light resistance. That afternoon, the 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry, landed 

on a hill some eight kilometers southwest of Bastogne where it began constructing Firebase Veghel. The new outpost, only fifteen air kilometers from 

the A Shau, brought the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, within artillery 

range of the valley and placed it in a position to intercept enemy forces trying 

to escape along Route 547.49

The following day, the South Vietnamese 6th Airborne Battalion provoked 

a storm of small arms, automatic weapons, and mortar fire when it landed 

at Veghel. Heavy fog prevented the remainder of the battalion from flying 

in until early evening. Bad weather also briefly delayed the arrival of the 2d 

Battalion, 502d Infantry, to the firebase on 21 April, although the South 

Vietnamese 3d Airborne Battalion landed at Veghel on the twenty-second 

with little problem.50

Back in the A Shau, deteriorating weather also slowed the deployment 

of the 3d Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division. Elements of the 2d Battalion, 7th 

Cavalry, had to wait until 20 April before they could arrive on Landing Zone 

Pepper some seven kilometers southeast of Tiger and about five kilometers 

northwest of the A Luoi airfield. Gathering thunderstorms grounded the aircraft fleet before the battalion could finish its insertion, and it was not until the 

twenty-second that the rest of the battalion and Campbell’s forward command 

post were able to land at Pepper. 

Meanwhile on the twentieth, the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, marched four 

kilometers southeast from Landing Zone Vicki and established a forward 

operating base known as Landing Zone Goodman. A battery of 105-mm. 

howitzers and a battery of 155-mm. howitzers were inserted over the next 

several days. In the northernmost part of the A Shau, the 5th Battalion, 7th 

Cavalry, sent out patrols to interdict Highway 548 where it entered the valley 

48 AAR, Opn Delaware, 1st Cav Div, p. 3; Interv, Whitehorne with Tolson, 21 May 68, p. 4; 

Transcript, VNIT 96, p. 7. 49 AAR, Opn Delaware, 1st Bde, 101st Abn Div, 28 May 68, p. 2, Encl 1, box 11, AARs, 31st 

Mil Hist Det, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 50 Rpt, XXIV Corps, n.d., pp. 47, 50.
Staying the Course

524

and to explore the network of trails that connected the valley floor to the 

higher elevations. Resistance continued to be light.51

On 21 April, the chief of staff of Group 559 ordered Lt. Col. Tran Ngoc 

Anh, the highest-ranking artilleryman in the A Shau, to form a provisional 

headquarters known as the B8 Front to organize a counterattack with the 

forces on hand. The only combat units in the valley other than a few tanks and 

some security personnel were two artillery units in transit to the lowlands—one 

equipped with 122-mm. rockets and the other with 85-mm. guns—and many 

of their officers, staff personnel, and technical experts had already gone ahead 

to Base Area 114 to prepare for a May offensive. There was no time to bring 

in reinforcements, so the enemy would have to make do with what he had.52

The headquarters also had very little information about allied strengths 

and dispositions. It sent out reconnaissance parties to gather information, 

including one on 23 April that probed Landing Zone Tiger with a platoonsize attack and a barrage of 60-mm. mortar fire. The defenders repulsed the 

assault, killing six enemy soldiers. The B8 Front also dispatched artilleryspotting teams to several points along the western mountain spine where they 

could observe the central and northern parts of the valley.53

The 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, began its assault into the A Shau 

on the twenty-fourth. The new brigade commander, Col. John E. Stannard, 

began by inserting the 2d Battalion, 8th Cavalry, at Landing Zone Cecile

one kilometer south of the abandoned A Luoi airfield. The 1st Battalion, 

12th Cavalry, and the 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry, established Landing Zone 

Stallion next to the airstrip the following day. The long-abandoned runway 

was cratered by bomb shells and covered with dense green foliage, but Army 

engineers had sufficiently restored it by 1 May to receive C–7 and C–123 aircraft, and two days later to accept the larger C–130 transports.54

Resistance in the A Shau remained light until 28 April when Company 

C from the 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry, encountered a reinforced company of 

North Vietnamese soldiers two kilometers west of the airfield in an area known 

as the “Punchbowl” because the mountain slope to the north rose steeply from 

the brushwood-covered valley floor, forming a concave wall. Other elements 

from the 1st and 2d Battalions, 8th Cavalry, joined the battle and spent the 

next several days rooting out the enemy troops with help from air and artillery 

strikes. At one point the Americans found themselves under fire from a PT76 

tank that was dug into a camouflaged position. A sergeant crawled forward 

and knocked it out with a pair of M72 antitank rounds. That proved to be 

the only confirmed sighting of an armored vehicle in the valley during the 

operation. Nonetheless, rumors of tank sightings circulated among the U.S. 

soldiers, and more than a few reported hearing the distant clank of Soviet 

machinery at night.55

51 AAR, Opn Delaware, 1st Cav Div, p. 8. 52 Battles of Vietnamese Artillery, p. 216. 53 AAR, Opn Delaware, 1st Cav Div, p. 3. 54 Ibid., p. 10.

55 The Air Cavalry Division, vol. 1, no. 3, Sep 68, p. 7, Historians files, CMH.
525

To Khe Sanh and the A Shau

When the North Vietnamese finally abandoned the Punchbowl on 3 May, 

leaving behind thirty dead, the Americans found a vast storage depot, a hospital, and a truck park. Power and telephone lines led away in several directions 

to smaller satellite bases. Based on documents found at the site, the Punchbowl 

complex had apparently been the forward headquarters of Binh Tram 7, a 

regimental-size logistical command that was subordinate to Group 559.

56

The South Vietnamese 3d Regiment joined the operation on 29 April when 

the command group went into Landing Zone Lucy six kilometers southeast of 

the A Luoi airfield, a site that the 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry, had prepared the 

previous day. The remainder of the regiment, as well as the South Vietnamese 

2d Battalion, 1st Regiment, arrived at Lucy over the next two days and then 

began reconnaissance-in-force operations in the southern third of the valley.57

Meanwhile, east of the A Shau, the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, 

and the South Vietnamese 3d Airborne Task Force continued clearing the 

territory between Firebases Bastogne and Veghel. For the most part the 

allies encountered small supply parties that quickly broke contact. On the 

twenty-ninth, however, Companies B and D of the 1st Battalion, 327th 

Infantry, got into a prolonged firefight with a North Vietnamese company 

only a kilometer or so from Firebase Veghel. The enemy had the upper 

56 Ibid., pp. 4–5, 9–10.

57 AAR, Opn Delaware, 1st Cav Div, p. 10.

A 105-mm. howitzer provides fire support to the 1st Cavalry Division.
Staying the Course

526

hand because he fought from well-made bunkers and camouflaged positions 

in the trees, and was so confident in his defenses that at one point he sent out 

a force to envelop Company B. The U.S. unit pulled itself out of the trap, 

although not before losing thirteen killed and sixteen wounded.

When the two U.S. companies renewed their attack the following morning, they found the bunkers empty except for the bodies of fifteen dead 

Communist soldiers. Enemy resistance along Route 547 diminished with each 

passing day while the tonnage of captured equipment, including hundreds of 

75-mm. cannon shells, thousands of rounds of antiaircraft ammunition, and 

600 pounds of explosive materials, continued to grow.58

Likewise, the B8 Front could do little to prevent allied patrols from finding many of the bases and supply dumps that were hidden across the A 

Shau Valley. A North Vietnamese platoon clashed with Company D of the 

5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry, to the west of Landing Zone Tiger on 26 April, 

resulting in twelve dead Communist troops and four dead Americans, but for 

the most part the enemy stayed out of sight. Allied troops located dozens of 

caches ranging in size from a single concealed bunker to a depot large enough 

to support a battalion. Collectively they yielded a huge quantity of food, 

nearly 2,300 individual weapons, and tens of thousands of rounds of smallcaliber ammunition. The allies also discovered a large number of shells for 

76-mm., 85-mm., and 122-mm. artillery pieces, the first hard evidence that 

such weapons had been introduced into South Vietnam. Among the captured 

equipment were seventy-three trucks and two bulldozers. Other noteworthy 

prizes included a dozen 37-mm. antiaircraft cannons, some of them damaged 

by air strikes.59

As the 1st Cavalry Division continued to search the A Shau Valley for 

hidden supplies at the beginning of May, General Westmoreland instructed 

Rosson and Tolson to begin making plans to withdraw from the valley by 

the middle of the month. By then, his troops would likely have located most 

of the enemy war materiel that could be found in the valley. Also, his hopes 

to launch a limited incursion into Base Area 607 in neighboring Laos had 

come to naught. Westmoreland’s efforts to impose a news embargo on the 

A Shau operation had failed on 26 April when the influential foreign policy 

columnist Joseph Alsop, apparently unaware of the ban, broke the story. 

With the public aware that the 1st Cavalry Division had moved into the A 

Shau Valley, Westmoreland, who never abandoned his hope that the president 

might authorize an incursion into Laos, noted to Wheeler on 3 May that “it 

is now obvious that we would not be in a position to deny categorically the 

involvement of sizable forces in Laos if queried by the press.” Furthermore, 

the MACV commander wanted to get Tolson’s 1st and 3d Brigades back down 

into the Highway 1 corridor before the North Vietnamese regiments based in 

the coastal hills—the 812th Regiment in Base Area 101, and the 29th and 90th 

Regiments in Base Area 114—took advantage of the 1st Cavalry Division’s 

58 AAR, Opn Delaware, 1st Bde, 101st Abn Div, p. 7. 59 Interv, Whitehorne with Tolson, 21 May 68, p. 3, Encl 1; AAR, Opn Delaware, 1st Cav 

Div, pp. 5–6.
527

To Khe Sanh and the A Shau

absence to move into the lowlands around Quang Tri City and Hue. Finally, 

the recent information provided by Lt. Col. Tran Van Dac, a former Viet Cong 

political officer in the Saigon area, indicated that Hanoi would soon renew its 

general offensive throughout South Vietnam. It remained to be seen whether 

the combined effects of Operations Delaware and Carentan had significantly impaired the enemy’s ability to launch new attacks in the lowlands of 

northern I Corps.60

60 Msg, Westmoreland MAC 5817 to Wheeler, 3 May 68, p. 1 (quote), Westmoreland Msg 

files, CMH; ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 1st Cav Div, 20 Aug 68, p. 2, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd 

Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP.

A Soviet-designed 37-mm. antiaircraft cannon

16

The General Offensive Renewed

When COSVN leaders held a secret conference with B2 Front 

officials in late March to review the results of the Tet offensive, 

General Thai and Secretary Hung asked whether a new round of attacks 

could be organized before the rainy season began in mid-May. Le Duan, still 

the preeminent voice in North Vietnam’s Politburo, was pushing hard for a 

resumption of the general offensive. Some regional commanders expressed 

their doubts. The Viet Cong units that had spearheaded the first wave were 

still in bad shape, they said, and the North Vietnamese troops coming into 

theater were inexperienced youths, often weak from malaria and other tropical diseases that they had contracted on the journey south. As for the soldiers 

who had lived through the Tet offensive, many were demoralized after seeing 

their hopes for victory dashed. Supplies were an issue as well. Most of the 

forward depots were either empty or destroyed. Replacing them would not 

be easy with U.S. and South Vietnamese units constantly sweeping the provinces around Saigon. Those problems, combined with the heightened allied 

vigilance, led some B2 Front officials to conclude that “there was no longer 

any opportunity to liberate the cities and province capitals” with a Tet-style 

offensive.1

COSVN leaders acknowledged those challenges but downplayed their 

severity. “We still possess the element of surprise,” Thai and his fellow generals insisted, and “even though the enemy has pulled in his forces to defend 

the inner city and the suburbs, there are still many gaps and holes in his 

defenses.” COSVN leaders eventually won over the skeptics and drafted a 

communiqué to Hanoi recommending a resumption of the general offensive. 

After consulting with its other front commands, the Politburo ordered preparations for a second wave to begin.2

The plan that solidified in early April differed from its predecessor in 

several notable respects. The first was a difference in operational methods. During Tet, the enemy had attempted to seize nearly every major city 

in South Vietnam. During the second wave, the Communists intended 

to invade only one urban target—Saigon—while relying on rocket and 

mortar fire to harass the other major cities around the country. A second 

1

 Minh et al., History of the Resistance War Against the Americans, p. 193. 2

 Quote from Minh et al., History of the Resistance War Against the Americans, p. 160; Special 

Rpt, CMIC, no. 0409768, 4 May 68, sub: VC Commentaries on the Recent General Offensive, 

pp. 2–3, box 21, CMIC Special Rpts, Asst Ch of Staff, G–2, RG 472, NACP; Intel Rpt, DoD, 

no. 6027707668, 2 Jul 68, sub: CDEC Bulletin No. 13861, p. 1, document 9, Vietnam-Troop 

Morale, box 154, NSF-Vietnam Country Files, LBJL.
Staying the Course

530

difference between the plans was the diminished role of a general uprising. Although North Vietnamese leaders continued to call for a popular 

revolt, COSVN would make only a halfhearted attempt to mobilize civilian help in Saigon during round two. The third and most important distinction had to do with expectations. The first wave had been an all-out 

effort to destroy the South Vietnamese government root and branch; the 

second wave was meant to bolster North Vietnam’s negotiating position 

in the peace talks soon to begin in Paris, as well as to improve its logistical posture at the strategic level. Although North Vietnamese leaders 

continued to talk about “finishing the enemy off” in 1968, the new plan 

contained a provision for “taking pro-active measures in the event the war 

expands and becomes protracted.”3

Communist commanders gathered around 60,000 soldiers for the second 

wave, one-third fewer than had been used during Tet but with a higher proportion of main force regulars. All told, thirty North Vietnamese infantry 

regiments representing nine divisions and all five major front commands 

would see action, joined by four artillery regiments, three composite Viet 

Cong/PAVN infantry regiments, and ten provincial infantry battalions. The 

heaviest attacks would be directed against Saigon in III Corps and Dong 

Ha in northern I Corps. Regimental-strength operations were planned for 

Quang Tin, Kontum, and Binh Dinh Provinces. Enemy units elsewhere in 

the country would support the second wave with stand-off attacks against 

district and provincial capitals.

Communist plans were compromised on 19 April when the chief political 

officer of Sub-Region 1, North Vietnamese Lt. Col. Tran Van Dac, turned 

himself in to government authorities in Binh Duong Province. He claimed 

that COSVN was going to attack the capital at the end of April with a stronger 

force than had been employed during Tet. He said other attacks were going 

to take place elsewhere in the country, though he did not know the details. 

After questioning Dac for two days and cross-checking his story with radio 

intercepts, prisoner interrogations, and agent reports, the allies concluded 

that he was telling the truth. Westmoreland alerted his senior commanders 

that a second general offensive was brewing. Together with General Vien, 

Westmoreland redeployed many of the U.S. and Vietnamese battalions operating in III Corps back to Saigon’s environs. “With foreknowledge of enemy 

plans,” Westmoreland wrote on 21 April, “we now have a chance to inflict a 

crushing defeat on him.”4

The allies tried to keep Colonel Dac’s defection a secret, but someone 

leaked the story to a newspaper in Saigon, which ran a feature on him a 

3 Lich Su Saigon-Cho Lon-Gia Dinh Khang Chien (1954–1975) [History of the Resistance 

War in Saigon-Cho Lon-Gia Dinh] (Ho Chi Minh City: Ho Chi Minh City Publishing House, 

1994), p. 506. 4

 Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 5289 to Cushman, 21 Apr 68, pp. 1–2 (quote); Maj Gen 

Fillmore K. Mearns HOA 0537 to Westmoreland, 23 Apr 68. Both in Westmoreland Msg files, 

CMH. Msg, Westmoreland MACV 3972 to Director, National Security Agency, 23 Apr 68, sub: 

Tran Van Dac, pp. 2–4; Periodic Intel no. 70, MACV, 1–30 Apr 68, n.d., p. 3. Both in Historians 

files, CMH.
531

The General Offensive Renewed

few days later. The news confronted COSVN with a difficult choice. After 

weighing the risks, the Politburo decided to go ahead with the offensive. 

Canceling the second wave would make the Communists appear weak, 

an unacceptable position for North Vietnam as it entered the peace 

talks. Moreover, Colonel Dac’s knowledge of Communist plans had been 

limited to the Saigon area, so that Communist intentions for the rest of 

the country were still opaque to the allies. To restore some semblance 

of surprise, the Politburo postponed the offensive for one week, hoping 

that the allies would relax their guard during the interval. It made an 

exception for the DMZ Front. It told General Hai to go forward with his 

Dong Ha–Cau Viet campaign because North Vietnamese leaders hoped 

it would draw off some of the U.S. units that were presently conducting 

Operation Delaware in the A Shau Valley and Operation Carentan II

in the foothills west of Hue. Without siphoning off some of those forces, 

the Communists would have trouble getting supplies to the five North 

Vietnamese regiments that operated in the lowlands between Quang Tri 

City and Phu Bai. As ordered, units from the 320th PAVN Division left 

their forward staging areas on the evening of 27 April and two days later 

moved undetected into their battle areas just north of Dong Ha. The 

second general offensive had begun.5

Fighting on the Demilitarized Zone

The commander of the DMZ Front, General Hai, had two missions to perform. He intended to invade the eastern lowlands of Quang 

Tri Province with the 320th Division and the independent 27th PAVN 

Regiment. Forward elements from both units were to occupy a string of 

hamlets just north of Dong Ha where Highway 1 crossed the Bo Dieu 

River. From there, the enemy could interdict cargo ships coming from 

the Cau Viet estuary and block the only road between Dong Ha and Gio 

Linh, thereby threatening several key supply lines used by the 3d Marine 

Division at Dong Ha.6

At the western end of the Demilitarized Zone, the 9th and 66th Regiments

of the 304th PAVN Division had orders to keep the 2d Brigade, 1st Cavalry 

Division, and the 9th Marines tied down in the Scotland II sector until 

the 308th PAVN “Iron” Division arrived in mid-May with two regiments to 

renew the siege of Khe Sanh. General Hai ordered its remaining regiment to 

reinforce the Group 44 Front in the Da Nang sector, a subcommand of the B1 

Front that already controlled one North Vietnamese infantry regiment and 

two rocket artillery battalions. Elsewhere in Military Region Tri-Thua-Thien, 

the 812th Regiment would test allied defenses around Quang Tri City under 

5 History of the Resistance War in Saigon-Cho Lon-Gia Dinh, p. 507; Military History 

Institute of Vietnam, Victory in Vietnam, p. 352. 6 Su Doan 325, Tap II [325th Division, Volume II] (Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 

1986), p. 63 (hereafter cited as 325th Division).
Staying the Course

532

the command of the 7th Front, while the Hue City Front tried to get the 90th

and 803d Regiments within striking distance of Hue.7

When the Provisional Corps headquarters warned Maj. Gen. Rathvon 

M. Tompkins about “VC intentions to launch a new phase of attacks [that] 

will begin in late April [or] the first ten days of May,” the commander of 

the 3d Marine Division could do little more than wait and see. Most of the 

forces under his operational control were already committed to missions 

along the southern edge of the Demilitarized Zone. His 1st Marines secured 

the Scotland II sector at the western end of the line with help from the 2d 

Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division; his 4th Marines patrolled the Lancaster II

zone along the central Demilitarized Zone; and his 9th Marines patrolled 

the Kentucky sector that stretched from Cam Lo to Dong Ha. At the eastern end of the line, his 3d Marines guarded the Cau Viet estuary through 

Operation Napoleon/Saline. The sector between the 3d and 9th Marines, 

the heart of “Leatherneck Square,” which included Highway 1 from Dong 

Ha to Gio Linh, belonged to the South Vietnamese 2d Infantry Regiment 

and its commander, Lt. Col. Vu Van Giai. General Tompkin’s sole reserve 

was Task Force Robbie, a company of Marine infantry and a company of 

Marine tanks stationed at Cam Lo, ten kilometers to the west of Dong Ha 

via Highway 9.8

 

On the morning of 29 April, local officials reported that sappers had 

destroyed a small bridge on Highway 1 some four kilometers north of Dong 

Ha, cutting the road between 3d Marine Division headquarters and Gio 

Linh, ten kilometers to the north, where one of Colonel Giai’s battalions 

manned Strong Point A–2. A second battalion guarded Strong Point A–1 at 

the eastern end of the obstacle trace. Two more battalions were stationed at 

Firebase C–4, two kilometers north of the destroyed bridge, where Colonel 

Giai maintained his headquarters. The South Vietnamese promptly dispatched elements from those two battalions to investigate.

When they arrived at the bridge, the government troops came under heavy 

fire from enemy soldiers on the southern bank of the stream. Additional fire 

came from snipers hidden in nearby hamlets. The South Vietnamese found 

themselves pinned down on the road, unable to advance or to outflank the 

enemy. Colonel Giai asked General Tompkins for assistance. The 3d Marine 

Division commander ordered his reserves, Task Force Robbie, to cross the 

Bo Dieu River and hit the enemy from the rear, but the combat team encountered strong resistance on Highway 9 and did not reach Dong Ha until late 

in the afternoon. When Colonel Giai learned that Task Force Robbie was 

delayed, and with his own losses having reached seventeen killed, the colonel 

pulled his men back to let U.S. air and artillery strikes go to work.9

7

 Weekly Combat Intel and Security Review, 14 May 68, p. 3, document 8, Asst Ch of Staff, 

G–2, USARV, Vietnam-Weekly Combat and Intel Security Review 9/67-10/68, boxes 187–88, 

NSF-Vietnam Country Files, LBJL; Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, p. 307. 8

 Msg, Westmoreland MAC 5289 to Cushman, 21 Apr 68, pp. 1–2.

9

 Rpt, Opns of U.S. Marine Forces Vietnam, Apr 1968, p. 14, Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, 

G–3, Historians files, CMH; Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, p. 292.
533

The General Offensive Renewed

At daybreak on 30 April, the allies discovered North Vietnamese troops 

dug into the north bank of the Bo Dieu River from Dong Ha to the edge of 

the Cua Viet estuary. General Tompkins learned that at least one battalion 

from the 52d Regiment and a heavy weapons company had fortified a cluster 

of hamlets around Dai Do (1), just two kilometers northeast of Dong Ha. 

North Vietnamese troops had also been spotted along the river farther east 

toward the Cau Viet estuary. The 64th Regiment had established positions 

along the west side of Highway 1 to block the 9th Marine units based in the 

Kentucky sector. The 48th Regiment from the 320th Division had established 

a defensive line along Highway 1 to block the South Vietnamese battalions at 

Gio Linh and at Firebase C–4. Adding to his problems, Tompkins also got 

wind that elements of the independent 270th PAVN Regiment had occupied 

a hamlet named Nhi Ha, about ten kilometers northeast of Dong Ha, which 

the North Vietnamese regiment used as a waypoint whenever it came south 

into the Napoleon/Saline sector to attack shipping in the Cau Viet estuary 

(Map 42).10

General Tompkin’s first priority was to retake the hamlets around Dai 

Do so enemy gunners could not sink or block the Navy LSTs (Landing Ship, 

Tanks) that brought 95 percent of the 3d Marine Division’s supplies up the 

Cua Viet estuary. He ordered the 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, to attack the Dai 

Do pocket from the west, while the 3d Battalion, 9th Marines, pushed east 

against the 64th Regiment. He ordered the 1st Battalion, 3d Marines, to screen 

the area around Dong Ha south of the Bo Dieu River. Colonel Giai had his 

troops seal off the Highway 1 corridor. To cover the Nhi Ha sector vacated 

by the 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, General Rosson gave Tompkins operational control over the Provisional Corps’ reserve force, the 3d Battalion, 21st 

Infantry, from the 196th Infantry Brigade (Light). The next morning, helicopters flew Lt. Col. William P. Snyder and his 3d Battalion from Camp Evans 

to a landing zone near the Bo Dieu River eight kilometers south of Nhi Ha to 

join Operation Napoleon/Saline with the 1st Marine Amphibious Tractor 

Battalion. 

On 1 May, three companies from the 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, fought 

their way into Dai Do from the west and began clearing the string of enemycontrolled hamlets that lay between the river and Highway 1. Many civilians 

had not been able to flee their homes, so the marines relied on direct-fire 

weapons, including 90-mm. tank cannons and 106-mm. recoilless rifles 

instead of air and artillery strikes. After a savage, close-range battle that 

swirled back and forth through the hamlets all day, the 2d Battalion, 4th 

Marines, gained a solid foothold in Dai Do and parts of neighboring hamlets 

when night fell. 

The fighting in Dai Do reached its peak on 2 May when several North 

Vietnamese battalions tried to regain the positions they had lost the previous 

day. The 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, repulsed each attack, though the situation 

for the outnumbered Americans remained precarious. When the Communists 

withdrew that evening, the 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, had sustained fifty killed 

10 325th Division, pp. 70–71.
Map 42

52(-)

PAVN

III

48

PAVN

III

4 270

PAVN

I I

1 52

PAVN

I I

64

PAVN

III

USMC

G 2-4

I

USMC

F 2-4

I

USMC

E 2-4

I

USMC

H 2-4

I

USMC

B 3-4

I

USMC

BLT 2 4

I I

3 21

I I

3 21

I I

USMC

3 F/2-4

USMC

3

III

USMC

1

I I

USMC

9

III

USMC

3

ARVN X X

2

III

ROU T E LOU

DONG HA BASE

A–1

C–1

CUA VIET

LCU AMBUSH 30 Apr

NHI HA

1–3 May

Song Bo Dieu

GULF OF 

TONKIN

Song Mieu Giang

Cua Viet

Song Thach Han

1

1

1

9

A B A N D O N E D 

Mai Xa Chanh

My Loc

Nhi Ha

Lam Xuan

Bac Vong

Dong Xuan

An Lac

Dai Do

Dinh To

Thuong Do

Dong Ha

BAT TLE OF DONG HA

30 April–3 May 1968

0

0 1 2 3 Kilometers

Miles 1 2 3

Fireght

U. S. Ground Assault

U. S. Air Assault

Military Installation

Unit Field Location

Signicant Village or Hamlet
535

The General Offensive Renewed

and ninety-eight wounded that day alone. With the unit nearing exhaustion, 

General Tompkins sent several companies from the 1st Battalion, 3d Marines, 

across the river that evening to shore up the U.S. position.11

Unable to regain a foothold in Dai Do, the 27thBattalion and 52d Regiment

headed north on the evening of 2 May, moving through the countryside in 

company formations, to rejoin the 48th Regiment, some ten kilometers to the 

north. The remaining element of the 320th Division, the 64th Regiment, also 

broke contact that evening, marching away from the riverfront area west of 

Highway 1 where it had fought a holding action against the 3d Battalion, 9th 

Marines, during the last two days.

Meanwhile, a second fight was developing farther to the east. On the 

morning of 1 May, Colonel Snyder and his 3d Battalion, 21st Infantry, left 

their staging area on the north bank of the Bo Dieu River, marching north 

along the Jones Creek toward the ruined hamlet of Nhi Ha. Nearing the site 

later that day, the Americans found it occupied by the 4th Battalion, 270th 

Regiment. Employing Marine and Air Force fighter-bombers to soften the 

enemy position, the U.S. battalion took Nhi Ha after a sharp two-day fight 

that reportedly killed 137 enemy troops as well as 14 U.S. soldiers. The enemy 

withdrew north into the scrub-covered countryside.12

11 Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, pp. 302–03. 12 Ibid., p. 304.

Troops from the 196th Infantry Brigade watch as a UH–1D helicopter lifts off.
Staying the Course

536

Colonel Synder sent one of his companies ahead on 3 May to search several destroyed hamlets that lay just to the north. Sending only one company 

proved to be unwise. North Vietnamese troops ambushed the company while 

it was moving in column through the tall bushes, killing a dozen soldiers. 

Snyder brought the rest of his troops forward just in time to prevent the 

enemy from overrunning his isolated unit. The 3d Battalion, 21st Infantry, 

returned to Nhi Ha to await further orders. General Tompkins decided there 

was no point in pursuing the 270th Regiment now that it had been pushed 

a safe distance from the river. On 2 May, North Vietnamese recoilless rifle 

crews had damaged several U.S. cargo ships on the Bo Dieu River, forcing them to return to the Cua Viet estuary, but no further attacks from the 

riverbank had materialized since then. With the battle for Dai Do winding 

down, the Marine general returned the 3d Battalion, 21st Infantry, to Camp 

Evans, and handed the Nhi Ha sector back to his 2d Battalion, 4th Marines. 

General Rosson subsequently flew Colonel Snyder’s battalion back to the 

Que Son Valley where it rejoined Operation Wheeler/Wallowa with the 

196th Infantry Brigade.13

When General Tompkins learned of the enemy’s retreat from Dai Do, 

and when the 1st Battalion, 3d Marines, found only a handful of stragglers 

as it pushed north toward the destroyed bridge on Highway 1, the Marine 

general concluded that the 320th Division had slipped around Colonel Giai’s 

blocking force and was now headed back to the Demilitarized Zone. On 7 

May, Tompkins organized a new mission, Operation Concordia Square, to 

destroy some of those retreating units. Since he lacked the helicopters needed 

to leapfrog over the North Vietnamese, General Rosson gave him operational 

control over the 1st and 2d Battalions, 5th Cavalry, from the 2d Brigade, 1st 

Cavalry Division, currently operating with the 1st Marines near Khe Sanh. 

The commander of the 2d Brigade, Col. Robert H. McKinnon, landed his 

1st and 2d Battalions from the 5th Cavalry near Firebase C–4, established a 

forward headquarters there, and then sent company-size patrols out to search 

the Highway 1 corridor south of Gio Linh.14

On the morning of 9 May, disaster struck Company C, 1st Battalion, 5th 

Cavalry. Its lead platoon was walking through an area of dense scrub when it 

came under heavy fire from a camouflaged North Vietnamese bunker complex. The torrent of bullets badly wounded the company commander and 

killed or injured more than a dozen men around him in the opening seconds 

of the ambush. The remainder of the cavalry battalion launched a desperate assault against the bunkers and managed to rescue what was left of the 

lead company before it was annihilated. Elements of the 2d Battalion, 5th 

Cavalry, joined the fight in the next few hours and gradually the Americans 

gained the upper hand. The enemy abandoned the complex that night, leaving behind 148 bodies. The 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry, had paid a high price 

13 Ibid., p. 306.

14 AAR, Opn Concordia Square, 2d Bde, 1st Cav Div, 3 Jun 68, p. 2, Historians files, CMH.
537

The General Offensive Renewed

for the victory, seventeen killed and forty-two wounded, mostly from the 

opening minutes of the battle.15

The two cavalry battalions carried out several night ambushes over the 

next few days, using air and artillery strikes to great effect on the enemy columns that they spotted moving north. U.S. Marine tanks joined the sweep as 

well. When the operation came to an end on 17 May, the 1st and 2d Battalions, 

5th Cavalry, reported having killed 347 enemy soldiers and captured another 

15. Total U.S. casualties came to 25 killed and 117 wounded.16

The two-week battle near Dong Ha had produced mixed results. General 

Hai had briefly closed traffic on the Bo Dieu River and mauled several U.S. 

units—the 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, sustaining the worst with 91 killed and 

almost 300 wounded—but at a steep price. The 1st Cavalry Division estimated that the allies had killed between 1,200 and 1,500 North Vietnamese 

soldiers. The enemy had achieved no tangible gains.17

Safeguarding Hue

When Westmoreland informed Rosson on 21 April that the enemy was 

planning on launching a second Tet-style offensive within a week or two, the 

head of the Provisional Corps instructed General Barsanti, commander of 

the 101st Airborne Division, to adjust his operations in Thua Thien Province 

to forestall a possible attack on Hue. Barsanti ordered his 2d Brigade commander, Colonel Cushman, to shift the focus of Operation Carentan II

from the hills west of Hue to the lowlands that surrounded the capital. The 

15 Ibid., pp. 2–4.

16 Ibid., p. 5.

17 Ibid., p. 20.

Soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division, on patrol with 

U.S. Marine M48 tanks north of Dong Ha
Staying the Course

538

first major find came on 28 April when the elite Hac Bao Company of the 

South Vietnamese 1st Division discovered the 8th Battalion, 90th Regiment, 

hiding in the fishing hamlet of Phuoc Yen just six kilometers northwest of 

Hue. Elements from the 1st and 2d Battalions, 501st Infantry, surrounded the 

hamlet and then annihilated the enemy unit over the next four days. Enemy 

losses came to 309 killed and 104 captured. Among the dead were the battalion commander, the executive officer, and three company commanders.18

The allies discovered another enemy force lurking near Hue on 2 May 

when a Regional Forces company reported North Vietnamese soldiers 

in Bon Tri, a hamlet six kilometers to the west of Hue that the enemy had 

used as a supply station during the Tet offensive. Several companies from 

the 1st Battalion, 505th Infantry, helped the Hac Bao Company maul the 3d 

Battalion, 812th Regiment. The enemy withdrew after two days of fighting, 

leaving behind 121 of his dead. Allied losses totaled four killed and eighteen 

wounded. 

On 5 May when the main phase of the second general offensive got under 

way, enemy artillery units bombarded Hue, Da Nang, and a variety of other 

military targets, including Camp Evans, hit with twenty 122-mm. rockets 

from the K32 PAVN Artillery Battalion. Damage in all cases was minor. Also 

on the fifth, elements of the 101st Airborne Division guarding Route 547 

clashed with the 7th Battalion, 29th Regiment, near Firebase Bastogne, killing seventy-one Communists, while a second element from the 101st Airborne 

Division west of Hue drove the 7th Battalion, 90th Regiment, from the hamlet 

of Thon La Chu, killing fifty-five enemy troops.19

Over the next few days, North Vietnamese artillery hit other targets but 

neither Quang Tri City nor Hue came under ground attack. Satisfied with 

the results of his spoiling efforts in the A Shau, General Rosson ordered the 

1st Cavalry Division to begin winding down Operation Delaware. The 3d 

Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, flew back to Camp Evans on the tenth and 

the eleventh. During the same period, the South Vietnamese 3d Regiment 

redeployed to its base camp at PK–17, located halfway between Camp Evans 

and Hue, while the 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, began to tear down 

the allied bases scattered throughout the valley. North Vietnamese artillery 

shelled the allies as they left, but most of the fire proved to be ineffectual 

because the enemy forward observers lacked radios and could not provide 

timely data to the gunners. The 1st Brigade completed its extraction on 16 

May, flying by helicopter from Landing Zone Stallion for Camp Evans and 

18 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 32-68, III MAF, 4–10 Aug 68, 13 Aug 68, p. 5, . Vietnam Center and 

Archive, TTU; Military History Institute of Vietnam, Victory in Vietnam, p. 355. 19 Weekly Combat Intel and Security Review, 28 May 68, p. 4, document 36, Asst Ch of Staff, 

G–2, USARV, Vietnam-Weekly Combat and Intel Security Review 9/67-10/68, boxes 187–88, 

NSF-Vietnam Country Files, LBJL; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 5, Provisional Corps, Vietnam, 8–14 

May 68, 14 May 68, p. 2, box 1, Periodic Intel Rpts, Asst Ch of Staff, G–2, XXIV Corps, RG 

472, NACP; “Vietcong Press Saigon Attacks,” New York Times, 6 May 68.
539

The General Offensive Renewed

then back home to Landing Zones Betty and Sharon near Quang Tri City. 

Operation Delaware/Lam Son 216 officially ended the next day.20

Though the enemy had failed to prevent the 1st Cavalry Division from 

raiding his supply bases in the A Shau Valley, he managed to strike back at 

the U.S. logistical system just as Delaware was coming to an end. On 19 

May, the 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, was in the midst of refueling its 

helicopters and taking on supplies when twelve 122-mm. rockets slammed 

into Camp Evans. The incoming rounds hit an open-air ammunition dump, 

igniting 3,400 tons of ordnance and causing a fire that spread to the nearby 

airfield, eventually damaging or destroying 124 aircraft. The catastrophic 

loss of helicopters and ammunition rendered the cavalry brigade ineffective 

for at least a week until replacement aircraft could be obtained. Fortunately 

for Rosson, the enemy failed to take advantage of the situation by attacking 

Quang Tri City or some other target in the 1st Brigade area of operations 

while the unit was crippled. Still, the incident proved that the allied logistical 

system in northern I Corps remained vulnerable as long as North Vietnamese 

rocket crews prowled the hills overlooking Highway 1.21

On a more positive note for General Rosson, Operation Delaware had 

proved that the A Shau Valley was no longer beyond allied reach. The 1st 

Cavalry Division had overcome treacherous weather and ferocious antiaircraft fire to kill some 850 enemy soldiers and to capture or destroy hundreds 

of tons of food, weapons, and equipment. Thousands of documents describing the North Vietnamese logistical system fell into allied hands. Allied 

operations in the A Shau and along Route 547 had been so effective that 

they had forced the Military Region Tri-Thua-Thien headquarters to scrap 

most of its plans for the May offensive, including an attack on Hue. The cost 

to the allies for this important achievement had been 142 American and 26 

South Vietnamese soldiers killed, with 11 helicopters destroyed and 35 damaged. The enemy was not going to abandon the A Shau Valley, however, and 

Rosson knew that Provisional Corps would need to return there at periodic 

intervals to maintain the safety of the population living in the lowlands.22

The Fall of Kham Duc

The main target of the enemy’s offensive in southern I Corps was the 

Kham Duc Special Forces camp, a remote outpost nestled in the mountains 

of western Quang Tin Province. General Dung wanted to seize the border 

surveillance camp so North Vietnamese engineers could build a high-speed 

infiltration corridor from Laos to the Que Son Valley. The Military Region 

20 Battles of Vietnamese Artillery, p. 218; Transcript, VNIT 96, p. 8, CMH; AAR, Opn 

Delaware, 1st Cav Div, 28 May 68, p. 11, Historians files, CMH. 21 Weekly Combat Intel and Security Review, 28 May 68, p. 2.

22 Rpt, XXIV Corps, n.d., sub: The Critical Year, 1968: The XXIV Corps Team, p. 66, 

Historians files, CMH. See also ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, XXIV Corps, 20 Aug 68, p. 4, box 67, 

ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP; AAR, Opn Delaware, 1st 

Cav Div, p. 6; Transcript, VNIT 96, p. 8; Transcript, VNIT 203, p. 6, CMH.
Staying the Course

540

5 commander, General Man, instructed two regiments from the 2d PAVN 

Division to overrun the camp, while its third regiment tied down the 196th 

Infantry Brigade in the Que Son Valley. The 31st Regiment attached to the 

Group 44 headquarters would similarly divert the 1st Marine Division units 

in the An Hoa Valley west of Da Nang (Map 43).23

Established in 1961, the Kham Duc border surveillance camp was as 

remote as could be found in South Vietnam. The road that had once connected Kham Duc village to the Que Son Valley, Highway 14, had fallen into 

disrepair and could no longer support vehicle traffic. The garrison had to 

rely on helicopters or fixed-wing aircraft using a single dirt airstrip for all of 

its supply needs. To make matters worse, the Kham Duc runway—located in 

a valley six kilometers long and two kilometers wide—was often closed due 

to poor weather because the bowl-shaped depression trapped the fog and 

clouds that were common to this area. Even in good weather, pilots of C–130 

transports found it nerve-racking to land and take off on the short runway 

with their big four-engine aircraft.24

In early May, the Kham Duc camp contained approximately 500 allied 

troops. Company A of the 70th Engineer Battalion had arrived in April to 

repair the runway and to build a hard surface base for a radio navigation 

facility that would enable aircraft to land in all but the worst conditions. 

On the east side of the runway was a fortified camp manned by fifteen soldiers from Detachment A–105, Company C, 5th Special Forces Group, and 

approximately 300 CIDG soldiers. The families of the CIDG troops lived in 

the village of Kham Duc, some 800 meters north of the airfield. Five small 

outposts sat atop the hills to the south, west, and north to give warning of 

an attack.25

Seven kilometers to the southwest on a hill overlooking Highway 14 was 

a second, smaller camp known as Ngok Tavak. The fort, which consisted of 

sandbagged trenches and bunkers, dated back to the First Indochina War. 

Presently it was manned by a handful of U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers, 

three Australian advisers, and the 11th Mobile Strike Force, a company 

of mostly ethnic Chinese mercenaries. One of the Australians, Capt. John 

White, commanded the mobile strike force company and was in overall 

charge of Ngok Tavak.26

For many years, Kham Duc had fulfilled its border surveillance mission without attracting much attention from the enemy, but things suddenly 

changed in the spring of 1968. Intelligence reports indicated that North 

Vietnamese rear service troops were repairing the Laotian section of Highway 

14, apparently with an eye toward building a new logistical route to carry men 

23 Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, pp. 189, 192; Man, Time of Upheaval, pp. 

482–83. 24 Rpt, Americal Div, 16 May 68, sub: Summary of Operation Golden Valley, p. 1, box 2, 

3d Mil Hist Det, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 25 Alan L. Gropman, Airpower and the Airlift Evacuation of Kham Duc, USAF Southeast 

Asia Monograph Series, vol. V, Monograph 7 (Alabama: Air War College, 1979), p. 2; Traas, 

Engineers at War, pp. 369–72. 26 Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, p. 542.
541

The General Offensive Renewed

and supplies into the lowlands of Quang Tin Province. It stood to reason that 

the enemy would eventually try to neutralize Kham Duc and Ngok Tavak 

because both lay along the path that the enemy intended to use. 

Allied concerns grew in late April when intelligence sources reported 

large enemy concentrations in the region. Most ominous of all, a CIDG 

patrol seized a bunker several kilometers east of Kham Duc that contained a 

sand-table model of the camp. The North Vietnamese soldiers who had been 

Map 43

1

PLAF

III

21

PAVN

III

A 2-1

I

D 2-1

I

A 1-46

I

STRIKER CAMP

SPECIAL FORCES CAMP

CIDG TRAINEE CAMP

CAMP CONROY

OP 1

OP 5

OP 7

OP 6

OP 3

Dak Se

Dak Se

Dak Sa

14

14

14

KHAM DUC

KHAM DUC

MAY OFFENSIVE

10–12 May 1968

0

0 1 Kilometer

Mile 1

Concentration of Forces

Observation Post

0 300 800 and Above

ELEVATION IN METERS
Staying the Course

542

driven from the command post left behind no documents, however, so the 

enemy’s specific intentions remained unclear.27

On 3 May, General Cushman sent a pair of 105-mm. howitzers from 

Battery D of the 2d Battalion, 13th Marines, to bolster the garrison at Ngok 

Tavak. The commander of III Marine Amphibious Force also directed 

General Koster and his Americal Division staff to prepare a relief plan for 

Kham Duc, Operation Golden Valley, if the need arose.28

Undetected, two regiments from the 2d PAVN Division as well as a battalion of 85-mm. howitzers and a battalion of 23-mm. antiaircraft cannons 

were already poised to strike Kham Duc. The division’s remaining element, 

the 31st Regiment, stayed back in the Que Son Valley to launch a diversionary attack against Landing Zone Center. Allied intelligence failed to note 

the westward movement of the 1st PLAF and 21st PAVN Regiments partly 

because there were no Special Forces camps, and thus no regular ground 

patrols, in the region between the Que Son Valley and Kham Duc. The distance between the 2d Division’s mountain base camps and Kham Duc was 

also less than thirty kilometers, a distance that could be crossed in only two 

days. Moreover, the U.S. presence in the Que Son Valley had been reduced 

from two brigades in late 1967, one fully airmobile, to a single brigade now, 

the 196th Infantry Brigade, and its helicopter and patrol teams were focused 

on the valley, not on the mountains to the west.29

When the second general offensive began across the country on 5 May, 

the 31st Regiment attacked Landing Zone Center with mortars and recoilless rifles to draw in reserve forces from the Americal Division that might 

otherwise be used in the coming battle for Kham Duc. When allied aircraft 

tried to silence those gun crews, a heavy machine gun company from the K31 

PAVN Anti-Aircraft Battalion opened fire from carefully hidden positions 

around the firebase, shooting down two helicopters and an A–1E Skyraider. 

As the enemy pressure continued, General Koster sent his 1st Battalion, 6th 

Infantry, into the hills around Landing Zone Center on 8 May, and the 1st 

Squadron, 1st Cavalry, soon joined the hunt. The fighting lasted for three 

weeks, and though it resulted in the deaths of 365 North Vietnamese soldiers, 

it tied down a major portion of the 196th Infantry Brigade just as the battle 

for Kham Duc got under way.30

The North Vietnamese at Kham Duc began their part of the operation 

on 10 May with an assault on Ngok Tavak. After a fierce mortar barrage that 

pounded the fort at 0300, a group of unidentified Vietnamese approached the 

Marine section of the perimeter, yelling “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot, friendly, 

friendly!” The artillerymen held their fire, thinking them to be CIDG sol27 Interv, Maj Paul B. Weber with Capt Daniel Waldo Jr., Co A, 70th Engr Bn, 18 Jun 68, p. 

17, VNIT 214, CMH. 28 Man, Time of Upheaval, pp. 482–83; 2d Division, pp. 102–03; Paper, Gregory W. Sanders, 

“A New Interpretation of the Battle of Kham Duc, 10–12 May 68,” 14 Mar 08, p. 2, delivered 

at Sixth Triennial Vietnam Symposium, TTU. 29 ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, Americal Div, 7 Aug 68, p. 8, box 66, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd 

Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 30 Ibid.; 2d Division, p. 110.
543

The General Offensive Renewed

diers. Once they reached the entry point in the wire, the unfamiliar soldiers—

North Vietnamese troops wearing CIDG uniforms—opened fire as they 

rushed through the gap in the wire. The attackers quickly gained a foothold 

in the fort, and more enemy troops poured out of the jungle and up the hill.31

The defenders retreated to the crest of Ngok Tavak where they managed 

to establish a new line. When AC–47 gunships and tactical air strikes failed 

to dislodge the enemy, the commander of U.S. Special Forces Detachment 

A–105, Capt. Christopher J. Silva, who had come to the hill the previous 

day to inspect its defenses, requested that reinforcements be sent immediately while the defenders still controlled the landing pad on the reverse side 

of the hill. A flight of four Marine CH–46 helicopters brought more CIDG 

troops from Kham Duc, but enemy fire disabled the last two aircraft after 

they touched down. The burning aircraft blocked all but a small part of the 

landing pad.

The garrison suffered another setback that morning when enemy fire 

severely wounded Captain Silva. A UH–1 helicopter flew in to evacuate 

him and a number of other badly wounded men, but panicked CIDG troops 

swarmed aboard the aircraft when it touched down and it could not take on 

the injured. The aircraft flew away with several CIDG troops clinging to its 

skids; all fell to their deaths when their grip gave out.

The remaining defenders decided to abandon Ngok Tavak. The Marine 

artillerymen fired the last of their shells and then disabled their howitzers. 

Covered by a protective screen of air strikes, the U.S. and Australian soldiers led the survivors to the southeast, guessing correctly that there were 

no enemy forces in that direction. Helicopters came to pick them up, the last 

group arriving at Kham Duc around 1900. The casualty report for Ngok 

Tavak came to one U.S. soldier and fourteen marines killed, fifty-two U.S. 

and South Vietnamese personnel wounded, and sixty-four allied troops missing in action (two of them were U.S. marines). The number of enemy killed 

was unknown.32

At 0830 on 10 May, while the fighting at Ngok Tavak was still under way, 

III Marine Amphibious Force headquarters instructed the Americal Division 

to initiate Operation Golden Valley. No enemy troops had yet appeared in 

the hills around Kham Duc but the battle at Ngok Tavak suggested a large 

force was on its way. With most of the 196th Infantry Brigade tied down in 

the fight near Landing Zone Center, General Koster got permission to use 

the 2d Battalion, 1st Infantry, a unit from the 196th Infantry Brigade that was 

currently operating with the 2d Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, in Thua 

Thien Province. It would take the better part of the day to airlift that battalion, so Koster sent Company A and the headquarters element of the 1st 

Battalion, 46th Infantry, to reinforce Kham Duc in the meantime. The rein31 2d Division, p. 104. 32 Shulimson et al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam, p. 543; Gropman, Airpower and the Airlift 

Evacuation of Kham Duc, p. 8.
Staying the Course

544

forced company arrived at around 1050 and began improving the defenses at 

the camp.33

The 2d Battalion, 1st Infantry, commanded by Lt. Col. Robert B. Nelson, 

arrived by C–130 transport that afternoon along with three 105-mm. howitzers from Battery A of the 3d Battalion, 82d Artillery. The artillerymen 

set up their battery on the northwestern quarter of the runway next to the 

engineer compound. Only three of the weapons had made it to the airfield 

before darkness grounded the transports, but the other two howitzers were 

expected to arrive early the next morning. General Koster directed Colonel 

Nelson to take charge of Kham Duc.34

The colonel placed Company A, the mortar section, and the command 

group of the 2d Battalion, 1st Infantry, on the western side of the airfield. 

Company D from the battalion guarded the southwestern corner of the 

base, while Company A of the 1st Battalion, 46th Infantry, held the southern 

edge of the runway. Companies B and C from the 2d Battalion, 1st Infantry, 

defended the southeastern and northeastern perimeter of the airfield, respectively. In between them lay the Special Forces camp and its garrison of several 

hundred CIDG troops. Throughout the day, the men of Company A, 70th 

Engineer Battalion, scurried back and forth across the airfield, using a pair 

of bulldozers and a front loader to dig trenches and excavate bunkers for the 

new arrivals. When evening came on the tenth, approximately 1,200 allied 

soldiers were arrayed in defensive positions along the perimeter of Kham 

Duc. Small squads also manned each of the five hilltop outposts that surrounded the valley.35

Just as daylight began to appear on 11 May, North Vietnamese mortars 

hidden in the surrounding hills opened fire on Kham Duc. The three 105-

mm. howitzers at the north end of the runway banged back defiantly. After 

C–130s braved the mortar barrage and delivered two additional howitzers 

to Battery A, these joined the fight around 0930. Three of the battery’s five 

tubes fell silent shortly after noon when a mortar round hit Battery A, killing 

one man and wounding nineteen, but the surviving artillerymen eventually 

got two of the damaged howitzers back into action.36

While the artillery duel was under way that morning, General Koster 

and the deputy commander of III Marine Amphibious Force, U.S. Army 

Maj. Gen. Richard G. Stilwell, flew in to review the situation firsthand. Over 

a dozen North Vietnamese mortars continued to bombard the camp despite 

repeated air strikes meant to suppress them. The B–52s had dropped several 

hundred tons of bombs on Highway 14 between Kham Duc and Ngok Tavak, 

but their effect on the enemy was unclear. Intelligence reports suggested that 

the entire 1st PLAF Regiment and probably the 21st PAVN Regiment were 

33 Rpt, Americal Div, 16 May 68, p. 2.

34 Rpt, Americal Div, n.d., sub: Statement, Lt Col Robert B. Nelson, CO, 2d Bn, 1st Inf, 

196th Bde, p. 3, box 2, 3d Mil Hist Det, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 35 Rpt, Americal Div, 16 May 68, p. 1, Encl 1.

36 Rpt, Capt Kenneth W. Bernard, Battery A, 3d Bn, 82d Arty, 196th Bde, 14 May 68, pp. 

1–2, box 2, 3d Mil Hist Det, USARV, RG 472, NACP.
545

The General Offensive Renewed

near Kham Duc but their exact position could not be known because of the 

triple-canopy jungle that covered the region. Being so close to their base 

camps in Laos, the enemy troops had enough food and ammunition at their 

disposal to carry on the siege for months.37

Stilwell and Koster informed General Cushman that the allied position 

was untenable. Sharing their pessimism, the head of III Marine Amphibious 

Force reported the bad news to General Westmoreland who agreed that the 

camp did not have the “defensive potential of Khe Sanh.” The III Marine 

Amphibious Force ordered the Americal Division to prepare for the evacuation for Kham Duc, and General Koster passed the word to Colonel Nelson.38

As the commander of the 2d Battalion, 1st Infantry, and his staff were 

developing a plan to reduce the perimeter in stages, the 2d Division launched 

its main attack. At 0230 on 12 May, the North Vietnamese infantry swarmed 

over three of the five hilltop observation posts. Colonel Nelson tried to drive 

37 Rpts, Americal Div, 12 May 68, sub: Debriefing of Capt John Connolly, Asst S–3, 2d Bn, 

1st Inf, and Capt Ronald Lopes, 3d Bde, 82d Abn Div, Arty Liaison Ofcr, p. 3; Americal Div, 

n.d., sub: Interv with 1st Lt Peter L. Everts, Co A, 1st Bn, 46th Inf, p. 5. Both in box 2, 3d Mil 

Hist Det, USARV, RG 472, NACP. Rpt, Americal Div, 16 May 68, p. 3. 38 Rpt, HQ, Americal Div, 16 May 68, sub: Summary of Operation Golden Valley, p. 3, 

Historians files, CMH.

Kham Duc under mortar attack from the North Vietnamese
Staying the Course

546

off the attackers with helicopter gunships and artillery but to no avail. One 

of the six-man observation teams was wiped out. Another team made it back 

with four men wounded, and a third team escaped with North Vietnamese 

troops snapping at their heels. The loss of the observation posts meant that 

the enemy now had an unobstructed view of the valley floor and an ideal 

perch for his mortars and antiaircraft guns.39

The evacuation of Kham Duc got under way at around 0800 when a pair 

of CH–47 helicopters from the 178th Assault Support Helicopter Company 

flew in from the north. The lead aircraft had just begun its final descent when 

a burst of machine gun fire raked its tail section. Flames erupted from the 

Chinook as it landed, and its crew jumped clear of the aircraft while it was 

still taxiing. The burning helicopter rolled onto one side and came to a shuddering stop, its wreckage blocking part of the runway. Seeing the fate of its 

partner, the second CH–47 veered away and returned to Landing Zone Ross. 

Around that same time, enemy gunners shot down a U.S. Air Force A1–E 

Skyraider that was trying to suppress the ground fire. “We’ve got a small 

Khe Sanh going on here,” radioed one of the U.S. advisers, Capt. Willard C. 

Johnson.40

At around 0830, enemy infantry began advancing toward the runway from 

the south as well as from the northwest. Air strikes kept them at a respectful 

distance, while engineers worked feverishly to remove the destroyed CH–47. 

The engineers got the hulk off the runway at around 1100 and the evacuation 

resumed.41

The first aircraft, a C–130 transport, landed successfully but was so badly 

shot up that it took off again after only taking on a few passengers. A C–123 

came on its heels, getting out sixty-five people, but it was not until three hours 

later that the next transport arrived. That aircraft, a C–130, took on a full 

load of CIDG troops and their dependents. Just as it cleared the northern 

ridgeline, hostile fire sent it crashing to earth. There were no survivors. The 

third C–130 aircraft made a safe landing, took on passengers, and got away 

despite being riddled with bullet holes. Enemy fire disabled the fourth C–130 

while taxiing and the crew abandoned the aircraft. The next three C–130 

transports to come in had better luck, each taking on a full load of passengers and getting airborne without damage. One of the pilots, Lt. Col. William 

Boyd Jr., later described the experience as “trying to land in the middle of an 

exploding munitions dump.”42

39 Rpt, Americal Div, n.d., sub: Statement, 2d Lt Gene Alfred Tavineny, 1st Plt Leader, Co 

A, 1st Bn, 46th Inf, p. 2, box 2, 3d Mil Hist Det, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 40 Quote from Transcript, Capt Willard C. Johnson, Advisory Team 2, 12 May 68, p. 3, 

box 2, 3d Mil Hist Det, USARV, RG 472, NACP. Interv, Weber with Waldo, 18 Jun 68, p. 37; 

Gropman, Airpower and the Airlift Evacuation of Kham Duc, p. 12. 41 Interv, Weber with Pfc Thomas Paranoski, Co A, 70th Engr Bn, 18 Jun 68, p. 59, VNIT 

214, CMH; Rpt, Americal Div, 14 May 68, sub: Air Support of Golden Valley (Kham Duc), p. 

1, box 2, 3d Mil Hist Det, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 42 Rpt, Americal Div, 12 May 68, sub: Debriefing of Lt Col William Boyd, Jr., p. 1, box 2, 3d 

Mil Hist Det, USARV, RG 472, NACP.
547

The General Offensive Renewed

Meanwhile, Army CH–47 and Marine CH–46 helicopters were picking 

up the slack, evacuating as many troops and civilians as they could carry, 

which sometimes amounted to twice their typical passenger loads. There was 

no room to evacuate the heavier equipment so most of that was destroyed 

in place. At 1430, an enemy mortar round exploded the ammunition dump, 

leaving the entire battery position in flames but causing no casualties among 

the artillerymen who were already marching toward an embarkation point 

farther down the runway.43

The last group to leave Kham Duc was the CIDG company and its Special 

Forces officers, who hustled on board a C–130 and got airborne before 

the enemy realized that they were gone. Only minutes after they departed, 

another C–130 landed and deposited three U.S. Air Force Combat Control 

Team members who had not gotten word that the evacuation was complete. 

Receiving a distress call from the men on the ground, a C–123 piloted by 

Lt. Col. Joe M. Jackson dove through a hail of bullets and landed near the 

Air Force team. The three stranded Americans dashed onto the taxiing 

plane, which Colonel Jackson managed to coax into the sky just as North 

Vietnamese soldiers appeared on the runway. He and everyone on board 

made it back safely, and for his bravery Colonel Jackson later received the 

Medal of Honor.44

Although the allies had managed to evacuate the garrison of Kham Duc 

under the very nose of the 2d PAVN Division, Operation Golden Valley had 

been a close thing. The Americans had lost six helicopters, two C–130 transports, one O–2 spotter plane, and one A1–E fighter-bomber. Seven 105-mm. 

howitzers that could not be moved were destroyed in place. The allies suffered 

25 killed, 120 wounded, and 13 missing. The III Marine Amphibious Force 

estimated that North Vietnamese losses to be 545 soldiers killed, though no 

body count could be made. Whatever the cost had been to the 2d Division, its 

victory at Kham Duc had cleared the way for North Vietnamese engineers to 

build a major logistics route in southern I Corps, something which the enemy 

had formerly lacked.45

Ambush in Binh Dinh Province

The enemy high command chose Binh Dinh Province as its main combat 

theater in the eastern part of II Corps during the second general offensive. 

The Military Region 5 commander, General Man, ordered the 3d PAVN 

Division to cripple the 1st Battalion, 50th Infantry (Mechanized), which provided an armored fist for the two battalions from the 173d Airborne Brigade 

that operated in Binh Dinh Province. The 3d Division did not have enough 

43 Rpt, Maj Donald M. Buchwald, S–3, 2d Bn, 1st Inf, 196th Bde, n.d., p. 2, Historians files, 

CMH. 44 Rpt, Americal Div, 14 May 68, p. 1.

45 Rpt, Americal Div, 16 May 68, p. 5.
Staying the Course

548

supplies to fight an extended campaign, so General Man instructed its senior 

leaders to execute a few well-prepared ambushes.46

The headquarters and support base of the 1st Battalion, 50th Infantry, 

was located at Landing Zone Uplift, several kilometers to the south of Phu 

My District town. Under the command of Lt. Col. John B. Carter, the mechanized unit ranged up and down Highway 1 as far north as the Bong Son 

Plain and as far south as Phu Yen Province. The commander of the 173d 

Airborne Brigade, General Allen, also controlled a platoon of tanks from the 

1st Battalion, 69th Armor, which he used to support his 2d and 3d Battalions 

of the 503d Infantry as they conducted Operation Cochise along Binh Dinh’s 

central coast. 

The 3d Division started its campaign on 5 May by attacking Landing Zone

Salem, a firebase some thirteen kilometers north of Phu My, and Landing 

Zone Ollie three kilometers to the north. Those attacks combined with 

signal intercepts that indicated the presence of a North Vietnamese regimental headquarters north of Phu My, convinced Colonel Carter to go looking 

for the enemy without delay.47

Carter ordered all available forces at Landing Zone Uplift to search the 

area around An Bao, a village some two kilometers to the west of Landing 

Zone Salem, where the enemy command post was thought to be located 

(Map 44). The only troops on hand were two platoons from Company A, 1st 

Battalion, 50th Infantry, which had just come back from a grueling mission 

46 Minh et al., History of the Resistance War Against the Americans, p. 191; Msg, Abrams 

MAC 04568 to Westmoreland, 5 Apr 68, p. 4, Westmoreland Msg files, CMH. 47 3d Division, pp. 85–87; AAR, Battle of An Bao, 1st Bn, 50th Inf, 29 May 68, pp. 1–2, folder 

1, Bud Harton Collection, Vietnam Center and Archive, TTU.

Armored personnel carriers of Company B, 1st Battalion, 

50th Infantry, move into position in the Bong Son Plain.
22(-)

PAVN

III

2 97

PAVN

I I

B 1-69(-)

I

A 1-50(-)

I

B 1-50

C

I

1-50

I

LZ SALEM

LZ ICHIBAN

to LZ UPLIFT

1

1

Suoi Cau Son

Suoi Dap Thai

Song Can Mac San

Suoi Ong Om

Nui Go Chai

Nui Cot Co

An Bao (2)

An Bao (1)

An Bao (3)

BAT TLE OF AN BAO

AREA OF OPERATIONS 

5–7 May 1968

Enemy Axis of AttackU. S. CounterattackEnemy EntrenchmentsMilitary InstallationUnit Field Location

0

0 1 Kilometers

Miles 1

0 100 200 300 400 and Above

ELEVATION IN METERS

Map 44
Staying the Course

550

and had not slept for the last twenty-four hours. Nevertheless, they fired up 

their nine armored personnel carriers, rounded up a few clerks and mechanics to serve as extra infantrymen, and then headed up Highway 1 at around 

0800 on 5 May. The ad hoc force commanded by Lt. Dennis E. Hinton contained a total of fifty-five men.48

The column of vehicles traveled up Highway 1 and then turned west near 

Landing Zone Salem onto a small dirt road. At around 1000, the force entered 

a field of dry rice paddies about one kilometer square that was bordered by 

trees, save for a small gap on the other side. Cautiously, the two platoons and 

their nine armored personnel carriers rolled into the clearing.

Suddenly, off to the southwest, the Americans saw fifteen figures dressed 

in black pajamas stand up and run into the trees. The armored personnel 

carriers switched from column to line formation and advanced in that direction, spraying the trees with machine gun fire. There was no return fire, and 

the Americans found only a few spider holes and a couple of abandoned 

infantry packs. With the temperature climbing toward one hundred degrees 

Fahrenheit and no enemy in sight, Lieutenant Hinton called for a lunch 

break. He formed his vehicles into a circle near the southern edge of the field, 

and put a few soldiers into the nearby tree line to act as lookouts. 

Just as the troops were finishing their meals, a salvo of rocket-propelled 

grenades and recoilless rifle rounds slammed into their perimeter, knocking 

out Hinton’s command vehicle and the medical vehicle. Mortar rounds began 

to land on the U.S. position and enemy machine guns chattered. Realizing 

that he was surrounded, Lieutenant Hinton radioed for help.

The enemy forces that had sprung the ambush—the 97th Battalion, 2d 

Regiment, and the 7th and 9th Battalions, 22d Regiment—began closing in on 

the trapped Americans. Two armored personnel carriers surged forward with 

their .50-caliber and M60 machine guns blazing, trying to buy more time, 

but a volley of rocket-propelled grenades disabled both vehicles. Another 

armored personnel carrier, this one equipped with a flamethrower, took a 

hit and began to burn furiously. The remaining four vehicles and some dismounted soldiers retreated through the gap where they had entered the clearing. They made their escape and headed back to Highway 1. In the confusion, 

they left behind fifteen men who formed a small perimeter several hundred 

meters to the northwest of where the five disabled vehicles lay.49

When word of the disaster reached Landing Zone Uplift, Company C, 

1st Battalion, 50th Infantry, boarded its M113s and headed toward An Bao. 

The company commander, Capt. Jay C. Copley, had almost no information 

to go on; he only knew that Company A was in serious trouble. Around 

that same time, perhaps ten or twelve minutes past noon, the commander of 

Company B from the 1st Battalion, 69th Armor, Capt. Timothy J. Grogan, 

received orders from Colonel Carter to round up as many tanks as he could 

48 AAR, Battle of An Bao, 1st Bn, 50th Inf, pp. 1–2; Memoir (or Ltr), James E. Fitzgerald, 

5 May 68, Historians files, CMH. 49 ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 173d Abn Bde, 15 Aug 68, pp. 30–31, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd 

Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP; 3d Division, p. 82.
551

The General Offensive Renewed

find and proceed to the ambush site. Seven M48 tanks left the base a short 

time later and sped north on Highway 1.

Captain Grogan, who was as much in the dark about the situation as 

Captain Copley, overshot the road to An Bao by some 1,500 meters. When 

he finally did turn west off of Highway 1, one of his tanks got stuck in the 

mud. He left another vehicle there to pull it out while he continued west with 

his five remaining tanks. While his vehicles were still more than a kilometer 

away from the battle site, enemy bullets began to ping off the hulls. Fearing 

an ambush by rocket-propelled grenades or recoilless rifles, Grogan and his 

men slowed down and raked the surrounding brush with machine gun fire as 

they finished the last leg of their journey.

Captain Copley, who knew that stretch of Highway 1 better than Captain 

Grogan, made the correct turnoff and thus reached the ambush site first. 

He entered the clearing just as the North Vietnamese infantry was closing in on the fifteen soldiers from Company A who had been left behind. 

Company C’s armored personnel carriers quickly formed a protective circle 

around the survivors, many of whom were too wounded to fight. The North 

Vietnamese vastly outgunned the Americans and they soon killed several 

men in Company C and wounded another thirty, including Captain Copley. 

Lying on the floors of the armored personnel carriers, the injured cried out 

in pain as a torrent of hot, empty brass cascaded down on them from the 

chattering machine guns and rifles of their comrades. 

Just when things were looking desperate, Captain Grogan’s tanks burst 

onto the scene. The roar of their 90-mm. cannon gave the enemy pause, and 

the combined force made a fighting withdrawal out of the clearing. The 

Americans retired to a safer location so they could reorganize, evacuate their 

wounded, and obtain more ammunition. Air and artillery strikes pummeled 

the tree lines to pin down the North Vietnamese. 

At around 1700, a platoon of tanks dispatched from Landing Zone 

English and Company B from the 1st Battalion, 50th Infantry, led by Capt. 

Ronald G. Dennis, arrived at the place where Captains Copley and Grogan 

were reorganizing their troops. Now nearly a battalion strong, the combined 

force moved back into the clearing to reengage the enemy.

Heavy fire erupted once more from the opposite tree line. The air and 

artillery strikes that had hammered the woods for nearly five hours seemed 

to have had little effect on the enemy’s willingness or ability to fight. As the 

vehicles rolled forward, their crews were surprised to discover that the oncedry rice field was filling up with water. Enemy soldiers—or perhaps an errant 

bomb—had destroyed a dike, and the clearing was now too swampy to be 

crossed. The armored vehicles withdrew to establish a night defense position 

several hundred meters away, while air and artillery strikes continued.

The North Vietnamese probed the U.S. perimeter at 0330 on 6 May. 

Several hundred soldiers hit the night defense position from the northwest, 

advancing behind a curtain of mortar shells and rocket-propelled grenades. 

The barrage detonated a large pile of ammunition, injuring several Americans, 

but the defenders beat back the assault. The enemy withdrew from the field 

ninety minutes later, dragging away dozens of dead and wounded soldiers. 
Staying the Course

552

Three Americans died in the fight and another eighteen suffered wounds. It 

proved to be the enemy’s parting blow; a search of the woods the next morning revealed only empty trenches and bunkers along with some destroyed 

North Vietnamese equipment.

The official figures for the Battle of An Bao came to 117 confirmed 

enemy dead and around 70 weapons captured. Eighteen Americans had been 

killed, most of them from Company A of the 1st Battalion, 50th Infantry, and 

another ninety-one wounded. One of the dead was the leader of the original 

task force from Company A, Lieutenant Hinton. The Army posthumously 

awarded Hinton, who had previously received two Bronze Star Medals 

for Valor, a Meritorious Bronze Star for his actions at An Bao. The commander of Company C, 1st Battalion, 50th Infantry, Captain Copely, and 

Captain Grogan of Company B, 1st Battalion, 69th Armor, both received 

the Distinguished Service Cross for the leadership they demonstrated during 

that difficult engagement. 

Colonel Carter got the chance for some payback a few days later when 

he learned that the 2d Regiment had been spotted near the hamlet of Trung 

Hoi (2), at the mouth of the 506 Valley to the west of Landing Zone Uplift. 

Taking no chances this time, he ordered Companies B and C, 1st Battalion, 

50th Infantry, and a pair of M42 Dusters to investigate the area.50

On the morning of 11 May, the mechanized force traveled to a stretch 

of Route 506 that was some four kilometers west of Landing Zone Uplift. 

The task force proceeded cautiously because vegetation up to three meters 

high restricted visibility on either side. The Americans left the road and soon 

found an unoccupied but well-maintained battalion-size trench complex. The 

two companies, now separated by a distance of some 650 meters, formed 

defensive perimeters and sent out scouts to reconnoiter the area. 

Shortly after 1100, scouts reported seeing North Vietnamese soldiers 

moving along Route 506. No sooner had both companies opened fire when 

they themselves came under attack from several directions at once. The 

volume of fire suggested that the entire 2d Regiment had joined the fight. 

When waves of enemy infantry began to crash against Company B’s perimeter, it initiated a fighting withdrawal toward Company C.

The danger was not over when the two companies joined up. A rocketpropelled grenade hit the command vehicle of Company B, wounding its 

company commander, Captain Dennis. Enemy bullets had disabled half of 

the .50-caliber machine guns in Company C and many of its M60 machine 

guns had overheated because their operators had been firing them nonstop. 

Before long, however, air and artillery strikes began to suppress some of the 

enemy’s fire. The support allowed the two companies to withdraw several 

hundred meters down Route 506 to Trung Hoi (2) where helicopters brought 

in supplies and evacuated the wounded.

50 The following section is based on AAR, Battle of Trung Hoi (2), 1st Bn, 50th Inf, 11–13 

May 68, 5 Jun 68, folder 1, Bud Harton Collection, Vietnam Center and Archive, TTU; 3d 

Division, pp. 85–86.
553

The General Offensive Renewed

After the injured men had been flown out, the combined strength of the 

two companies stood at only ninety-six men. A platoon of tanks from the 1st 

Battalion, 69th Armor, arrived a short time later, but that was all the help 

that was forthcoming at the moment. Despite being only a company strong, 

the force went back on the attack and regained contact with the enemy at 

1640. After two hours of fighting, the composite company pulled back to get 

additional ammunition, but by that point the enemy had begun to disperse 

into the nearby hills. The shooting gradually died away and the night passed 

without incident.

The enemy, having withdrawn to the village of Trinh Van two kilometers 

to the southwest, was nowhere to be found when the Americans moved up 

Route 506 the following morning of 12 May. There were only sixty-one enemy 

bodies to be found because the North Vietnamese had policed up the battlefield during the night. The Americans estimated that they had actually killed 

at least 200 North Vietnamese soldiers in the previous day’s action, which 

became known as the Battle of Trung Hoi (2). U.S. losses came to three killed 

and forty wounded, a relatively small toll considering the weight of fire the 

Americans had faced and the determined nature of the enemy’s attack. Most 

surprising of all, not a single armored vehicle had been disabled or destroyed 

during the battle. 

Two weeks later, the same battalions that had faced off at An Bao and 

Trung Hoi met for a third time in what proved to be the 3d Division’s last 

An M48 tank from the 1st Battalion, 69th Armor, in Binh Dinh
Staying the Course

554

major engagement of the May offensive. Colonel Carter, having heard from 

informants that the 2d Regiment was in the village of Trinh Van near the 

mouth of the 506 Valley, sent Company B and several platoons from Company 

C, 1st Battalion, 50th Infantry, to check out the settlement on the morning 

of 25 May.51

The Americans turned off Route 506 when they were two kilometers 

southeast of Trinh Van. Their vehicles rolled over newly planted rice fields, 

low hedges, and the occasional small stream as they approached the village. 

When the force got within a few hundred meters of the largest hamlet, Trinh 

Van (1), at around 1100, the enemy opened fire from a line of well-camouflaged 

bunkers that stood between the Americans and the hamlet. The bunkers 

were not only difficult to spot but they were also remarkably sturdy, having 

been constructed from wood, earth, and bricks. The North Vietnamese had 

enjoyed ample time to sight their weapons on the ground Companies B and 

C now occupied. It quickly became clear that the incoming mortar, recoilless 

rifle, and machine gun fire was too heavy for a frontal assault to succeed.

The commander of Company B, 1st Lt. James H. Lee, attempted to 

maneuver his unit around the enemy’s right flank, but his command vehicle 

took a direct hit from a 60-mm. mortar shell that mortally wounded the artillery forward observer and wounded several other crewmen. Lieutenant Lee 

was not incapacitated, but his vehicle threw a tread a short time later as it 

tried to cross a small stream. Realizing that the enemy’s right flank could 

not be turned, he tried the same maneuver on the other flank after switching 

vehicles. That too failed in the face of heavy fire. Lieutenant Lee pulled the 

task force back several hundred meters to reorganize. 

Meanwhile, a relief force composed of the reconnaissance platoon from 

the 1st Battalion, 50th Infantry, and a platoon of tanks from the 1st Battalion, 

69th Armor, was on its way from Landing Zone Uplift. The five tanks joined 

Companies C and D, while the reconnaissance platoon took up a position 

some 500 meters to its rear at a stream crossing that offered the most direct 

way back to Landing Zone Uplift. 

As Lieutenant Lee and the rest of the force under his command passed 

around ammunition and refueled their vehicles from supplies delivered 

by helicopter, air strikes and helicopter gunships worked over the North 

Vietnamese positions on the outskirts of Trinh Van. The enemy sent forward 

a swarm of two-man antitank teams armed with rocket-propelled grenade 

launchers, but falling bombs obliterated at least six of the teams as they 

crawled toward the circle of vehicles. None of the bombs got close enough to 

hit the tanks or armored personnel carriers, whose machine guns targeted 

any sign of movement. 

Lieutenant Lee resumed the assault on Trinh Van (1) at 1612, but hostile 

fire stopped the advance well short of the village. With too few troops to outflank the enemy and not enough firepower to blast his way into the village, 

Lee decided to pull back for the night. 

51 The following section is based on AAR, Battle of Trinh Van (1), 1st Bn, 50th Inf, 11 Jun 

68, box 6, AARs, 1965–1971, Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP.
555

The General Offensive Renewed

When the Americans reconnoitered Trinh Van on the morning of 26 May, 

the enemy had vanished. The 2d Regiment had slipped away into the western hills during the night, leaving behind thirty-eight bodies in and around 

the elaborate fortifications that ringed the village. One American had been 

killed in action and twenty others wounded. Mines had damaged one tank 

and one armored personnel carrier, but none had been disabled or destroyed 

as a result of enemy fire. 

In all, the 3d Division’s campaign in Binh Dinh Province had fallen short 

of General Man’s goal to cripple the 1st Battalion, 50th Infantry. The division 

had scored a notable success at An Bao by destroying five armored personnel 

carriers and by knocking one of the battalion’s companies out of action. In 

the two battles that followed, however, the 2d and 22d Regiments had failed 

to destroy any more armored vehicles, which left the 3d Division in much the 

same position in early June as it had been at the start of the May offensive. 

With the division’s ammunition and medical supplies running low after six 

months of fighting, General Man ordered the 2d and 22d Regiments to move 

north into Quang Ngai Province where they would remain for the duration 

of the wet season, leaving the 18th Regiment behind to defend the division’s 

base camps. 

The short-lived and mostly ineffective enemy offensive had also failed 

to arrest Binh Dinh’s pacification program, which continued to make 

steady progress throughout May and into June. There were now fifty-one 

Revolutionary Development teams in the field, and most of the hamlets they 

served were showing good results. The drive to recruit new territorial soldiers was so successful that the Popular Forces training center at Phu Cat 

could hardly keep up with the influx. In May, over a 1,000 new recruits were 

undergoing basic training, many more than the facility had been designed to 

accommodate. Likewise, the Phoenix (Phuong Hoang) program had apprehended so many Viet Cong suspects that Binh Dinh’s detainee facilities were 

filled to bursting. New facilities were under construction, but until then the 

province chief, Colonel Tho, had to issue orders to reduce the number of 

detainees brought in. With security on Highways 1 and 19 remaining good, 

trade flourished with little regard to the Communist offensive.52 

Renewed Pressure at Ben Het and Dak Pek

The third and final area that General Man targeted during the May 

offensive was western Kontum Province. Continuing a strategy that the B3 

Front had been pursuing for several years, he resolved to chip away at the 

system of firebases and border surveillance camps that the allies had erected 

across the highlands. It was presently beyond his power to overrun a major 

camp like Dak To or Ben Het, but the battalion- and company-size outposts 

that shielded them were much more vulnerable. It also suited his purpose 

52 Special Joint Narrative Rpts, RD, Binh Dinh Province, 31 May 68, pp. 1–4; RD, Binh Dinh 

Province, 30 Jun 68, pp. 16–18. Both in Historians files, CMH.
Staying the Course

556

to wage a series of limited battles rather than one big battle at the moment 

because his main strike force, the 325C Division, had recently come south 

after an extended deployment at Khe Sanh and needed to learn how to fight 

in this unfamiliar environment of steep mountains and thick forests.

When the second general offensive got under way on 5 May, enemy gunners shelled the three principal cities in the B3 Front—Kontum City, Pleiku 

City, and Ban Me Thuot—though only briefly and without causing much 

damage. Only two major ground attacks took place that day. In the first, 

a battalion from the 32d Regiment attacked a convoy on Highway 14 to the 

south of Kontum City, but the ambush turned into a rout when troops from the 

South Vietnamese 3d Armored Cavalry arrived on the scene. The Americans 

reported nine killed and sixteen missing, while the North Vietnamese lost 122 

soldiers and a good deal of equipment.53

The second action of the day was more significant. At 0445, a battalion of 

North Vietnamese troops from the 325C Division assaulted Hill 990, a small 

outpost two kilometers south of Ben Het that was manned by a company of 

Montagnard irregulars and a pair of U.S. advisers. The enemy struck with 

such speed and ferocity that he broke through the perimeter before supporting artillery could be brought to bear. Ten minutes later, the enemy suddenly 

withdrew. After a two-hour lull, a mass of North Vietnamese soldiers rushed 

up the hill, fought their way into the outpost for a second time, and then vanished back into the woods. When the dazed defenders counted their losses, 

they found that one of the advisers had been killed and the other could not be 

located. Sixty-six of the irregulars had been killed, wounded, or gone missing. The defenders found sixteen dead North Vietnamese. 

After that trial run, the 325C Division turned its attention to Firebase 25, 

a 4th Infantry Division outpost some three kilometers northeast of Ben Het 

that contained Companies C and D of the 3d Battalion, 8th Infantry. Just 

before midnight on 9 May, a reinforced battalion from the 101D Regiment

and a sapper company stormed up the slope to attack the firebase, which 

proved to be a much tougher target than Hill 990. The garrison repulsed the 

Communists after a three-hour firefight, losing three dead and killing at least 

forty-seven North Vietnamese.54

The hills around Dak To remained relatively quiet for the next two weeks, 

but the I Field Force commander, General Rosson, was not convinced that 

the danger had passed. On 24 May, Rosson created Task Force Matthews

to sweep the hills around Dak To. Commanded by the assistant division 

commander of the 4th Infantry Division, Brig. Gen. Don R. Hickman, the 

force consisted of five infantry battalions from the 4th Infantry Division and 

three from the 3d Brigade, 101st Airborne Division. Before the task force 

moved out, Rosson arranged for eighty-eight B–52 sorties to level the jungle 

53 Weekly Combat Intel and Security Review, 14 May 68, pp. 2, 4, document 8; Intel Cable, 

CIA, 5 May 68, sub: II Corps Situation Report as of 1400 Hours, pp. 1–2, document 60, 

Vietnam-CIA Cables, May 1968 (1), box 243, NSF-Vietnam Country Files, LBJL. 54 Minh et al., History of the Resistance War Against the Americans, p. 194; Periodic Intel Rpt 

no. 19, I FFV, 5–11 May 68, 11 May 68, p. 4, Historians files, CMH.
557

The General Offensive Renewed

in which the task force would be operating so subsequent air and artillery 

strikes would be more effective.55

Before the last of the Arc Light bombing raids had been completed, 

and possibly prompted into premature action by them, the 325C Division

moved to the attack. On the evening of 25 May, the 95C and 101D Regiments

assaulted Firebase 29, a 4th Infantry Division outpost four kilometers southwest of Ben Het that stood atop Hill 824. At 1730, rockets and mortar rounds 

slammed into the base, sending the defenders, Companies A and C of the 

1st Battalion, 18th Infantry, along with elements of the 3d Battalion, 12th 

Infantry, and Battery B of the 6th Battalion, 29th Artillery, scurrying for 

cover. The defenders responded with 81-mm. mortars, 106-mm. recoilless 

rifles, and 4.2-inch mortars. Nearby firebases began pummeling the lower 

slopes of Hill 824 with their own artillery. An AC–47 fixed-wing gunship 

soon came on station and sent a cascade of 7.62-mm. machine gun fire into 

the woods surrounding the camp.56

The North Vietnamese concentrated their assault on the southwestern 

edge of the perimeter where the Americans had carved a helicopter landing 

zone out of the hillside. At around 2000, North Vietnamese troops from the 

120th Sapper Battalion began to demolish the razor wire with satchel charges. 

The defenders thinned the ranks of the sappers, but within fifteen minutes 

or so the enemy had blown several gaps in the wire. Hundreds of North 

Vietnamese infantrymen converged on the location, firing their weapons as 

they came. 

The defenders cut down the charging enemy by the score but they kept 

coming. North Vietnamese recoilless rifle teams and rocket grenadiers eventually knocked out the bunkers that protected the landing zone, and at 2200 

a surge of enemy soldiers finally overwhelmed that weakened sector. Once 

inside the perimeter the enemy split up. Some troops went left or right along 

a communications trench, seizing half a dozen bunkers along the way, while 

others continued climbing for the summit where the command post lay. 

At this critical juncture, the task force commander ordered Company A 

on the other side of the hill to send a reaction force. The unit, which was dealing with an attack of its own, could muster only fifteen men for the job. As 

the detachment hurried over to contain the penetration, the group split into 

three five-man sections so they could engage the enemy on the left, right, and 

center. The counterattack threw the North Vietnamese off balance, making 

them fall back to take refuge in several bunkers.

The reorganized U.S. troops pummeled the enemy-held bunkers with 

recoilless rifles and M72 light antitank rockets. When the supply of M72s 

ran out, the defenders filled several 155-mm. shell canisters with gasoline and 

then placed the makeshift bombs on the bunkers along with incendiary grenades to set them alight.

55 Interv, George L. MacGarrigle with Maj Gen Charles P. Stone, 13 Mar 74, p. 47, Historians 

files, CMH. 56 The following section is based on Rpt, 1st Bn, 8th Inf, 13 Sep 68, sub: Recommendation 

for Presidential Unit Citation, Historians files, CMH.
Staying the Course

558

The enemy’s situation inside the firebase became increasingly desperate. 

Nonstop air and artillery strikes prevented additional North Vietnamese 

from passing through the wire. Without reinforcements, the Communist soldiers who held the bunkers near the landing zone slowly began to lose their 

foothold. After one last desperate effort to reach them failed at 0130, the 

North Vietnamese began a slow withdrawal from the battlefield. When dawn 

came, there were still a few enemy troops left alive in three of the bunkers, but 

by 0730 the Americans had killed or captured all of the holdouts. 

The battle’s final tally came to 198 enemy soldiers killed. North Vietnamese 

prisoners estimated that an additional 150 of their comrades had died and 

around 300 were wounded. U.S. losses numbered eighteen killed and sixtytwo wounded, but the small garrison could take pride in the fact that it had 

bested two North Vietnamese regiments in what ended up being the largest 

battle to take place in the Central Highlands during the May offensive.

The battle for Firebase 29 had only just concluded when I Field Force 

received intelligence that the 21st Regiment of the 2d PAVN Division, a unit 

that normally operated in the Que Son Valley area of central I Corps, had 

dropped down into II Corps and was advancing on the Dak Pek border 

surveillance camp in the extreme northwestern corner of Kontum Province. 

The information set off alarm bells at General Stone’s 4th Infantry Division 

headquarters. As the general later recalled, “Dak Pek, other than Duc Lap, 

was the only place I felt I might lose.” The camp was a few kilometers from 

the Laotian border and difficult to reach during the monsoon season because 

bad weather frequently grounded flights in that part of II Corps.57

At Stone’s instructions, General Hickman sent two battalions from the 

3d Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, to secure the high ground overlooking 

the Special Forces camp. Stone arranged for B–52s to blast the surrounding 

terrain. The quickness of the allied reaction seemed to take the 21st Regiment

by surprise. Whether it had intended to attack Dak Pek or simply wanted 

to create a diversion to disrupt allied operations around Dak To, the North 

Vietnamese regiment was no longer in a position to do either without risking 

annihilation. Choosing the fastest route to safety, the enemy force retreated 

into Laos.58

Just as the crisis was abating at Dak Pek, violence flared again in the 

Ben Het region. On 30 May, the 101D Regiment emerged from hiding to 

attack Hill 990 for a second time. North Vietnamese gunners began to 

pound the outpost at 0230 with 120-mm. mortars and 105-mm. howitzers. 

Sappers crawled forward to reconnoiter its defenses. Then, at 0500, a battalion of Communist soldiers surged up the hill. This time they found it occupied not by Montagnard irregulars but by Company D, 3d Battalion, 12th 

Infantry. Well-coordinated defensive fire stopped the assault, and the North 

Vietnamese withdrew after just thirty minutes. When the defenders checked 

the hillside at daybreak, they found forty-three enemy bodies and estimated 

57 Interv, MacGarrigle with Stone, 13 Mar 74, p. 53.

58 AAR, Opn Matthews, 4th Div, 13 Jun 68, p. 9, box 22, AARs, 1965–1971, Cmd Historian, 

HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP.
559

The General Offensive Renewed

that the North Vietnamese had carried away many more. The Americans lost 

seven killed and fifty-six wounded.59

The second fight at Hill 990 proved to be the last battle for the 325C 

Division during the May offensive. Task Force Matthews continued to 

search the hills near Ben Het, but it gradually became clear to General 

Hickman that the 101D and 95C Regiments had withdrawn into Laos. With 

the threat receding, the 3d Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, began to turn 

over the firebases it occupied near Dak Pek and Ben Het to the 4th Infantry 

Division and to make its way back to III Corps. General Rosson disbanded 

Task Force Matthews on 12 June so the 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, 

could turn its full attention back to Operation MacArthur and respond 

quickly to whatever new threats emerged in Kontum Province.60

In the larger scheme of the war, the fighting that took place in Kontum 

and Binh Dinh Provinces produced no discernable changes in the balance of 

power. The fighting around Dong Ha had cost both sides dearly; the allies 

had pushed the enemy away from that vital Marine logistical and command 

center, but the North Vietnamese retained the ability to penetrate the Strong 

Point Obstacle System and launch new attacks in the future if they were willing to pay the price. In Binh Dinh’s lowlands, the 3d PAVN Division had 

nearly wiped out a company from the 1st Battalion, 50th Infantry, but had 

done little to slow the revitalization of the South Vietnamese pacification 

program. The seizure of Kham Duc, on the other hand, was a clear victory 

for the enemy for it opened a new infiltration route that might one day link 

the Ho Chi Minh Trail to the Que Son Valley. In political terms, however, 

the seizure of a remote outpost did little to improve the enemy’s prestige or 

diplomatic clout. For that, North Vietnamese leaders pinned their hopes on 

their main effort, a multidivision attack on Saigon that aimed to demoralize, 

rather than liberate, the city’s residents. 

59 Ibid., p. 2.

60 Ibid., p. 10.

17

Mini-Tet in Saigon

When Colonel Dac turned himself in to government authorities on 19 

April, he revealed many details about the imminent enemy offensive 

in the Capital Military District. As many as ten regiments would take part, he 

said, as well as several rocket artillery units. Around half of the attack force 

would remain on the outskirts of Gia Dinh Province to protect the enemy’s 

lines of communications, particularly the Saigon River corridor northwest 

of the city and the Dong Nai River corridor northeast of the capital. The 

remaining infantry intended to penetrate Saigon from all four points of the 

compass to strike government buildings such as the Independence Palace, the 

Joint General Staff headquarters, and the Chi Hoa prison. The main thrust, 

an attack spearheaded by the 9th PLAF Division, would come from the west.1

As a result of Dac’s testimony, Generals Weyand and Khang thickened 

allied defenses around Saigon. The II Field Force commander instructed 

General Mearns from the 25th Infantry Division to move part of his 3d Brigade 

from Tay Ninh Province to the zone of his 2d Brigade, near Cu Chi in Hau 

Nghia Province. Weyand ordered General Ware from the 1st Infantry Division 

to move part of his 1st Brigade in Binh Long Province down to southern Binh 

Duong Province to help the 2d Brigade, 1st Division. In addition, he ordered 

the 3d Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, to block the trail system that issued 

from the southwestern edge of War Zone D. Weyand concentrated his aerial 

reconnaissance missions over the central portion of III Corps and directed 

II Field Force’s long-range patrol teams, augmented by elements of the 5th 

Special Forces, to monitor the infiltration routes that led to the capital.

Closer in, a dozen U.S. battalions ringed the periphery of Gia Dinh 

Province, ready to assist the South Vietnamese forces in the Capital Military 

District if needed. Two units from the 9th Infantry Division—the 6th Battalion, 

31st Infantry, and the 4th Battalion, 39th Infantry—guarded the southern 

approaches to Saigon along with the 2d Battalion, 3d Infantry, from the 199th 

Infantry Brigade (Light). Four units from the 25th Infantry Division screened 

the western side of the capital—the 1st and 2d Battalions, 27th Infantry, the 

mechanized 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry, and the 3d Squadron, 4th Cavalry. The 

1st Infantry Division placed the 1st and 2d Battalions, 18th Infantry, northeast 

of the capital, while the three remaining units from the 199th Infantry Brigade 

guarded the Bien Hoa–Long Binh complex. Though Weyand hoped to intercept a significant number of enemy units before they reached that inner ring, 

1

 Special Rpt, CMIC, no. 2053, 19 Apr 68, sub: VC Commentaries on the Recent General 

Offensive, pp. 7–10, Historians files, CMH. 
Staying the Course

562

he directed his three division commanders to be ready to commit more units 

into the Capital Military District if needed.2

A dozen elite South Vietnamese battalions joined the Americans at the 

inner ring around Saigon. The III Corps commander, General Khang, placed 

three Marine battalions east of the capital, a trio of airborne battalions north 

of Tan Son Nhut, and three ranger battalions west and south of the city. Khang 

kept another ranger battalion in Gia Dinh Province as a reserve, and two airborne battalions at the Airborne Division headquarters on Tan Son Nhut Air 

Base. In his other role as commander of the Capital Military District, Khang 

also controlled two military police battalions and a security battalion in the 

city, a second security battalion and two reconnaissance battalions at Tan 

Son Nhut, as well as more than 6,000 city policemen subordinate to General 

Nguyen Loan, the head of the National Police.3

As April drew to a close, allied intelligence picked up signs of enemy activity consistent with preparations for an offensive. In northern Tay Ninh and 

Binh Long Provinces, enemy mortar crews shelled more than a dozen border 

surveillance camps and firebases between 28 April and 3 May. Analysts at II 

Field Force interpreted the shelling as an attempt “to draw attention away 

from his primary intentions in the central corps zone” and to pin down allied 

border patrols, while Communist troops and supplies crossed the frontier. 

Aerial infrared and chemical detection missions flown over War Zone C also 

indicated a surge in activity from the Fishhook region down to the Saigon 

River corridor.4

MACV analysts noticed similar warning signs west of Saigon. In Hau 

Nghia Province, several South Vietnamese outposts that were located in the 

infiltration corridor between the Saigon River and Highway 1 reported being 

attacked by unusually large and well-armed enemy units, not the typical district guerrillas they were used to seeing. On the second of May, Troop D of 

the 1st Squadron, 7th Cavalry, confirmed the presence of main force units in 

the lower Saigon River corridor when it discovered a battalion from the 271st 

Regiment in the farmlands south of Cu Chi. At the 25th Infantry Division 

base camp, General Mearns dispatched an ad hoc group known as Task Force 

Dunlop, composed of elements from the 2d Battalion, 34th Infantry, the 

2d Battalion, 34th Armor, and the 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry, to intercept 

the battalion and any others that might be in the area. The mechanized force 

pinned the unit to the edge of a deep swamp and battered it for two days, killing 213 soldiers, until the survivors fled into the swamp. Overall, the pattern 

of activity north and west of Saigon in the first days of May led analysts at II 

Field Force to conclude that “a resumption of the offensive is imminent” and 

2 ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, II FFV, 14 Aug 68, pp. 6–8, box 18, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd 

Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 3

 Ibid., p. 23; Quarterly Evaluation, 1 Apr–30 Jun 68, MACV, 30 Jun 68, p. 35, Historians 

files, CMH; AAR, Task Force Hay, II FFV, n.d., p. 3, Historians files, CMH; AAR, The Saigon 

Offensive, Phase III, 20th Mil Hist Det, 21 Jun 68, p. 1, Encl 9, Historians files, CMH; ORLL, 

1 May–31 Jul 68, II FFV, p. 22. 4 Quote from Periodic Intel Rpt no. 18, II FFV, 28 Apr–4 May 68, 4 May 68, pp. 2, 7–8, 

Historians files, CMH.
563

Mini-Tet in Saigon

that “the enemy will undoubtedly attempt a spectacular event . . . in order to 

improve his position” at the Paris peace talks set to begin on the tenth of May. 5

Opening Clashes to the East and North of Saigon

The second wave of the general offensive began at 0400 on 5 May with 

a Viet Cong mortar attack on the Newport Bridge, a two-lane concrete and 

steel span that conveyed traffic across the Saigon River from the capital to 

Bien Hoa. When the barrage ended a few minutes later, several hundred soldiers from the 4th Thu Duc Battalion and the 2d Battalion, 274th Regiment, 

emerged from a nearby rubber plantation and assaulted the men from the 

South Vietnamese 5th Marine Battalion that were guarding the eastern end of 

the bridge (see Map 45). The assault failed.

6

The enemy made a second attempt to cut Saigon off from Bien Hoa at 0500. 

Elements from the 1st and 3d Battalions of the Dong Nai Regiment attacked 

the Binh Loi Bridge, where Highway 1 crossed the Saigon River approximately 

two kilometers northwest of the Newport Bridge. Troops from the South 

Vietnamese 6th Marine Battalion prevented sapper teams from getting close 

enough to destroy the bridge with satchel charges. The North Vietnamese 

eventually withdrew after losing fifty-four killed and five captured. Within a 

few hours, both of the major bridges between Saigon and Bien Hoa were open 

for military traffic.7

As those two attacks were taking place, a company of North Vietnamese 

soldiers from the K3 Battalion, all wearing South Vietnamese uniforms, crossed 

the Saigon River in sampans. Making it to the other side without being spotted, the disguised enemy continued on foot to the Phan Than Gian Bridge, 

one of the crossing points that spanned the canal that traced the northern 

edge of downtown Saigon. Regional Forces soldiers and South Vietnamese 

marines guarding the bridge challenged the new arrivals. Unable to give the 

correct password, the enemy opened fire and stormed the bridge, but the South 

Vietnamese repulsed the assault. When more government troops arrived on the 

scene, the North Vietnamese fell back to the suburb of Thi Nghe where they 

continued the fight. A few hours later, General Loan arrived with more policemen and took charge of the clearing operation. As he was leading his men, 

M16 in hand, a bullet struck him in the thigh. The wound nearly proved to be 

fatal. General Loan spent the next several months in recovery, and the debilitating effects of his injury forced him to resign as National Police director.8

As the fighting got under way on the eastern side of Saigon, Generals 

Weyand and Khang learned that the enemy had entered the western outskirts 

5

 ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 25th Inf Div, 1 Aug 68, p. 7, box 72, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd 

Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 6

 AAR, Task Force Hay, II FFV, p. 2. 7

 Intel Rpt, DoD, no. 6028187168, 11 May 68, sub: OB of the Dong Nai Regt, p. 7, document 16, Vietnam-Enemy Order of Battle, vol. 1a, box 151, NSF-Vietnam Country Files, LBJL; 

AAR, Task Force Hay, II FFV, p. 2. 8

 Quarterly Evaluation, 1 Apr–30 Jun 68, MACV, p. 34.
Staying the Course

564

of the city. Ambush patrols from the South Vietnamese 30th Ranger Battalion 

screening the farmlands west of Phu Tho reported numerous Viet Cong squadand platoon-size groups moving through their sector. When fired upon, most 

of the enemy soldiers tried to evade contact and continued moving toward 

the city. When the South Vietnamese Airborne Task Force north of Tan Son 

Nhut and allied forces south of the city reported little or no enemy activity, 

General Khang concluded that the main Communist effort was indeed originating from the west. He moved the South Vietnamese 33d Ranger Battalion 

into Phu Lam, three kilometers south of the South Vietnamese 30th Ranger 

Battalion, to block Route 10 into Cholon, and ordered the South Vietnamese 

38th Ranger Battalion to move from southern Saigon to fill the gap between 

Phu Lam and Phu Tho.9

At II Field Force headquarters in Long Binh, General Weyand ordered his 

deputy, Maj. Gen. John H. Hay Jr., to establish a forward command post at 

Camp Le Van Duyet, just as General Ware had done during Tet, to control the 

U.S. units that would soon be fighting on the periphery of Saigon. Hay and 

9

 Intel Cable, CIA, 15 May 68, sub: Activities of Elements of the 31st Viet Cong Regiment 

during the May Attack on Saigon, pp. 1–5, document 9, Vietnam-CIA Cables, May 1968 (2), 

box 243, NSF-Vietnam Country Files, LBJL; Rpt, 20th Mil Hist Det, 3 Jun 68, sub: The Saigon 

Offensive, 5–12 May 1968, p. 4, Historians files, CMH.

Members of the South Vietnamese Popular Forces defend a bridge against 

the Viet Cong.
565

Mini-Tet in Saigon

some staff from II Field Force flew into Saigon at around 0700 to organize 

Hurricane Forward, which Weyand planned to activate by the morning of 

the sixth.

While those preparations were under way, General Weyand received word 

that Colonel Thebaud’s 2d Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, had engaged several enemy units between the Phu Loi and Di An base camps. The first battle 

had begun when a pair of companies from the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry, 

had gone to the hamlet of Tan Hiep, three kilometers northeast of Di An, to 

investigate a tip from local authorities about a Viet Cong ammunition dump. 

The troops came under heavy fire from machine guns and recoilless rifles as 

they tried to enter the hamlet. Colonel Thebaud dispatched two more companies of the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry, along with several troops from the 1st 

Squadron, 4th Cavalry, and Troop D of the 7th Squadron, 1st Cavalry. The 

task force first surrounded Tan Hiep and fought its way through the hamlet, 

which turned out to contain several battalions from the Dong Nai Regiment as 

well as support elements from the 5th PLAF Division. When the fighting ended 

that evening, the Americans had killed 260 enemy troops. The remaining Viet 

Cong retreated from the hamlet in disorder.10

10 ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 1st Inf Div, n.d., pp. 5–6, box 9, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd 

Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP.

South Vietnamese rangers during the May offensive
Staying the Course

566

The second engagement in Thebaud’s sector took place south of Phu Loi 

when Troops A and B from the 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry, discovered several 

battalions from the 165th PAVN Regiment hiding in the hamlet of Xom Moi. 

After giving the residents a chance to flee, the province chief authorized air 

and artillery strikes. The bombardment lasted all day, and when the U.S. cavalrymen and South Vietnamese soldiers swept through the hamlet the next 

Map 45

267

PLAF

I I

273

PLAF

III

272(-)

PLAF

III

1 Quyet Thang

PLAF

III

Dong Nai(-)

PLAF

III

101

PAVN

III

2 274

PLAF

I I

6 Binh Tan

PLAF

I I

269

PLAF

I I

Phu Loi I

PLAF

I I

5 Nha Be

PLAF

I I

506

PLAF

I I

508

PLAF

I I

4 Thu Duc

PLAF

I I

Tan Son Nhut

Air Base

JGS Compound

S o n g N h a B e

Song Sai Gon

1

1

1

1

13

25

15

5A

4

4

Quan Tre

Ba Queo

Khanh Hoi

Hoc Mon

Thu Duc

Gia Dinh

Lai Thieu Di An

SAIGON

Nha Be

MAY OFFENSIVE

SAIGON

May 1968

Enemy Axis of Attack

0

0 1 2 3 4 5 Kilometers

3 Miles 1 2 4 5
567

Mini-Tet in Saigon

morning they found 500 North Vietnamese dead in the ruins of Xom Moi. 

U.S. casualties came to four killed. The commander of the 165th Regiment, 

Col. Phan Viet Dung, was so disheartened that he turned himself over to the 

Americans, telling them what he knew about COSVN’s plans.11

By the afternoon of the fifth, the fighting had died away on the eastern 

side of Saigon and there were no indications of an assault along the southern 

edge of the capital. North of Tan Son Nhut, the South Vietnamese airborne 

task force had skirmished with reconnaissance elements of the 101st PAVN 

Regiment, but those fights had been brief and the main enemy force had yet to 

appear. Moreover, the 2d Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division had intercepted 

six enemy battalions that had been headed toward the northern side of Saigon, 

meaning that any future thrust from that direction was likely to be relatively 

weak. For the moment it appeared that the main battle of the May offensive 

was going to take place in the five kilometers between Tan Son Nhut and Phu 

Lam, where the latest intelligence indicated that the 9th Division and the Cuu 

Long II Regiment were trying to push into the heart of Saigon.12

The Fight on the Western Outskirts, 5–12 May

After conferring with General Khang, Weyand decided to move two battalions from the 199th Infantry Brigade currently stationed near Long Binh to 

the western side of Saigon to shore up the left flank of the South Vietnamese 

Ranger task force. The II Field Force commander instructed the head of the 

brigade, Brig. Gen. Robert C. Forbes, to block Route 10 and Highway 4, which 

both entered the city through the suburb of Phu Lam. On the morning of 

6 May, trucks from the 48th Transportation Group carried the infantrymen 

over the Newport Bridge and through the heart of Saigon before depositing 

them at their destinations. The brigade’s forward command post and the 3d 

Battalion, 7th Infantry, commanded by Lt. Col. Kenneth W. Hall, occupied 

Firebase Horseshoe Bend on the shoulder of Highway 4, two kilometers 

southwest of Phu Lam, while the 4th Battalion, 12th Infantry, commanded 

by Lt. Col. William Mastoris Jr., manned Firebase Stephanie on Route 10 

two kilometers west of Phu Lam. Six 105-mm. howitzers from Battery C, 2d 

Battalion, 40th Artillery, four self-propelled 155-mm. howitzers from Battery 

C, 2d Battalion, 35th Artillery, and mechanized Troop D, 17th Cavalry, 

strengthened the position at Stephanie. General Forbes also regained from 

the 9th Infantry Division operational control of his 2d Battalion, 3d Infantry, 

commanded by Lt. Col. William C. Carper III, which operated from Firebase 

Smoke ten kilometers south of Horseshoe Bend.

13

As soon as the 4th Battalion, 12th Infantry, had settled into Firebase 

Stephanie, located next to a Regional Forces post, Colonel Mastoris dispatched 

11 Ibid., pp. 7, 16.

12 ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 1st Inf Div, pp. 5–6.

13 AAR, Task Force Hay, II FFV, p. 3; Quarterly Evaluation, 1 Apr–30 Jun 68, MACV, p. 35; 

AAR, Task Force Hay, II FFV, p. 2.
Staying the Course

568

Company D to search the woods that lined Route 10 farther to the west. After 

moving around 200 meters, the company spotted a Viet Cong force moving 

east toward the city and opened fire. The firing drew in more enemy, and soon 

Company D found itself outnumbered. Artillery fire from Firebase Stephanie

and helicopter gunships from Troops C and D of the 3d Squadron, 17th Cavalry, 

based at Tay Ninh West, more than evened the odds, and Colonel Mastoris soon 

sent another company to assist the one in contact. The fighting ebbed and surged 

throughout the day, with the enemy repeatedly attempting to push up Route 10 

A psychological operations officer uses a loudspeaker to encourage the 

Viet Cong to surrender.
569

Mini-Tet in Saigon

toward the city. When darkness fell, at least 139 Viet Cong soldiers lay dead on the 

field. U.S. losses amounted to four killed.14

When Hurricane Forward became operational at Camp Le Van Duyet 

on the morning of 6 May, General Weyand turned his attention to the other 

major battle that was developing in the western suburbs, a clash between the 

Cuu Long II Regiment and the South Vietnamese 30th Ranger Battalion just 

southeast of Tan Son Nhut. The II Field Force commander gave General Hay 

control over the 3d Squadron, 4th Cavalry (minus Troop C), from the U.S. 

25th Infantry Division, with instructions that he use the tanks and armored 

personnel carriers to support the South Vietnamese 30th Ranger Battalion as 

it tried to retake a pair of hamlets, Ap Binh Long and Ap Hoa Thanh, that the 

Cuu Long II Regiment had turned into makeshift fortresses. 

Led by Lt. Col. Glenn K. Otis, the 3d Squadron, 4th Cavalry, traveled 

south from Cu Chi along Highway 1, reaching the air base at around 0830 

without incident. While Colonel Otis developed an attack plan with the commander of the South Vietnamese 30th Ranger Battalion, government officials 

armed with loudspeakers spent several hours calling on the Viet Cong in Ap 

Binh Long and Ap Hoa Thanh to surrender. None did, but many civilians fled 

the hamlets. The allies then doused the settlements with tear gas, hoping to 

win them back without a destructive battle, but gusting winds dispersed the 

chemicals before they had any real effect. The only option left was force.15

The cavalrymen and rangers began their assault late in the afternoon, 

moving south across a field toward Ap Binh Long. The rangers and armored 

vehicles faced steadily increasing fire the closer they got to the hamlet, first 

14 AAR, Opn Task Force Hay, II FFV, p. 4. 15 Ibid.

An old French cemetery outside the southwest perimeter of the

 Tan Son Nhut Air Base
Staying the Course

570

from mortars and recoilless rifles, and then from machine guns, small arms, 

and rocket-propelled grenades. The enemy, protected by a network of makeshift bunkers and trenches he had constructed since the previous day, shrugged 

off the suppressive fire that the U.S. vehicle crews attempted to lay down to 

cover the advance of the rangers. Realizing the gap could not be closed without taking excessive casualties, Colonel Otis and the South Vietnamese commander pulled their men back. Unwilling to let the enemy hold a position 

so near to Tan Son Nhut Air Base, General Khang authorized the use of air 

strikes and artillery to evict the Cuu Long II Regiment from Ap Binh Long and 

Ap Hoa Thanh.16

As the fighting intensified at Ap Binh Long and Ap Hoa Thanh on 

the morning of 6 May, South Vietnamese officials received word that Viet 

Cong troops had been spotted in the old French cemetery just south of the 

main gate of Tan Son Nhut. General Vien ordered a company from the 

South Vietnamese 7th Airborne Battalion, barracked on the southern side 

of the air base, to investigate. Upon reaching the cemetery, a rectangular 

park lined with white tombstones and surrounded by a wall of two-story 

shanty houses, the paratroopers discovered several dozen Viet Cong soldiers armed with light machine guns, small arms, and a few mortars. The 

paratroopers spent the entire day battling those troops, killing sixty with 

help from helicopter gunships and South Vietnamese A1–E Skyraiders, 

and capturing another eleven. South Vietnamese losses were light, though 

among the fatalities was Col. Luu Kim Cuong, commander of both the 33d 

Air Wing and the Tan Son Nhut Special Zone. The Viet Cong prisoners, 

all from the 9th Division, said that the cemetery had been designated as a 

waypoint for planned attacks on Tan Son Nhut Air Base, the Vietnamese 

Joint General Staff compound, and Camp Le Van Duyet.17

Concerned that more enemy troops might be on their way to the cemetery, Khang and Hay agreed that Ap Binh Long and Ap Hoa Thanh must be 

retaken the next day so the allies could restore the security zone around the 

air base. To help in that effort, Weyand gave Hay operational control over the 

1st Battalion, 5th Infantry, a mechanized unit from the 25th Infantry Division 

stationed at Cu Chi. The battalion commander, Lt. Col. Thomas C. Lodge, 

brought his unit to Tan Son Nhut early in the morning where it joined up 

with the 3d Squadron, 4th Cavalry, and the South Vietnamese 30th Ranger 

Battalion, arrayed in attack formation just north of Ap Binh Long.18

On the morning of the seventh, the two battalions of U.S. tanks and 

armored personnel carriers rolled forward in a line-abreast formation with 

South Vietnamese rangers screening their advance. The volume of enemy fire 

was less intense than it had been previously, indicating that the air and artillery strikes had taken their toll on the defenders. Hostile fire knocked out one 

16 Ibid., p. 2.

17 Quarterly Evaluation, 1 Apr–30 Jun 68, MACV, p. 35; Special Rpt, CMIC, no. 193568, 19 

Jul 68, sub: OB of the Cuu Long Regt, p. 6, document 30, Vietnam-Enemy Order of Battle, vol. 

2, box 151, NSF-Vietnam Country Files, LBJL; AAR, Task Force Hay, II FFV, p. 2. 18 AAR, Task Force Hay, II FFV, p. 2.
571

Mini-Tet in Saigon

vehicle and damaged seven others, but the allies got inside the hamlet with few 

casualties. Employing the firepower of the armored vehicles and the tenacity 

of the South Vietnamese rangers, the allies outflanked the enemy bunkers one 

by one and silenced each Viet Cong machine gun or recoilless rifle team within. 

As evening fell, the surviving Viet Cong withdrew to the adjacent hamlet of 

Ap Hoa Thanh, leaving behind more than one hundred of their dead.19

On the left flank of the South Vietnamese ranger and U.S. mechanized units, 

the 199th Infantry Brigade’s 4th Battalion, 12th Infantry, and 3d Battalion, 

7th Infantry, maintained their blocking positions in the Phu Lam area along 

Route 10 and Highway 4, respectively, despite continued efforts by the 9th 

Division to break into the city. From what General Forbes could determine, 

at least four Viet Cong battalions had congregated in the hamlet of Binh Tri 

Dong just west of the line held by the 4th Battalion, 12th Infantry, and Troop 

D, 17th Cavalry. Despite its size, the 9th Division never managed to organize 

a large-scale and sustained attack. Artillery strikes from Firebase Stephanie

and air strikes from Bien Hoa inflicted additional though uncounted casualties on the Viet Cong trapped in Binh Tri Dong.

The enemy’s growing disorganization became apparent later in the day 

when General Forbes sent Company B of the 4th Battalion, 12th Infantry, 

and Companies A and D, 3d Battalion, 7th Infantry, in a wide flanking 

maneuver around the southern side of Binh Tri Dong to establish a block on 

the opposite side of the hamlet. Right before noon just after the three companies had finished preparing their new positions, a battalion from the 271st 

Regiment came marching down Route 10 oblivious to the danger. The U.S. 

soldiers opened fire at close range. Startled, the Viet Cong broke formation 

and headed north into a wooded area after having lost forty-four of their 

number killed. Two Americans died in the brief firefight. When night fell, 

the 199th Infantry Brigade’s blocking forces remained firmly ensconced on 

either side of Binh Tri Dong.20

General Weyand got more good news on the seventh when he learned that 

units from the 1st and 25th Infantry Divisions had intercepted several enemy 

battalions outside the capital. Approximately five kilometers south of the Di 

An base camp, elements from the 1st and the 2d Battalions, 28th Infantry, 

killed some ninety-five soldiers from the K3 Battalion, Dong Nai Regiment,

the unit that had been responsible for the attack on the Binh Loi and Phan 

Tan Gian Bridges on 5 May. On the opposite side of Saigon, Companies A 

and B of the 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry, and Troop C of the 3d Squadron, 

4th Cavalry, engaged the 3d Battalion, 88th PAVN Regiment, a few kilometers 

southwest of Hoc Mon, killing a reported 199 enemy soldiers, including the 

battalion commander and his entire staff. Several kilometers to the south in 

the countryside just west of Tan Son Nhut, Company C from the 1st Battalion, 

27th Infantry, and elements of the 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry, took turns pun19 Ibid.

20 AAR, Task Force Hay, II FFV, p. 5; ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 199th Inf Bde, 22 Aug 68, 

p. 5, Historians files, CMH.
Staying the Course

572

ishing a battalion from the 271st Regiment, killing one hundred enemy soldiers 

over the course of two days. 21 

By the morning of 8 May, all of the intelligence available to Weyand and 

Khang indicated that the enemy’s western thrust against Saigon had failed. 

Although soldiers from the Cuu Long II Regiment and the 9th Division were 

still fighting in the sector west of Phu Tho and Phu Lam, they were no longer 

trying to reach the city; most were hunkered down in defensive positions and 

some were beginning to retreat. The most visible sign of progress came late 

that afternoon when the South Vietnamese 30th Ranger Battalion and the 3d 

Squadron, 4th Cavalry, regained the hamlet of Ap Thanh Hoa, killing a rearguard force of some fifty Viet Cong soldiers that had stayed behind to cover 

the withdrawal of the Cuu Long II Regiment’s headquarters. As for the 9th 

Division battalions farther to the south in the hamlet of Binh Tri Dong, those 

units remained pinned in place by the 4th Battalion, 12th Infantry, and the 3d 

Battalion, 7th Infantry. Subjected to incessant bombing and shelling for the 

last several days, some of the 9th Division battalions were no longer combat 

effective. The 4th Battalion, 272d Regiment, for example, now had 43 men fit 

for duty out of an original complement of some 500 soldiers.22

When his subordinates reported their predicament, 9th Division commander General Thai gave them permission to withdraw from the Binh Tri 

Dong pocket. To assist the breakout, COSVN organized several diversionary 

attacks. In the first, the Sub-Region 1 command north of Saigon directed the 

101st Regiment to assault Tan Son Nhut in the early morning hours of 9 May. 

After finding its way blocked by the South Vietnamese 5th Airborne Battalion 

four kilometers north of Tan Son Nhut and just west of the Quang Trung 

Infantry Center, the 101st Regiment attacked. 

The North Vietnamese began their assault with a concentrated barrage 

of rocket-propelled grenades that knocked the defenders back on their heels. 

Enemy soldiers got within fifty meters of the South Vietnamese command 

post before the paratroopers steadied their line. The tide of battle soon turned 

in favor of the government when reinforcements from the South Vietnamese 

1st and 7th Airborne Battalions arrived led by the commander of the South 

Vietnamese Airborne Division, Maj. Gen. Du Quoc Dong. He organized a 

defensive line that stymied all efforts by the 101st Regiment to penetrate or 

outflank the position. The fighting continued all day and into the night. When 

it ended on the morning of 10 May, a few dozen survivors from the 101st 

Regiment retreated north, leaving behind nearly 300 of their dead or badly 

wounded. The South Vietnamese had lost 17 dead and 52 wounded.23

COSVN initiated a second diversion on the morning of 9 May, this one 

to open an escape route through Hau Nghia Province. The command ordered 

21 ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 1st Inf Div, p. 8; Weekly Combat Intel and Security Review, 14 

May 68, p. 8, Asst Ch of Staff, G–2, USARV, NACP; ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 25th Inf Div, 

pp. 7–8. 22 ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, II FFV, p. 27.

23 AAR, The Saigon Offensive, 5–12 May 68, 20th Mil Hist Det, 3 Jun 68, p. 23, Encl 2, 

Historians files, CMH.
573

Mini-Tet in Saigon

Sub-Region 2 to attack Firebase Maury, an outpost that the commander of 

the 25th Infantry Division, General Mearns, had just established in Duc Hoa 

District approximately nine kilometers south of Cu Chi, and which stood 

squarely in the path of retreat that the 9th Division intended to use. Manning 

the post were Companies A and B of the 4th Battalion, 23d Infantry; Troop I 

of the 3d Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry; and artillery made up of the towed 

105-mm. howitzers from Batteries B and C of the 7th Battalion, 11th Artillery, 

and the self-propelled 155-mm. howitzers of Battery A, 3d Battalion, 13th 

Artillery. To assist the assault, Sub-Region 2 headquarters instructed elements 

from the 208th Artillery Regiment to rocket the 25th Infantry Division’s base 

camp at Cu Chi, which housed several UH–1 helicopter gunship companies.24

At 0100 on 9 May, North Vietnamese artillery crews sent a salvo of thirty 

rockets crashing into Cu Chi, killing seven Americans and wounding fortyeight others. An hour later, Communist infantry assaulted Firebase Maury

from the north and from the south in battalion strength. While the defenders 

were preoccupied with these attacks, a team of sappers used some encroaching 

woodlands to reach the western portion of the perimeter undetected. After 

cutting their way through the wire, the sappers destroyed five M109 155-mm. 

self-propelled howitzers and two ammunition trucks with satchel charges 

before slipping back out of the perimeter. When the shooting stopped a few 

hours later, ten Americans were dead and another sixty-six wounded. The 

24 9th Division, pp. 106–07.

An M109 155-mm. self-propelled howitzer
Staying the Course

574

enemy left behind eighteen of his dead. The troops at Firebase Maury spent 

the better part of the day clearing away destroyed equipment.25

The beleaguered 9th Division units at Binh Tri Dong exploited the diversions on the morning of 9 May to make their escape. Viet Cong soldiers crept 

out of the filthy bunkers and spider holes that had kept them alive during 

the last five days and began marching west in small groups, leaving behind a 

great deal of equipment and most of their dead in order to travel quickly. The 

enemy showed his usual efficiency in slipping past the U.S. troops positioned 

along Route 10 west of the village. When the sun came up, South Vietnamese 

engineers moved in to disable any booby traps the Viet Cong might have left 

behind and to bury the 277 dead enemy soldiers they found in the rubble. 

Over the next few days, allied units to the west of Saigon continued to 

engage small groups of withdrawing enemy soldiers. The trio of South 

Vietnamese ranger battalions west of Phu Tho and Tan Son Nhut killed a 

reported 87 Communist fighters on 10 May and another 101 the next day. 

Farther west in the swamplands that lay on the border of Gia Dinh and Hau 

Nghia Provinces, the 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry, killed several dozen soldiers 

from the retreating 9th Division, while the 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry, mauled 

an element of the 208th Artillery Regiment, eliminating sixty-six North 

Vietnamese gunners and capturing three 122-mm. rocket launchers. In the 

199th Infantry Brigade sector to the south, the 4th Battalion, 12th Infantry, 

completed its sweep of the Route 10 corridor west of Phu Lam, while the 2d 

Battalion, 3d Infantry, cleared out the last Viet Cong diehards along the edge 

of the city south of Highway 4 and to the east of Firebase Horseshoe Bend, 

killing sixteen enemy soldiers on 11 May.26

To expedite clearing operations in western Gia Dinh Province, General 

Mearns ordered the 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry, to establish a firebase approximately four kilometers west of Tan Son Nhut next to Route 234, a north-south 

road that crossed the enemy’s line of retreat. As Firebase Pike VI took shape 

on the morning of 11 May, Mearns moved two batteries of 105-mm. howitzers 

and a battery of M109 self-propelled 155-mm. howitzers into the perimeter. 

Mindful of the recent disaster at Maury, Means also sent engineers to construct earthen walls for all three batteries before evening fell. The preparations 

paid off later that night when the enemy bombarded the firebase with several 

hundred rounds of 82-mm. mortar fire. None of the howitzers were knocked 

out of action and the defenders sustained only light casualties. When the barrage ended, a battalion from the 272d Regiment assaulted the base. Facing a 

storm of fire that included beehive shells from the 105-mm. howitzers that 

filled the air with steel darts, the enemy withdrew after losing 110 men. The 

failed assault on Firebase Pike VI proved to be the last major contact in the 

25 ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 25th Inf Div, Arty, 15 Aug 68, pp. 15–16, Historians files, 

CMH; Maj Gen David E. Ott, Field Artillery, 1954–1973, Vietnam Studies (Washington, D.C.: 

Department of the Army, 1975), pp. 161–62. 26 ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 25th Inf Div, pp. 7–9.
575

Mini-Tet in Saigon

western suburbs as the fighting thereafter gravitated into Hau Nghia and Tay 

Ninh Provinces.27

In that same period between 9 and 12 May, the Communist units that had 

entered areas to the north and to the east of Saigon made their own escape 

from the Capital Military District. Before retreating, soldiers belonging to 

Sub-Regions 4 and 5 tried again on four separate occasions to destroy the Binh 

Loi and Newport Bridges. The final attack that took place on the morning 

of 12 May was the most successful. Gunners from the 4th Thu Duc Battalion

scored a direct hit on the Newport Bridge with a recoilless rifle, sending a 

chunk of steel-reinforced concrete almost sixty meters long and half the width 

of the bridge crashing into the river. The enemy then promptly packed up 

his weapons and hustled away before helicopter gunships could retaliate. For 

the allies, the damage inflicted on the bridge proved to be little more than an 

inconvenience. The temporary loss of one lane did not seriously impede traffic, 

and over the next four weeks engineers repaired the otherwise intact bridge.28

The Battle for South Saigon, 7–12 May

When the South Vietnamese 33d and 38th Ranger Battalions left south 

Saigon on the morning of 6 May to block the enemy thrust toward Cholon, 

General Hay arranged for U.S. troops to fill the gap until South Vietnamese 

units could be found to do the job. What was intended as a temporary expedient turned into one of the most vicious and sustained battles the Americans 

would experience in the Saigon area at any point in the war.29

Under orders from General Hay, the 9th Infantry Division sent Company 

C from the 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry, rumbling up Highway 4 and then east 

along Route 232, a two-lane road that ran along the southern edge of the city. 

The road passed through the Eighth District, a Catholic working-class slum 

that in recent years had sprouted along the southern edge of the Doi Canal. 

The mechanized unit, commanded by Capt. Edmund B. Scarborough, parked 

its armored personnel carriers at two of the three bridges that spanned the 

Doi Canal. The captain set up his headquarters near the Tung Tien Vuong 

Bridge, situated approximately three kilometers due south of the Phu Tho 

racetrack. It was also known as the 5A Bridge because Route 5A entered the 

city at that point. Four kilometers to the east was the Y Bridge, so named 

because it resembled that letter when viewed from above. Scarborough sent his 

1st Platoon to guard that span. Another four kilometers beyond that lay the 

Tan Thuan Bridge, but for the moment that remained under the protection of 

South Vietnamese marines.

Captain Scarborough would soon have his hands full because four Viet 

Cong battalions under the control of Sub-Region 3 were headed his way. The 

27 AAR, Task Force Hay, II FFV, pp. 7, 9. 28 ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 1st Inf Div, p. 21.

29 ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 9th Inf Div, 20 Aug 68, p. 20, boxes 41–42, ORLLs, 1966–1971, 

Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP.
Staying the Course

576

goal of the 506th and 508th Battalions, the Phu Loi I Battalion, and the 5th 

Nha Be Battalion was to seize the three bridges in the Eighth District and enter 

the city to attack the National Police headquarters and other targets. The Phu 

Loi I Battalion aimed to take the 5A Bridge, while the 506th Battalion headed 

for the Y Bridge. The 5th Nha Be Battalion, only 110 men strong, advanced on 

their right flank toward the Tan Thuan Bridge. Coming up behind the 506th 

Battalion was the 508th Battalion, a below-strength outfit with just 173 men,

which had orders to preserve a line of communications into the countryside.30

Using the many streams and canals that crisscrossed southern Gia Dinh 

Province, the four battalions traveled by foot and sampan right up to the edge 

of the city without being detected. The enemy began his assault at 0345 on 7 

May. Soldiers from the 506th Battalion opened fire on the armored personnel 

carriers that were standing guard on the Y Bridge. A company from the Phu 

Loi I Battalion, having already crossed the canal on sampans without being 

detected, also opened fire from the north bank. The 1st Platoon blazed back 

with their own weapons as AK47 bullets chipped away the bridgework and 

pinged off their vehicles. The troops hoped that the intimidating firepower of 

their .50-caliber and M60 machine guns would keep the enemy at a respectful 

distance. Several rocket-propelled grenades whooshed out of the darkness, but 

the rounds slammed into the bridge instead of the vehicles.31

At 0530, the 506th Battalion shifted its focus from the 1st Platoon to a 

police station located just south of the Y Bridge. The outgunned policemen 

were on the verge of abandoning the building when several gunships appeared 

overhead. Their guns forced the Viet Cong to seek cover. Captain Scarborough 

immediately sent his 2d Platoon under 1st Lt. Ronald P. Garver racing from 

the 5A Bridge to the police station. An estimated company of Viet Cong was 

getting ready to attack the station from a nearby rice paddy when the four 

armored personnel carriers rolled into the compound. Their machine guns 

forced the enemy to stay put behind a series of dikes. The fight remained hotly 

contested until a Cobra gunship strafed the length of the dike, putting the 

enemy to flight.32

While soldiers from the 506th Battalion continued to snipe at the 1st and 

2d Platoons, the main enemy threat shifted to the hamlet of Cau Mat, which 

sat on the canal road a few hundred meters to the west. Now occupied by the 

Phu Loi I Battalion, the hamlet became Captain Scarborough’s most pressing problem. As long as the enemy controlled Cau Mat, the captain’s company would be effectively cut in two. He radioed the commander of the 5th 

Battalion, 60th Infantry, Lt. Col. Eric F. Antila, for instructions. Antila told 

him to keep his men where they were until more help arrived. Two platoons 

from Company A were already on their way from Ben Luc in northeastern 

30 History of the Resistance War in Saigon-Cho Lon-Gia Dinh, p. 54; Special Rpt, CMIC, no. 

0702468, 8 Jun 68, sub: The Organization of Sub-Region 3 and its Penetration of Saigon, p. 5, 

document 42a, Vietnam-Enemy Order of Battle, vol. 3, box 151, NSF-Vietnam Country Files, 

LBJL. 31 Saigon-Gia Dinh Offensive Sector, p. 54. 32 Nolan, House to House, pp. 192–93.
577

Mini-Tet in Saigon

Long An Province. Colonel Antila also told Scarborough that helicopter gunships from Troop B, 7th Squadron, 1st Cavalry, would arrive shortly.

Nine armored personnel carriers and fifty-eight soldiers from Company 

A, 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry, arrived in the Eighth District a few hours later. 

After South Vietnamese troops established a blocking position on the east 

side of the hamlet, the U.S. soldiers began working their way among the ramshackle buildings and narrow streets on the western side of Cau Mat. Many 

already knew something about urban combat; Company A had fought in the 

Phu Tho area of Saigon during Tet. The advance was slow and methodical. 

In the confusing warren of houses and alleyways, there was always a risk that 

the enemy could sneak through the cordon and double back for a surprise 

rear attack. The Americans also had to be discriminating in their use of fire 

because the hamlet was still full of civilians. Air and artillery strikes were ruled 

out for the same reason. As a result, most of the fighting took place at close 

range with small arms, grenades, and machine guns. By evening, Company 

A had killed several dozen Viet Cong while losing two killed and forty-seven 

wounded. Much of Cau Mat still remained in enemy hands. 

As the battle for Cau Mat heated up, General Hay directed General 

O’Connor to commit more men from his 9th Infantry Division. On the afternoon of 7 May, a composite company of the 3d Battalion, 39th Infantry, and 

part of the 6th Battalion, 31st Infantry, landed onto a dry rice paddy some 

1,500 meters south of Cau Mat. Colonel Antila assumed operational control 

over those units. The commander of the 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry, now 

had the equivalent of six companies at his disposal, but many more would be 

needed to clear the Eighth District.

On the morning of 8 May, the infantry company from the 3d Battalion, 

39th Infantry, began to sweep Cau Mat from south to north. The scout platoon from the 2d Battalion, 47th Infantry, joined the action a short time later, 

adding some extra punch with its armored personnel carriers and .50-caliber 

machine guns. The sweep was a harrowing affair. Viet Cong spider holes and 

makeshift bunkers seemed to be everywhere. Many houses contained snipers. 

From those darkened interiors they were often invisible to the U.S. soldiers 

moving around on the streets outside. Progress was frustratingly slow.

The enemy’s tenacity convinced South Vietnamese authorities to permit 

limited air and artillery strikes. The commander of the 3d Battalion, 39th 

Infantry, Lt. Col. Anthony P. DeLuca, directed those strikes from his circling 

command helicopter. South Vietnamese officials did their best to move the 

residents of Cau Mat out of harm’s way. In some cases, frightened civilians 

ran straight through ongoing firefights in a desperate attempt to reach safety.33

Early on 9 May, the 506th Battalion resumed its attack on the Y Bridge. 

At around 0230, the enemy began mortaring a pagoda where Colonel DeLuca 

had set up his command post. Things quieted down after thirty minutes, but 

a rocket-propelled grenade broke the calm at 0400 when it slammed into the 

pagoda. That signaled the start of another mortar barrage against DeLuca’s 

command post. As shells exploded outside, the colonel began to get reports 

33 Ibid., p. 174.
Staying the Course

578

of enemy activity up and down the length of the Eighth District. No major 

assault developed, but the shooting continued at a steady pace even after the 

sun rose. In hindsight, the sudden burst of activity was probably designed to 

draw attention away from the western suburbs where the Cuu Long II Regiment

and the 9th Division were trying to withdraw.34

At daybreak, Colonel Antila sent his 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry, on 

another sweep through Cau Mat to clear out the Phu Loi I Battalion. He also 

dispatched Company B, 6th Battalion, 31st Infantry, under Capt. Philip L. 

Eckman to assist Colonel DeLuca who was strongly engaged with the 506th 

Battalion around the Y Bridge. 

As the fighting spread north of the canal, thousands of residents streamed 

south across the Y Bridge. South Vietnamese troops tried to maintain order 

but some people were pushed into the coils of barbed wire that lined the bridge. 

Others were trampled by panicked neighbors. At least one hundred civilians 

either died or became injured while crossing the bridge. Other residents died in 

the fighting as they ran through the city streets. In the end, most of the terrified 

34 Ibid., p. 176.

Civilians flee as fighting begins.
579

Mini-Tet in Saigon

civilians made it across the bridge. As their numbers dwindled, the allies began 

to scour the neighborhood with a more liberal application of firepower.35

The fighting on 9 May spread well beyond Cau Mat and the Y Bridge area. 

When Company B from the 6th Battalion, 31st Infantry, arrived at DeLuca’s 

command post early in the afternoon, the colonel ordered Captain Eckman 

to assist a police facility that had come under attack. The station was located 

some 800 meters to the southeast, situated next to the Ong Lon Canal that 

fed north into the Doi Canal. The enemy who had attacked the station was 

likely from the 508th Battalion, which was trying to keep the tributary open 

for use as a supply and escape route. When Eckman’s armored personnel carriers rolled up to the embattled station, the Viet Cong initially stood their 

ground, but melted back into the surrounding countryside an hour later when 

Company A, 3d Battalion, 39th Infantry, joined the fight.36

Around that same time, another fight was developing in the nearby hamlet 

of Xom Ong Doi. The hamlet lay two kilometers east of the Y Bridge and 

the same distance west of the Tan Thuan Bridge. A company from the South 

Vietnamese 1st Marine Battalion was locked in battle with the 5th Nha Be 

Battalion, which had been trying to reach the bridge for the past several days. 

The marines had enough men to protect the bridge but not enough to clear 

Xom Ong Doi, so the 9th Infantry Division extended its zone of responsibility 

to cover the eastern part of the Eighth District. It gave the mission of securing 

Xom Ong Doi to the 6th Battalion, 31st Infantry, commanded by Lt. Col. 

Joseph H. Schmalhorst, which was currently patrolling the region south of the 

5A Bridge. It would be joined by the 2d Battalion, 47th Infantry, commanded 

by Lt. Col. John B. Tower, a mechanized unit stationed at the 3d Brigade base 

camp at Bearcat.37 

Company A and the greater part of Company C, 6th Battalion, 31st 

Infantry, landed just east of Xom Ong Doi shortly after noon. The pilots flew 

fast and low to evade the heavy ground fire that greeted the incoming helicopters. Once the infantrymen got their feet on the ground, they fanned out 

toward the southern side of the hamlet. Vietnamese marines set up a blocking 

position to the west. The advancing Americans came under small arms fire 

but it was not particularly heavy; the hundred or so living members of the 5th 

Nha Be Battalion were likely stretched thin across the hamlet. The men from 

the 6th Battalion, 31st Infantry, killed several snipers on the southern edge of 

Xom Ong Doi and then entered the hamlet at 1500.

About that same time, the 2d Battalion, 47th Infantry, minus Company 

A, completed its journey from Bearcat to the Eighth District. The mechanized 

unit sped through downtown Saigon and then crossed over the Tan Thuan 

Bridge before pulling up along the north side of Xom Ong Doi. The arrival 

35 Intel Cable, CIA, 13 May 68, sub: Popular Attitudes of Saigon/Cholon Residents during 

Present Viet Cong Attacks, p. 2, document 37, Vietnam-CIA Cables, May 1968 (2), box 243, 

NSF-Vietnam Country Files, LBJL. 36 AAR, Battle of South Saigon, 3d Bde, 9th Inf Div, 11 Aug 68, p. 5, box 42, AARs, 1965–

1971, Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 37 Ibid.
Staying the Course

580

of Colonel Tower’s men meant that the 5th Nha Be Battalion was now boxed 

in on three sides. For all intents and purposes, it was a complete encirclement 

because helicopter gunships from the 7th Squadron, 1st Cavalry, watched the 

open fields to the east.38

Desperately outnumbered but full of resolve, the 5th Nha Be Battalion

would not go down without a fight. A storm of fire raked Company B, 2d 

Battalion, 47th Infantry, the lead unit in Colonel Tower’s force, as it came 

rumbling down the canal road. Several soldiers fell dead or wounded during 

the opening salvo. Company B responded with a fusillade of machine gun and 

small arms fire that tore into the flimsy buildings that lined the road. From 

his helicopter buzzing overhead Colonel Tower ordered Company C, which 

was at the rear of the column and had not yet entered Xom Ong Doi, to turn 

south for a short distance before turning west again to bring flanking fire onto 

the enemy. As the company performed the maneuver, several of the vehicles 

bogged down in the marshland that bordered the hamlet. The rest backed out 

to the firm ground on the road. The immobilized vehicles provided supporting 

fire, while the remainder of the unit began a house-to-house sweep through 

the hamlet. 

This clearing operation was a brutal affair. Nearly all of the residents had 

fled Xom Ong Doi, so it turned into a virtual free-fire zone. The allies blasted 

their way through the hamlet, while helicopter gunships sent waves of rockets 

crashing into the tightly packed buildings. U.S. fighter-bombers swooped in to 

demolish whole blocks with 500-pound bombs, napalm, and 20-mm. cannon. 

The 2d Battalion, 47th Infantry, expended so much ammunition that Colonel 

Tower had to arrange emergency resupply from Bearcat. By evening, hostile 

fire had almost ceased. When the two U.S. battalions pulled back because of 

darkness, gunships continued to pound Xom Ong Doi by the flickering light 

of a hundred or more fires. 

The 2d Battalion, 47th Infantry, and the 6th Battalion, 31st Infantry, 

encountered no resistance when they entered the hamlet the next morning. 

The retreating 5th Nha Be Battalion left behind twelve of its dead in the ruins 

of Xom Ong Doi. The 2d Battalion, 47th Infantry, had lost eight men killed 

during the battle.39

Although the Americans had driven the 5th Nha Be Battalion out of Xom 

Ong Doi, the 506th and Phu Loi I Battalions still clung to footholds around the 

Y Bridge and Cau Mat, respectively. Colonel DeLuca decided to tackle Cau 

Mat first. On the morning of 10 May, he sent Companies A and B from the 3d 

Battalion, 39th Infantry, down the canal road to attack the hamlet from the 

east. Well-hidden snipers brought the column to a halt on the outskirts of Cau 

Mat. DeLuca sent in his reconnaissance platoon as well as Captain Eckman’s 

Company B of the 6th Battalion, 31st Infantry, to execute a flanking attack 

from the southeast. They, too, came under heavy fire and stopped short of 

Cau Mat. Despite having abundant gunship and artillery support, DeLuca’s 

infantry made little progress that day, losing six killed and forty wounded. Air 

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid., pp. 6–7.
581

Mini-Tet in Saigon

strikes, artillery, and gunships pounded the enemy positions through the night 

as DeLuca’s men readied themselves for another day of grueling, close-quarter 

combat.

To their relief, the Viet Cong began to withdraw on the morning of 10 

May. The first sign came when an estimated two companies of enemy soldiers 

attacked a South Vietnamese Regional/Popular Forces outpost in Xom Tan 

Liem, a small hamlet on Route 5A five kilometers south of the Doi Canal. 

The attack indicated that the enemy was moving from the Eighth District back 

into the countryside. Colonel Antila ordered Companies A and C of the 5th 

Battalion, 60th Infantry, to rescue the besieged government soldiers and trap 

the Viet Cong force.40

The pair of mechanized companies came under heavy fire as they neared 

Xom Tan Liem. The enemy—the 508th Battalion—possessed .51-caliber antiaircraft machine guns, 82-mm. mortars, and 75-mm. recoilless rifles. Having 

stayed well south of Cau Mat and the Y Bridge, the unit was still relatively 

fresh. After thirty minutes of fighting that left six Americans dead and over 

two dozen more wounded, the Americans pulled back to reorganize.

A short time later, Colonel Schmalhorst landed Companies A and C of 

the 6th Battalion, 31st Infantry, on Route 5A just north of where Companies 

A and C, 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry, were taking care of their casualties and 

restocking ammunition. The four companies waited there on the road for several hours while bombs and shells hammered the hamlet. When Schmalhorst’s 

troops resumed their advance late that afternoon, they faced only sporadic 

sniper fire as they moved down the highway. When they entered the hamlet, all 

they found were a few dazed and wounded Viet Cong soldiers. According to 

those prisoners, the 508th Battalion was headed for the deserted village of Da 

Phuoc two kilometers to the south. Darkness ruled out an immediate pursuit, 

but Schmalhorst resolved to regain contact at first light.41

On the morning of 11 May, the survivors from the Phu Loi I Battalion 

abandoned Cau Mat and began moving south. Most slipped away while it 

was still dark, clinging to the dense foliage that lined rivers and streams as 

they marched south. One group of fifty soldiers made the mistake of lingering 

in Cau Mat until daylight. The thin light of early dawn was enough to reveal 

their location, and within minutes an artillery strike destroyed the group.42

Meanwhile, Colonel Schmalhorst resumed his pursuit of the 508th 

Battalion. He sent Company C, 6th Battalion, 31st Infantry, commanded by 

Captain William J. Owen, to check the nearby hamlet of Da Phouc where 

the Viet Cong had reportedly gone during the night. Sure enough, when 

Owen’s men approached the abandoned community, they came under heavy 

fire from Viet Cong troops who were dug in along the bank of a stream. 

The Americans quickly realized this was no mere rear guard; the enemy 

was throwing everything he had into the fight. Rocket-propelled grenades, 

heavy machine-gun fire, and mortar shells flew at Company C. The volume 

40 AAR, Battle of South Saigon, 3d Bde, 9th Inf Div, pp. 6–7.

41 Ibid., pp. 7–8.

42 Nolan, House to House, pp. 258–59.
Staying the Course

582

of fire hardly diminished even when precise air and artillery strikes began to 

explode among the enemy positions.

Colonel Schmalhorst inserted by helicopter Company D, 6th Battalion, 

31st Infantry, fresh from the battalion base camp, onto the far side of Da 

Phouc. When it advanced toward the stream to hit the enemy from behind, 

a contingent from the 508th Battalion turned their weapons around and prevented the trap from closing. The firefight continued well into the evening 

as air strikes and artillery shells lit up the sky. In the early hours of 12 May, 

the 508th Battalion broke contact and continued its retreat south. Companies 

C and D lost a total of two dead and twenty wounded in the battle for Da 

Phuoc.43

The Viet Cong completed their evacuation of the Eighth District on 

12 May. A few stragglers fell to the 3d Battalion, 39th Infantry, and the 2d 

Battalion, 47th Infantry, as they swept through the ramshackle buildings and 

rice fields from Cau Mat to the Y Bridge. Others died from air and artillery 

strikes that chased the enemy as he marched south. When evening came, there 

was quiet in south Saigon for the first time in a week.

The cost of the battle, especially to the Eighth District, had been high. 

Much of Cau Mat and Xom Ong Doi lay in ruins. At least 8,000 homes had 

43 Ibid., p. 291.

Soldiers of Company B, 2d Battalion, 47th Infantry, 9th Infantry 

Division, move through a village in ruins during the May offensive.
583

Mini-Tet in Saigon

been destroyed in the fighting and over a dozen square blocks of the city were 

a flattened wasteland. The cost of the battle for the enemy was difficult to 

calculate. The 9th Infantry Division recorded a body count of 852 enemy 

killed, but that figure is far too high considering that less than 1,000 Viet Cong 

soldiers were involved in the battle. A more likely body count is probably 200 

to 250 killed in addition to a somewhat higher number of enemy soldiers who 

were wounded. It is therefore reasonable to posit a total casualty rate for the 

four Viet Cong battalions somewhere between 50 and 75 percent. 

Saigon: Interlude and the Second Phase, 13 May–7 June

By the morning of 13 May, most of the fighting in Gia Dinh Province 

had ended as the enemy completed his withdrawal from the Capital Military 

District. Northeast of the capital, elements from the 1st Australian Task Force 

clashed with the 141st Regiment near Tan Uyen District town, north of the 

Dong Nai River and west of War Zone D. The day before, the 1st Australian 

Task Force had inserted by helicopter a reinforced battalion and two artillery 

batteries into an abandoned rubber plantation five kilometers northwest of 

Tan Uyen to watch the trails leading back to War Zone D. A few hours after 

establishing Firebase Coral, the defenders had faced a determined attack by 

at least one battalion from the 141st Regiment. The resulting six-hour fight had 

claimed the lives of at least one hundred North Vietnamese soldiers, while the 

defenders had lost nine killed and twenty-eight wounded. One 105-mm. howitzer and two 81-mm. mortars had also been damaged. A prisoner revealed that 

the attacking unit had been the 275th Infiltration Group, which had recently 

joined the 141st Regiment. The 275th Infiltration Group had been marching 

toward Saigon when it noticed helicopters depositing 105-mm. howitzers into 

the nearby rubber plantation. According to the prisoner, the chance to overrun 

so many guns at an unfinished firebase had proven an irresistible temptation.44

The defenders at Firebase Coral clashed with the 141st Regiment a second 

time on the night of 15–16 May. The base turned out to be an even tougher 

nut to crack this time. The soldiers had improved its fortifications by erecting earth walls around the artillery pieces and by building more sandbagged 

positions. The defenders were also more numerous than before. The new arrivals included Squadron A, 3d Cavalry Regiment, an Australian unit equipped 

with M113 armored personnel carriers; and Company A of the 2d Battalion, 

35th Artillery, a U.S. Army unit equipped with M109 155-mm. self-propelled 

howitzers. The artillerymen also had a pair of M42 Dusters for additional 

protection.45

The North Vietnamese attack began at 0215 with a battalion-size assault 

against the eastern side of Coral. The defenders responded with a withering 

44 Lex McAulay, The Battle of Coral (Hawthorn, Australia: Hutchinson, 1988), p. 37; AAR, 

Opn Toan Thang, Phase I, 1st Australian Task Force, n.d., p. 19, box 6, AARs, Free World Mil 

Assistance Ofc, MACV, RG 472, NACP. 45 7th Division, p. 67; AAR, Opn Toan Thang, Phase I, 1st Australian Task Force, p. 20.
Staying the Course

584

display of firepower, their tanks, machine guns, and artillery backed by a flight 

of helicopter gunships and fighter-bombers. A battery of 175-mm. guns at 

Long Binh added to the destruction by shelling areas that the enemy was using 

as staging and fire support positions. A few North Vietnamese fought their 

way into the perimeter but were soon hunted down. The action tapered off as 

dawn approached, with the Communists ending their attack just after 0600. 

The allies estimated that they had killed or badly injured almost half of 

the 1,300 strong attacking force, which they learned had been the K2 and 

K3 Battalions, 141st Regiment, the 269th and 275th Infiltration Groups, the

C17 Recoilless Rifle Company, and the C18 Anti-Aircraft Company. The cost 

to the allies had been five killed and twenty-one wounded. Interestingly, a 

North Vietnamese doctor who surrendered in July told his interrogators that

COSVN circulars described the battle as a great victory, claiming that all 

of the defenders, erroneously identified as troops from the U.S. 1st Infantry 

Division, had perished in the fight.46

Northwest of the capital, the U.S. 25th Infantry Division continued its 

pursuit of the 9th Division following its expulsion from Gia Dinh Province 

on 12 May. With the danger to Saigon receding, General Weyand placed the 

three battalions of the 199th Infantry Brigade that were operating in western Gia Dinh Province under the operational control of General Mearns. 

The II Field Force commander also returned to their parent organizations 

the units that had operated under Task Force Hay. After relinquishing the 

last unit on 16 May, Hay closed his temporary command post and returned 

to Long Binh.

Between 16 and 25 May, the allies combed Gia Dinh Province and the 

surrounding districts, paying particular attention to the routes that led to 

base areas such as War Zone D, the Iron Triangle, and the Khien Quong 

Pineapple Plantation. The hunt produced a steady flow of enemy dead despite 

the absence of major battles. On 17 May, for example, the 25th Division killed 

one hundred enemy soldiers. The 9th Infantry Division claimed another 

seventy-six the following day. The situation was stable enough for Weyand to 

redeploy some of his forces while the sweep was under way. He returned the 

199th Infantry Brigade, minus one battalion, to the area between Phuoc Vinh 

and the Dong Nai River where it resumed a forward defense of the Bien Hoa–

Long Binh complex. He sent U.S. Army Special Forces Detachment B–56 

into the Iron Triangle on 24 May to look for enemy concentrations, the same 

day that the 3d Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, began a temporary deployment to II Corps to counter an enemy buildup in the Central Highlands.47

Weyand could not become complacent, because prisoner reports suggested that the enemy was going to launch a second phase of his offensive. 

The likelihood of that appeared to increase on 22 May when the 320th PAVN 

Division attacked U.S. Marine and South Vietnamese Army units in I Corps 

around Con Thien and Dong Ha. In the ensuing three-day battle, the allies 

46 Interrogation Rpt, CMIC, no. US 2437-68, 3 Sep 68, sub: Enemy Engagement with US 

Forces, Historians files, CMH. 47 AAR, Task Force Hay, II FFV, p. 30.
585

Mini-Tet in Saigon

killed about 762 North Vietnamese soldiers. Since the last time the 320th 

Division had threatened Dong Ha just prior to the start of the May offensive, the new round of fighting suggested a possible resumption of hostilities 

around Saigon. 

There were also growing signs in III Corps that an attack was coming. 

Many of the Communist units that had attacked Saigon on 5 May still 

clung to forward positions on the outskirts of Gia Dinh Province, hiding 

in Viet Cong–controlled hamlets or within the concealment of jungle bases 

like the Iron Triangle. Some units also appeared to be drifting back toward 

the capital. On the night of 22 May, for example, an enemy force attacked 

the 25th Division’s 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry, while it was camped near a 

trail five kilometers northeast of Duc Hoa. The action that resulted in sixtyfour enemy dead suggested that the Communists were moving back toward 

Saigon, their ranks partly replenished with hundreds of North Vietnamese 

who had crossed from Cambodia into III Corps over the last week or so.48

That prediction was correct. The B2 Front was only days away from 

unleashing a second strike against the capital. The scale of the assault was 

much smaller than before, however. COSVN could muster only nine battalions for the attack, four of which were operating at company strength, making 

the assault force only one-quarter as large as that in the first wave. The main 

attack would once again come from the west supported by a diversionary 

strike from the north. The enemy knew he stood little chance of harming the 

Thieu government, but he could still erode its credibility by terrorizing the 

city’s residents.49

The second phase began on the night of 24–25 May when the K3 and 

K4 Battalions of the Dong Nai Regiment and the K1 and K2 Battalions from 

the 1st Quyet Thang Regiment entered Gia Dinh City, a northern suburb 

sandwiched between Go Vap and downtown Saigon. Even though the four 

battalions had only eighty to one hundred men apiece, they had orders to 

attack the town’s large police headquarters, seize a pair of bridges that led 

into downtown Saigon, and then take over the city’s radio and television stations. It was an impossible assignment. 

The Viet Cong had hardly set foot in Gia Dinh City when they were 

assailed by the South Vietnamese 1st and 6th Marine Battalions. The 436th 

Regional Forces Company and National Police joined the hunt, while the 

1st, 5th, and 11th South Vietnamese Airborne Battalions sealed off the 

edges of the suburb. The enemy lost at least forty killed on the first day, 

including the regimental commander and the senior political officer of 1st 

Quyet Thang Regiment. The list of enemy troops killed or captured grew in 

the coming days. Among those taken prisoner were the executive officer of 

the K3 Battalion and the political officer of the K4 Battalion, who provided 

48 Weekly Combat Intel and Security Review, 28 May 68, p. 3, document 7, Asst Ch of Staff, 

G–2, USARV, Vietnam-Weekly Combat Intel and Security Review 9/67-10/68, boxes 187–88, 

NSF-Vietnam Country Files, LBJL; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 21-68, II FFV, 19–25 May 68, 25 

May 68, p. 3, box 1, Periodic Intel Rpts, Asst Ch of Staff, G–2, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 49 9th Division, p. 106.
Staying the Course

586

valuable intelligence about the enemy’s plans. By 1 June, the four battalions 

had been reduced to just seventy healthy soldiers and thirty wounded men 

who could still fight.50

The only other significant battle to take place north of Saigon during the 

second phase occurred on the night of 27–28 May when the greater part of 

the 165th Regiment and the 1st Battalion, 141st Regiment, attacked Firebase 

Coral for the third time that month. It was a weak effort and the enemy 

withdrew after losing forty-seven killed. By all appearances, the enemy forces 

of Sub-Regions 1 and 5 appeared to be spent.51

The western thrust against Saigon began on the night of 26–27 May. 

The 273d Regiment headed toward Phu Lam alongside the 6th Binh Tan 

and 308th Battalions, the latter unit having just arrived from the delta. 

The Vietnamese 2d Marine Battalion bore the brunt of the initial assault. 

U.S. forces got in on the action when the 2d Battalion, 273d Regiment, 

attacked the 4th Battalion, 23d Infantry, which was camped some six 

kilometers west of Saigon. The enemy broke contact after ninety minutes, 

but the battalion caught up with him at daybreak. Reinforced by Troops A 

50 History of the Resistance War in Saigon-Cho Lon-Gia Dinh, p. 518; Tuan, Saigon-Gia Dinh 

Offensive Sector, p. 57. 51 7th Division, pp. 67–68; ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 1st Inf Div, p. 17.

A South Vietnamese ranger tosses a hand grenade into an enemy-occupied 

building in Cholon.
587

Mini-Tet in Saigon

and C of the 3d Squadron, 4th Cavalry, the Americans nearly annihilated 

the 2d Battalion, killing 243 enemy soldiers while losing 6 killed and 28 

wounded.52

As the fighting increased around Phu Lam, the South Vietnamese 38th 

Ranger Battalion, minus one company, and the reconnaissance company 

from the South Vietnamese 5th Ranger Group rushed in to help the South 

Vietnamese marines. Aided by gunships, the two battalions took twentythree prisoners and killed around 370 enemy soldiers over the next four days. 

Nevertheless, the enemy showed great determination, and approximately 200 

troops, mostly from the 6th Binh Tan Battalion, managed to slip past the allied 

screen into Cholon.53

At first the National Police took responsibility for tracking down the 

intruders. When dozens of Viet Cong remained at large several days later, the 

South Vietnamese 30th Ranger Battalion sent a reinforced company and its 

headquarters element to deal with the threat. On 1 June, the South Vietnamese 

rangers and National Police sealed off an area approximately twelve square 

blocks where the Viet Cong troops were most active. Pinning them down was 

another matter. The enemy rarely operated in teams greater than six men and 

moved around frequently. The Viet Cong also took to demolishing the thin 

walls that divided most row houses so that they could move from one building 

to another without being seen from the street. Some even traveled through the 

sewer system.54

Two more companies from the South Vietnamese 30th Ranger Battalion 

joined the hunt on 2 June, squeezing the contested area to just a few square 

blocks. Many high-ranking government officials showed up to witness the 

enemy’s final destruction. At the request of the South Vietnamese battalion 

commander, the senior U.S. adviser called in helicopter gunships to eliminate 

the few remaining enemy strong points so the rangers could avoid further 

casualties. At around 1740, one of those helicopters fired a 2.75-inch rocket 

that struck a building that contained the forward command post of the 30th 

Ranger Battalion. The blast killed several high-ranking South Vietnamese 

officials. Since most of the dead were political allies of Vice President Ky, 

a rumor spread that President Thieu had orchestrated the attack to weaken 

his long-time rival. A U.S. Army investigation concluded that a faulty rocket 

engine had been to blame.55

The South Vietnamese 35th Ranger Battalion took over from the 

weary 30th Ranger Battalion on 4 June and kept whittling away at the 

enemy’s enclave until the last strong point fell on 7 June. A handful of 

Viet Cong troops managed to slip through the cordon and flee back to 

52 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 22-68, II FFV, 26 May–1 Jun 68, 1 Jun 68, p. 12, Periodic Intel Rpts, 

Asst Ch of Staff, G–2, II FFV, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 53 Special Rpt, CMIC, no. 0511868, 4 Jun 68, sub: Plan of Action of the 6th Bn, Penetrating 

Saigon for the 3d Time, pp. 3–4, document 24, Vietnam-Enemy Order of Battle, vol. 2, box 151, 

NSF-Vietnam Country Files, LBJL. 54 AAR, The Saigon Offensive, Phase III, 20th Mil Hist Det, p. 5, Encl 18, p. 1.

55 Msg, Abrams MAC 7613 to Wheeler and Sharp, 10 Jun 68, General Creighton W. Abrams 

Msg files, CMH.
Staying the Course

588

the countryside, but most of the 200 soldiers who had entered Cholon 

were now either dead or captured. Among the dead was the deputy commander of Sub-Region 2, Col. Vo Van Hoang, who had led the 6th Binh 

Tan Battalion and the 308th Battalion into Saigon.56 

56 AAR, The Saigon Offensive, Phase III, 20th Mil Hist Det, pp. 5–7.

Captured weapons on display (two on the left are RPG7s and 

two on the right are Soviet-designed light machine guns)
589

Mini-Tet in Saigon

All told, the second phase of fighting in the Capital Military District 

between 28 May and 10 June cost the enemy an estimated 600 killed and 

another 107 captured. The South Vietnamese lost 42 killed and 142 wounded 

in Saigon during the same time frame.57

Assessing the May Offensive 

The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong paid dearly for Le Duan’s decision to launch the May offensive. The official Communist military history 

of the war offers no statistics, but MACV reported that the allies killed over 

24,000 Communist troops in May. The allies also captured 1,400 soldiers and 

welcomed another 600 enemy personnel who turned themselves in through 

the Chieu Hoi program. As was to be expected, most of the enemy’s losses 

occurred in III Corps. A reliable South Vietnamese agent reported that the 

enemy suffered 37,000 casualties in and around Saigon, an estimate that 

included not just killed but also wounded, nonbattle casualties, and deserters. Some of those casualties were probably civilians, for as one Communist 

history acknowledged, “Very large numbers of civilian coolie laborers were 

killed while supporting our combat operations.” The informant reported that 

a majority of the losses had occurred while the enemy was moving toward 

Saigon, a point on which the official Communist history agrees. Allied interdiction efforts outside the capital had been so successful that of the thirty-five 

battalions committed to the attack, only portions of thirteen managed to reach 

the metropolitan area. Allied offensive operations had likewise prevented an 

attack on Hue and had so damaged Military Region 5 that the enemy had 

no choice but to withdraw from the populated lowlands for the comparative 

safety of remote mountain sanctuaries.58

The second offensive of 1968 gutted many enemy units that were still 

recovering from Tet, and enemy morale plummeted. According to prisoners at the time and postwar Communist histories, virtually all of Sub-Region 

1’s company-, battalion-, and regimental-level officers either died during the 

offensive or were wounded. One survivor of the 308th Battalion estimated that 

by June there were only 40 men left in his unit out of an original complement 

of 300. Among the casualties was the battalion’s entire command group. In 

early June, the 508th Battalion had only 71 men left out of its original complement of nearly 300 soldiers. The 5th Nha Be Battalion had approximately sixty 

men still able to fight. According to the commander of Sub-Region 5, Col. Le 

57 Do Dang Son, “The Final Battle in the Western Sector of Saigon,” Quan Doi Nhan Dan, 3 

Dec 04; Rpt, 20th Mil Hist Det, 21 Jun 68, sub: The Saigon Offensive, Phase III, p. 8, Historians 

files, CMH. 58 Quote from History of the Resistance War in Saigon-Cho Lon-Gia Dinh, p. 520. Rpt, 

OASD, Systems Analysis (Southeast Asia Programs), Statistical Tables through Oct 1968, n.d., 

table 1c, Historians files, CMH; ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, II FFV, p. 19; Msg, Ambassador 

Saigon 27764 to Sec of State, 20 May 68, sub: Assessment of the Enemy’s May Offensive, sec. 

2, pp. 2–3, Historians files, CMH; ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, II FFV, p. 22; Military History 

Institute of Vietnam, Victory in Vietnam, pp. 228–29.
Staying the Course

590

Van Ngot, the K3 and K4 Battalions of the Dong Nai Regiment, which should 

have had around 400 men in each unit, had been reduced to only 30 combateffective soldiers apiece. The loss of so many experienced officers, noncommissioned officers, and veteran soldiers was devastating, as the enemy could 

only restore his ranks with inexperienced and often hastily trained men. This 

contrasted starkly with allied forces, which emerged with their unit leadership intact and their men confident despite unusually heavy losses of their 

own—4,223 deceased soldiers, of whom 2,169 were Americans. Fortunately, 

civilian casualties from the May offensive—421 killed and 1,444 injured—were 

far lower than for Tet.59

Other metrics besides casualties indicated how the offensive fell short. Once 

again the Thieu government had withstood the test, and its armed forces had 

performed ably. A general uprising had not materialized, with the population 

displaying even less enthusiasm for the Communist cause than it had at Tet. 

Not only had the Communists failed to reach their most important targets, but 

they also could not hold those they attacked. Apart from the prolonged battle 

in the Saigon suburbs, the offensive had essentially run its course in a matter 

of days with little damage to the government’s position in the countryside. 

True, the attack had prevented the allies from expanding pacification during 

May, but it had not done serious harm. Hamlet evaluation scores indicated 

no change in the number of people (62 percent of the population) living in 

relative security during May. The Communists had managed to overrun just 

16 of the nation’s over 4,000 rural outposts, with the government reoccupying 10 of those by mid-month. Unlike the first offensive in which the government had abandoned large swaths of territory, only 6 of the more than 700 

Revolutionary Development teams and just a handful of the units assigned 

to rural security functions had withdrawn from their assigned posts. The 

enemy had thus gained neither ground, resources, nor people. From a military 

standpoint, the campaign had been a disaster. Writing years later, one of the 

architects of the campaign—National Liberation Front committee member 

and leader of Communist forces in Saigon, Tran Bach Dang—conceded that 

“passion led us to go too far” in mounting the May offensive.60

Nevertheless, as with Tet, the loss of so many Communist soldiers had 

not been in vain, for once again the enemy had won a psychological victory. 

The offensive struck another blow at the confidence of the South Vietnamese 

59 Rpt, OASD, Systems Analysis (Southeast Asia Programs), Statistical Tables through 

October 1968, table 1c; Special Rpt, CMIC, no. 0702468, 8 Jun 68, p. 5, document 42a; Special 

Rpt, CMIC, no. 202368, 23 Jul 68, sub: OB of the 308th Independent Bn, aka Cuu Long 2 

Bn, MR-3, document 23, Vietnam-Enemy Order of Battle, vol. 1a, box 151, NSF-Vietnam 

Country Files, LBJL; History of the Resistance War in Saigon-Cho Lon-Gia Dinh, p. 516; Tuan, 

Saigon-Gia Dinh Offensive Sector, p. 58; Special Rpt, CMIC, no. 0610868, 8 Jul 68, sub: General 

Information of the K.2, K.3, and K.4 Battalions, Dong Nai Regt, p. 1, document 19, Vietnamese 

Col Le Van Ngot, box 189, NSF-Vietnam Country Files, LBJL; Rpt, CORDS, 1969, sub: Daily 

Civilian Casualties During Post Tet Offensive, p. 1, Historians files, CMH. 60 Quote from Tran Bach Dang, “Mau Than: Cuoc Tong Dien Tap Chien Luoc” [Tet: A 

Strategic Rehearsal], Vietnam Journal of Military Affairs 26, no. 2 (February 1988). Msg, 

Bunker AMB 27497 to Johnson, 16 May 68, p. 1, Historians files, CMH; Rpt, OASD, Systems 

Analysis (Southeast Asia Programs), Statistical Tables through October 1968, table 5a.
591

Mini-Tet in Saigon

people. Even more significantly, it deepened the unease that the American 

public felt about the war. When pollsters asked a question in June identical 

to one used in February, the percentage of respondents who wished to “discontinue the struggle and begin to pull out of Vietnam gradually in the near 

future” had nearly doubled, from 24 percent to 42 percent, while those willing to escalate the conflict had dropped from 53 percent to 35 percent. Other 

events, such as the assassination of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King 

Jr., on 4 April, and the rioting that followed in several cities, contributed to the 

atmosphere of crisis that was leading an increasing number of Americans to 

feel that the nation should focus on its domestic troubles rather than fight a 

war overseas.61

Another repercussion of the spring offensive was increased discontent, 

both in South Vietnam and in the United States, over the human suffering 

created by the fighting. About 20,000 homes were destroyed and 130,000 

people displaced in Saigon and its environs as a result of the offensive, with 

up to another 40,000 people rendered homeless nationwide. MACV reported 

that 479 civilians had died and 1,835 had been wounded during May. The 

number of casualties and refugees was far lower than that generated by the 

Tet offensive, and the Communists were certainly responsible for their share 

of each category, but there was no doubt that most of the physical destruction 

had occurred as the result of allied air and artillery fire. The fact that much 

of the destruction had occurred in the nation’s capital, the home base of the 

American media presence in South Vietnam, heightened the adverse reaction.62

General Westmoreland and Ambassadors Bunker and Komer realized 

that something had to be done about civilian suffering, not only on humanitarian grounds, but to ease President Thieu’s political difficulties and to allay 

criticism of the war back home. As he had after Tet, Westmoreland proposed, 

and Thieu approved, a special program of relief and rebuilding. Spearheaded 

by the U.S. Army’s 46th Engineer Battalion, a U.S. Navy construction battalion, and South Vietnamese military units, Operation Dong tam (“United 

Hearts and Minds”) distributed relief supplies, provided medical services, and 

cleared away rubble. U.S. military engineers also laid the foundations for 1,500 

prefabricated dwellings that were built in a U.S. Army factory. By the end of 

July, the number of refugees in Saigon and Gia Dinh Province had fallen to 

37,000. By the time Project Recovery and Operation Dong tam ended in early 

October 1968, over two dozen nations and charitable organizations had spent 

more than $20 million in cash and supplies on relief and restoration projects.63

U.S. officials also realized that something needed to be done to reduce 

the amount of destruction caused by allied firepower in friendly cities. On 

13 May, Westmoreland convened a U.S.–South Vietnamese study group 

61 Rigal-Cellard, La Guerre du Vietnam et la Societe Americaine, p. 198. 62 Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–1973, pp. 26–28; Rpt, MACCORDS, 1969, sub: 

Daily Civilian Casualties during Post Tet Offensive, pp. 1–2, Historians files, CMH; Cosmas, 

Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973, p. 114. 63 Cosmas, Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973, p. 114; Hunt, Pacification, pp. 147–48; Weisner, 

Victims and Survivors, pp. 167–70; Fact Sheet, MACV, 28 May 68, sub: Operation Dong tam, 

Historians files, CMH.
Staying the Course

592

to examine ways to minimize collateral damage during urban combat. The 

group was in the midst of its deliberations when an errant helicopter strike 

on 2 June exacerbated the issue. The event spurred General Abrams, who was 

acting MACV commander while Westmoreland was traveling, to direct that 

henceforth only field force commanders could authorize the use of helicopter 

gunships, fixed-wing aircraft, and indirect artillery fire in urban areas. Three 

days later, Secretary of Defense Clifford reacted to adverse publicity about the 

damage done in Saigon by having Wheeler ask Abrams to initiate a study on 

minimizing destruction and casualties in urban areas. As Westmoreland had 

already initiated such a study, Abrams let it proceed while penning a defensive 

note rejecting criticism of allied tactics. The general’s response “sent Clifford 

into orbit” and almost cost Abrams his job before he had officially assumed 

it. Warned by Wheeler of the current situation, Abrams quickly apologized, 

reporting that he had already made changes to U.S. tactics.64 

Westmoreland’s study group did not report its findings until 14 June, five 

days after the general had stepped down as MACV commander. The group 

recommended increased use of riot control gas and more training for South 

Vietnamese forces in urban combat. It endorsed Abrams’ decision that U.S. 

aviation and indirect artillery fire not be used in cities without field force 

approval. But it also recognized that heavy firepower was necessary if allied 

soldiers were to avoid excessive casualties, and for that reason it advocated that 

the United States give the Vietnamese more recoilless rifles, a form of light 

artillery that due to their flat trajectory and direct-fire application were less 

likely to cause collateral damage or to injure people sheltering underground. 

Abrams approved the recommendations. Remarking that “our military forces 

must find a way to save Saigon without destroying it,” Abrams adhered to 

his position eight days later by denying Weyand’s request to allow division 

commanders to authorize indirect fire in cities. Still, Abrams realized that collateral damage was inescapable, and that the best way to prevent it was to stop 

the enemy before he entered urban areas—something that the May offensive 

had demonstrated was achievable, but not with 100 percent success.65

Keeping population centers safe from enemy bombardment was also easier 

said than done. The Communists had long used mortars to terrorize small 

communities, but until recently they had lacked the wherewithal to target the 

heart of large urban areas with any consistency. The enemy’s decision after Tet 

to rely more on artillery than infantry to attack urban areas reflected not only 

his recognition of the futility of ground assaults, but also a greater ability to 

conduct long-range bombardment. In preparation for the Tet offensive, the 

People’s Army of Vietnam had doubled the number of artillery battalions in the 

South from thirteen to twenty-six. Included in the mix was a growing number 

64 Edward J. Drea, McNamara, Clifford, and the Burdens of Vietnam, 1965–1969 (Washington, 

D.C.: Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2011), p. 195 (quote); Hammond, 

Military and the Media, 1968–1973, pp. 29–31; Clark Clifford, Counsel to the President: A 

Memoir (New York: Random House, 1991), p. 543. 65 Msg, Abrams MAC 7871 to Wheeler, 14 Jun 68, pp. 1–2, Abrams Msg files, CMH; Cosmas,

Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973, pp. 115–16; Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–1973, 

p. 31 (quote).
593

Mini-Tet in Saigon

of 122-mm. rockets. After the failure of the May offensive, the enemy decided 

to maintain psychological pressure on the allies by using rockets to bombard 

Saigon indiscriminately. On 10 May, sixteen 122-mm. rockets slammed into 

various points of the city. The enemy boasted that he would bombard Saigon 

with a hundred rockets per day for a hundred days, but the actual number 

proved to be far less. Between 5 May and 16 June, the Communists fired a total 

of 145 rockets of the 122-mm. variety and 17 rockets of the 107-mm. type at 

Saigon. The attacks accomplished little of a military nature but succeeded in 

injuring civilians and destroying property. They also frightened the population, embarrassed allied officials, and kept the American public aware that the 

enemy was still potent.66

Westmoreland had already begun a series of measures to deter long-range 

bombardments and to capture ammunition stockpiles, and together he and 

Abrams reinforced the effort. The allies redeployed troops to better cover 

the 777-square-kilometer area from which the enemy’s long-range artillery 

could hit Saigon. After considerable U.S. lobbying, President Thieu unified 

all Vietnamese security forces protecting Saigon’s environs by naming General 

Minh, formerly the commander of the Vietnamese 21st Infantry Division, as 

commander of the Capital Military District and military governor of Saigon. 

To complement this action, as one of his last acts as MACV commander, 

Westmoreland established a Capital Military Assistance Command under II 

Field Force deputy commander General Hay. In this post, General Hay exercised operational control over all U.S. units and advisers in Saigon–Gia Dinh, 

with himself serving as adviser to General Minh. The Vietnamese built and 

manned sixty towers to spot rocket launches, and Abrams assigned U.S. aviation assets to respond rapidly to launch sightings. Allied artillery crews honed 

their skills, and with the help of the tower-mounted spotters, were soon able to 

deliver accurate counterbattery fire in less than sixty seconds after a reported 

launch. The number of rocket attacks dropped perceptibly as the allies successfully countered the terror blitz. Still, success carried a price. By stationing 

twenty-seven allied maneuver battalions in Gia Dinh and by dedicating additional troops to cut the routes through which the North Vietnamese moved 

rockets toward the capital, Abrams complained that he had been compelled to 

adopt a posture that “degrades our flexibility and our potential to accomplish 

other missions.”67 

If Abrams was frustrated, Westmoreland, in his final days in command, 

was more so. Once again the allies had hammered the enemy, yet the victories 

66 Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 6613 to Wheeler, 20 May 68, p. 8; Westmoreland MAC 06891 

to Sharp, 26 May 68, p. 1. Both in Westmoreland Msg files, CMH. Quarterly Evaluation, 1 

Apr–30 Jun 68, MACV, p. 9; ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, II FFV, p. 20; Intel Bfg, p. 3, Encl to 

MFR, MACV, 1 Jun 68, sub: MACV Commanders Conference, 19 May 1968, Historians files, 

CMH; Military History Institute of Vietnam, Victory in Vietnam, pp. 209–10. 67 Memo, General Earle “Bus” G. Wheeler for the President, 19 Jul 68, sub: Military 

Situation in South Vietnam, p. 6, document 12b, Vietnam 2C (12) 7/68, General Mil Activity, 

box 72, LBJL; Lung, The General Offensives of 1968–1969, p. 109; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 27-68, 

II FFV, 20 Jun–6 Jul 68, 6 Jul 68, p. 18, Historians files, CMH; Cosmas, Years of Withdrawal, 

1968–1973, pp. 112–13, 114 (quote); FRUS, 1964–1968, 6:979–80.
Staying the Course

594

that he had hoped would rally the American people did not have the desired 

effect, as doubt and anxiety continued to trouble the national psyche. A contributing factor to the malaise was that the May offensive had demonstrated 

that the enemy continued to retain the initiative, determining the time, place, 

and tempo of battles notwithstanding the horrendous casualties he suffered. 

If MACV leaders earlier in the year had been correct in forecasting that they 

had only two or three months to reverse the unfavorable trends in American 

public opinion by achieving battlefield dominance, they had not achieved their 

goal.

As depressing as that realization was, General Westmoreland continued to 

urge his subordinates to act aggressively. The second major Communist offensive 

of 1968 was barely twenty-four hours old when on 6 May Westmoreland had 

sent out a message to his subordinates renewing his call for a general counteroffensive. After reminding them of both the 31 March agreement between himself and General Vien and the fact that peace talks were set to begin in just four 

days, he declared that “we must redouble our vigilance and our initiative, to 

insure that the enemy achieves no success on the battlefields of South Vietnam. 

. . . Commencing immediately our objective will be to make a major breakthrough toward military victory in South Vietnam. We have the assets to do the 

job. . . . Nothing less than the fulfillment of our potential will be an acceptable 

conclusion to the fighting that lies immediately ahead.”68

Specifically, he called for “an aggressive, unremitting, twenty-four hour 

application of pressure on all enemy elements,” emphasizing the need for more 

operations during hours of darkness. Allied forces would prevent the enemy 

from attacking the cities, drive the Communists from populated areas, and 

pursue and destroy the foe wherever he went. He further called on his commanders not to waste artillery ammunition on “the dubious device of indiscriminate harassing fire.” U.S. commanders were to integrate the Vietnamese 

into the effort fully, pushing them to the “van of the attack” wherever possible, 

as “this must become increasingly their war.” Last but not least, he reminded 

his subordinates that population “security is what is strived for. It is not a 

tactic, it is a goal. It will be the result of a dynamically aggressive military campaign and thorough coordination with Phoenix committees.” “Pacification 

operations are inseparable from the main offensive,” he wrote, with the tactical commander having to exercise “just as much sense of proprietorship” in 

pacification support activities “as he would display in the other facets of his 

responsibility.” Ultimately, he stated, the offensive “must result in driving the 

enemy from the population and political centers of the country, opening the 

lines of communications, and giving breathing room to the process of pacification” so as to “rid this land of [the enemy’s] influence” once and for all.69

Two weeks after the 6 May message, Westmoreland and his civilian 

deputy for pacification, Robert Komer, reiterated these themes in what 

would be the general’s last conference with his principal commanders. 

68 Msg, COMUSMACV 12854 to I FFV, et al., 6 May 68, in Msg, COMUSMACV 15262 to 

American Embassy, Paris, 27 May 68, Historians files, CMH. 69 Ibid.
595

Mini-Tet in Saigon

Westmoreland devoted most of the meeting to the subjects of pacification, 

U.S.-Vietnamese collaboration, the protection of Saigon and Hue from 

ground and artillery attack, and advisory assistance to the Regional and 

Popular Forces. With Westmoreland’s backing, Komer stressed the important roles U.S. combat formations could play in assisting the Vietnamese 

and their U.S. advisers in furthering pacification. Noting that the enemy 

had started creating “liberation committees” in hamlets for the purpose 

of claiming territory, population, and seats in any possible coalition government that might emerge from the peace negotiations, Komer pressed 

U.S. commanders to move aggressively to reclaim people and territory. He 

requested the assistance of combat commanders in driving the enemy away 

from populated areas, in securing civilian commerce, in avoiding unnecessary destruction, and in helping in a variety of counterinfrastructure, security, and civic action tasks.70 

If some of the details were new, the concepts had been aired many times 

before. This fact highlighted the consistency with which MACV had conceptualized and prosecuted the war. It also reflected the fact that although he had 

achieved much during his tenure as MACV commander, Westmoreland was 

still fighting over the same ground and wrestling with the same issues as he had 

over the past four years. Victory, however conceived, had eluded him, and it 

now fell to a new commander to find answers to the Vietnam enigma. 

70 MFR, MACV, 1 Jun 68, pp. 2 (quote), 11, Encl to MFR, MACV, 1 Jun 68.

18

A Summer of Attrition

Creighton W. Abrams Jr. officially replaced General Westmoreland 

as MACV commander on 3 July 1968. Like Westmoreland, Abrams 

had graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1936 and had served with 

distinction during World War II, but here the similarity ended. Westmoreland 

was statuesque, polished, and somewhat aloof. Abrams was gruff, blunt, and 

down to earth. The differences in personality and style impressed observers, 

and over time Abrams would make his own mark on MACV. Yet, underlying 

the differences between the two men was a strong current of continuity, for 

both viewed the war in much the same way.1

General Abrams shared Westmoreland’s penchant for applying heavy 

firepower, including B–52 bombers, to hammer the enemy in both North 

and South Vietnam. Although Westmoreland had recently dropped the term 

search and destroy, which had assumed negative connotations in the mind of 

the public, and replaced it with euphemisms like reconnaissance in force and 

spoiling attacks, both men believed that it was vital for the allies to bleed the 

enemy through continuous and unrelenting offensive action. Abrams rejected 

suggestions from the Johnson administration that he cut back on offensive 

operations to reduce U.S. casualties and endorsed the recommendations of 

Westmoreland and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to expand the ground war into 

Laos and Cambodia. He also doubted the viability of Secretary Clifford’s proposal that U.S. forces should withdraw to coastal enclaves.2

Abrams made the continuity between himself and his predecessor explicit 

during his first few days in command. After listening to his commanders 

explain how they had been conducting operations, he told them in a meeting 

in July that “he saw no reason to issue new instructions. We appear to be doing 

what we ought to be doing.” Speaking of the enemy during another July meeting, he emphasized to his subordinates that “the critical problem for us is to 

determine a practical way to inflict significant attrition on him; to grab hold of 

him and to destroy him. This is the payoff—to kill the enemy.” Abrams would 

reiterate this call for maximum attrition many times.3

1

 Cosmas, Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973, pp. 181–83; Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, 

p. 362. 2

 Drea, McNamara, Clifford, and the Burdens of Vietnam, 1965–1969, Secretaries of Defense 

Historical Series, vol. 6 (Washington, D.C.: Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 

2011), pp. 192–201. 3

 MFRs, MACV, 9 Oct 68, sub: MACV Commander’s Conference, 20 July 1968, p. 14; and 

MACV, 26 Jul 68, sub: MACV Commander’s Conference, 4 July 1968, p. 9 (quote). Both in 

Historians files, CMH. Cosmas, Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973, p. 132, and n. 53.
Staying the Course

598

If killing was central to Abrams’ thinking, it was not the only point of 

continuity between himself and Westmoreland. The new MACV commander 

shared his predecessor’s recognition that pacification and population security were key elements of the conflict. Like Westmoreland, Abrams believed 

conventional operations furthered pacification by making it difficult for the 

enemy’s regular forces to operate in populated areas. He likewise followed his 

predecessor’s lead in using those units that could be spared from offensive tasks 

to screen populated areas and to improve Vietnamese security forces. Rejecting 

the dichotomy that some pundits had asserted existed between America’s military and nonmilitary activities, in March 1968 Abrams had begun using the 

phrase “one war” to emphasize the interrelationship between political and 

military actions in Vietnam. It was an apt phrase that encapsulated the holistic, full-spectrum approach that had always characterized America’s approach 

to the conflict, for as Westmoreland had noted in 1966, “the war in Vietnam 

is a single war in which military support for Revolutionary Development be 

integrated closely with other military tasks.” And like Westmoreland and most 

other U.S. officials over the years, Abrams believed that the primary way U.S. 

Army combat units could contribute to pacification was by hunting down and 

killing the enemy, particularly his conventional units, whenever and wherever 

they could be found. He also rejected the notion that the United States should 

usurp responsibility for pacification from the South Vietnamese. Rather, 

he would continue America’s long-standing policy of holding the South 

Vietnamese responsible for pacification in all its aspects, including the provision of security at the hamlet and village level. Semantics aside, the change in 

command would have little impact on the tasks the average American soldier 

would perform or the way in which he performed them.4

As Abrams appraised the situation in the summer of 1968, he believed that, 

for the moment at least, military requirements trumped pacification. Already 

on notice from his superiors that he must protect South Vietnam’s cities at all 

costs from rocket and ground attack, and aware that the enemy was planning 

a third major offensive for late summer, Abrams placed expanding the government’s hold over the population on a back burner compared to guarding the 

cities and degrading the enemy’s ability to support major attacks. Thus, while 

the new MACV commander would continue the general offensive begun by his 

predecessor, he focused on the military aspects of the task and did not initially 

endorse Komer’s bid for rapidly expanding the government’s control over the 

rural population. The push Komer and Westmoreland had been making to 

accelerate the pace of pacification would have to wait.5

Abrams’ determination to continue aggressive military action notwithstanding, the tempo of battle abated across South Vietnam during his first 

4

 Cosmas, Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973, pp. 110, 129–35. Quote from Msg, Westmoreland 

MAC 10608 to Sharp, 4 Dec 66, Historians files, CMH. For a discussion of the continuity in 

American thought and action in Vietnam, see Andrew J. Birtle, “PROVN, Westmoreland, and 

the Historians: A Reappraisal,” Journal of Military History 72 (October 2008): 1249–56; and 

Birtle, U.S. Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations Doctrine, 1942–1976. 5

 Hunt, Pacification, p. 151.
599

A Summer of Attrition

months in command. Enemy exhaustion was the prime factor. Two major 

offensives had pushed the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese to the limits of 

their endurance. An official history produced by the Communist government 

of Vietnam later acknowledged that “our soldiers and civilians had suffered 

heavy losses of personnel, weapons, and ammunition” in the first six months 

of 1968. The defection of several high-ranking Communist officers likewise 

indicated a growing sense of despair among enemy field commanders. As the 

summer began, the Communists withdrew many of their combat units to rear 

areas for an extended period of rest, while Le Duan and the Politburo debated 

the merits of launching a third general offensive.6

A second reason for the summer lull was the onset of the southwest 

monsoon. From mid-May to mid-October, drenching rains soaked the lower 

two-thirds of South Vietnam. Flood waters draining south from Cambodia 

submerged most of the Mekong Delta. During the height of the season in June 

and July, many provinces received more than twelve inches of precipitation a 

month. The cumulative effect of those rains—unpaved roads turned to mud, 

sodden bunkers and foxholes, rotted food, deteriorating equipment, and outbreaks of waterborne diseases—dampened offensive operations on both sides. 

In past wet seasons, U.S. units had taken advantage of the reduced main 

force threat to intensify the search for local force units, infrastructure personnel, and hidden supply caches in the populated lowlands. They would do so 

again this year, but with emphasis on protecting the cities and attacking the 

infiltration routes through which the enemy was endeavoring to rebuild his 

forces for the next wave of attacks. Given the heightened stakes associated 

with a third offensive now that peace talks had begun, Abrams predicted the 

summer “will be the most critical period of 1968.”7

Continuity and Change in I Corps

During the summer of 1968, Abrams completed several of Westmoreland’s 

initiatives in I Corps and maintained most of the other activities he had inherited from his predecessor. Generally speaking, the changes that came to fruition were mainly organizational. The first involved command arrangements. 

On 1 July, General Stilwell became acting commander of Provisional Corps, 

Vietnam, taking over from General Rosson who had gone to Da Nang to command III Marine Amphibious Force temporarily while General Cushman took 

a month’s leave. Two weeks later, Abrams redesignated the Provisional Corps 

as the XXIV Corps, giving the headquarters the status of an official field force 

headquarters, even though it remained subordinate to III Marine Amphibious 

6

 Quote from Minh et al., History of the Resistance War Against the Americans, p. 207. Msg, 

Westmoreland MAC 06299 to Wheeler et al., 14 May 68, p. 2, Westmoreland Msg files, CMH. 7

 Msg, Abrams MACV 8128 to Sharp, 19 Jun 68, p. 12, Abrams Msg files, CMH.
Staying the Course

600

Force. Finally, on 1 August, Stilwell received his third star, officially replacing 

General Rosson who returned to the United States for his next assignment.8

A second organizational initiative that Abrams’ brought to fruition was 

the conversion of the 101st Airborne Division into a fully airmobile unit. 

Redesignated the 101st Air Cavalry Division by orders issued on 28 June, its 

new table of organization added the 2d Squadron, 17th Air Cavalry, a helicopter unit to replace the armored cavalry squadron that had once provided its 

reconnaissance arm, plus the 160th Aviation Group composed of eight assault 

helicopter companies, four support helicopter companies, and one aviation 

company. The air cavalry squadron was already in South Vietnam, but most 

of the units that would make up the 160th Aviation Group would not deploy 

until the end of the year, with the rest, along with two aerial rocket artillery 

companies, expected in early 1969.9

The third development that transpired during the summer came at the end 

of July, when the 1st Brigade, 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized), arrived in 

northern I Corps from Fort Carson, Colorado. Commanded by Col. Richard 

J. Glikes, the brigade consisted of the 1st Battalion, 11th Infantry, the 1st 

8

 ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, XXIV Corps, 15 Nov 68, p. 1, box 67, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd 

Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 9

 ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 101st Abn Div, 15 Aug 68, p. 1; ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, 101st 

Abn Div, 22 Nov 68, p. 1. Both in Historians files, CMH

General Stilwell (left) with General Lam
601

A Summer of Attrition

Battalion, 61st Infantry (Mechanized), and the 1st Battalion, 77th Armor. The 

towed 105-mm. howitzers of the 5th Battalion, 4th Artillery, supported the 

maneuver units, while Troop A, 4th Squadron, 12th Cavalry, served as Colonel 

Glikes’ reconnaissance element. Based at Dong Ha, the heavy brigade with its 

148 armored personnel carriers and 67 tanks was to operate under the control 

of the 3d Marine Division.10

Colonel Glikes’ brigade needed several months of seasoning before it was 

ready for independent operations, so elements from the unit participated in 

patrols alongside Marine and Vietnamese forces near the Demilitarized Zone. 

The brigade first tasted combat on 12 August when Company A from the 1st 

Battalion, 77th Armor, helped Marine infantrymen assault a North Vietnamese 

bunker complex near Gio Linh. The tankers acquitted themselves well, killing 

eighty enemy while suffering seven wounded. Over the coming weeks, more 

brigade elements participated in these one-day raids, providing valuable training for their officers and men, even when they produced few contacts.11

10 ORLL, 1 Aug –31 Oct 68, 1st Bde, 5th Div (Mech), 13 Dec 68, p. 2, box 29, ORLLs, 

1966–1971, Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 11 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 10-68, Provisional Corps, Vietnam, 7–20 Jul 68, 25 Jul 68, an. E, p. 

1, Historians files, CMH; ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, 1st Bde, 5th Div (Mech), pp. 2–3.

Soldiers of Company C, 1st Battalion, 61st Infantry, on patrol near the 

Demilitarized Zone
Staying the Course

602

The one change that received the most press attention, and the one for which 

General Abrams was most directly responsible, was the abandonment of Khe 

Sanh. In March, Abrams had made a point of reminding President Johnson—

who had feared the base would become another Dien Bien Phu—of how successful Westmoreland’s decision to hold the base had been. Nevertheless, the 

new MACV commander decided that Khe Sanh’s utility had come to an end. 

Hostile activity in the region had dropped off significantly since the bulk of the 

304th and 308th Divisions had withdrawn into Laos. With fewer targets, and 

with the president still firmly against the idea of mounting a cross-border raid 

into Laos, Abrams thought it was no longer desirable to maintain a large base 

in such a remote area. Most importantly, he believed allied interests in northern I Corps could best be served by minimizing large, static bases and by using 

the resources freed by closing such posts for mobile operations. Westmoreland 

had opposed closing Khe Sanh, as much for symbolic as for military reasons, 

but the decision was no longer his to make. Hoping that “some of the wind 

could be taken out of the sails of armchair strategists who double as news 

commentators and columnists,” the new Army chief of staff collaborated with 

the MACV commander in drawing up a list of reasons to explain the closure. 

The 3d Marine Division abandoned the base on 5 July, but the Army’s talking 

points dispelled little of the confusion back home over why this iconic base 

was now no longer necessary.12

The closing of the Marine base at Khe Sanh represented a significant 

deviation from Westmoreland’s approach to defending the northern border, 

but throughout the rest of I Corps, U.S. units continued operating much as 

they had before the change of command. The northernmost Army division 

in Stilwell’s XXIV Corps, General Tolson’s 1st Cavalry Division, spent the 

summer continuing Operation Jeb Stuart. Begun in January 1968, Jeb Stuart

was a search-and-clear operation conducted in the coastal lowlands and 

piedmont areas of southern Quang Tri and northern Thua Thien Provinces. 

Tolson’s 1st Brigade, commanded by Col. John Stannard, worked the lowlands 

around Quang Tri City with the South Vietnamese 1st Infantry Regiment to 

protect the town and the Revolutionary Development areas clustered to the 

north. Part of the 1st Brigade also operated from company-size landing zones 

in Base Area 101 to disrupt the enemy’s logistical pipeline that led back to the 

A Shau Valley. Meanwhile, Col. Robert M. MacKinnon’s 2d Brigade patrolled 

the region south and east of Quang Tri City, while the 3d Brigade, led by Col. 

Charles H. Curtis, covered the lowlands to the north of Hue from its base 

at Camp Evans. General Truong, commander of the South Vietnamese 1st 

Infantry Division, partnered with the 3d Brigade by having his elite reconnaissance unit, the Hac Bao Company, identify targets that Colonel Curtis’ 

airmobile units could engage. Lastly, Tolson employed the 3d Squadron, 5th 

Cavalry, an armored cavalry unit from the 9th Infantry Division on loan to 

12 Quote from Msg, Westmoreland HDA 2365 to Abrams, 28 Jun 68, p. 1, Westmoreland 

Msg Files, CMH. FRUS, 1964–1968, 6:463–64; Cosmas, Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973, pp. 

72, 116–18. 
603

A Summer of Attrition

him since February, to guard the logistical facility at Wunder Beach and the 

lines of communications that radiated from it.13

Under the protection of the 1st Cavalry Division and assisted by increasingly aggressive government security forces, the Revolutionary Development 

program flourished in Quang Tri during the summer of 1968. As they had 

done previously, all three U.S. brigades assisted pacification by working with 

provincial troops in conducting cordon-and-search, counterinfrastructure, rice 

denial, and night ambush operations. These activities weakened the enemy’s 

grip on the population and hurt his logistics, scooping up military supplies 

and huge quantities of rice. Tolson supplemented the destructive work with 

an active civic action campaign in which the division built a school, helped 

civilian communities with a variety of self-help projects, and provided medical 

and relief services.14

13 ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 1st Air Cav Div, 20 Aug 68, p. 2, box 5, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd 

Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 14 ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 1st Air Cav Div, pp. 2, 6, AC-1; ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, 1st Cav 

Div, 6 Dec 68, pp. 1–4, AD-1, AE-1, Historians files, CMH. For the state of affairs in Quang 

Tri, see the monthly reports filed by the CORDS advisory detachment kept in the Historians 

files at CMH. 

A UH–1D helicopter from the 1st Cavalry Division comes in 

for a landing with a CH–47 Chinook in the background.
Staying the Course

604

The three North Vietnamese units that typically operated in the Jeb Stuart

zone—the 6th, the 9th, and the 812th Regiments—assisted the recovery effort 

by staying in their mountain camps for most of the summer. The Viet Cong 

battalions that operated in the lowlands also kept a low profile. Those who 

failed to stay out of sight paid the price for their carelessness. On 26 June, 

scouts spotted the K4 Battalion from the 812th Regiment in woods eight kilometers east of Quang Tri City. The South Vietnamese 1st Infantry Regiment 

converged on the North Vietnamese battalion and killed a reported 148 enemy 

soldiers. The next day, scout helicopters of the 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry, discovered the 814th Local Force Battalion sheltering in the village of Binh An, 

some twelve kilometers northeast of Quang Tri City. After surrounding the 

village and allowing the civilians to evacuate, the 3d Squadron, 5th Cavalry, 

annihilated the enemy force, killing 225 enemy soldiers and capturing 44 over 

the course of two days. Such engagements reflected the growing ability of the 

1st Cavalry Division and its Vietnamese partners to destroy enemy units that 

ventured into the lowlands.15

Farther south in Thua Thien Province, General Barsanti and the 101st 

Airborne Division continued a similar search-and-clear mission begun during 

Westmoreland’s tenure, Operation Nevada Eagle. Barsanti’s mission in 

Nevada Eagle was to protect Hue and the surrounding districts. The general 

stationed the 2d Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, in the lowlands to help 

government forces defend Revolutionary Development areas and to prevent 

the enemy from acquiring rice during the summer harvest. The 1st Brigade, 

101st Airborne Division, and the 3d Brigade, 82d Airborne Division, operating in the foothills southwest of Hue, conducted spoiling attacks into Base 

Area 114 from the bases they had built along Route 547 in March and April. 

The division also exchanged mobile training teams with the South Vietnamese 

1st Division. The Vietnamese benefited from American instruction on the care 

and use of equipment, while the Americans gained insights into Viet Cong 

methods from the Vietnamese.16

The 2d Brigade’s commander, Colonel Cushman, set his sights on the 5th 

PAVN Regiment, the only main force unit that still roamed the districts south 

of Hue. After locating the North Vietnamese formation on 30 May, Cushman’s 

paratroopers hounded it for two weeks, killing more than 500 of its soldiers. 

Reduced to the size of a battalion, the battered regiment withdrew into the 

mountains southwest of Hue and did not return for the rest of the year.17

The absence of main force units in the coastal lowlands after mid-June 

put the district-based Viet Cong at greater risk to allied sweeps. Throughout 

the summer Barsanti and, after 17 July, his successor, Maj. Gen. Melvin Zais, 

pressed the enemy in support of pacification. In addition to conducting robust 

civic action and propaganda campaigns, the paratroopers employed frequent 

offensive operations, saturation patrols, cordon-and-search actions, and 

15 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 9-68, Provisional Corps, Vietnam, 23 Jun–6 Jul 68, 11 Jul 68, p. 1, 

Historians files, CMH. 16 ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, 101st Abn Div, pp. 11, 29.

17 Ibid., pp. 7–8.
605

A Summer of Attrition

night ambushes to erode the enemy’s 

ability to operate in populated areas. 

They captured large rice stockpiles but 

fought few battles. As usual, most of 

the cordons were combined operations. 

In one such action, three companies of 

U.S. paratroopers and some U.S. Navy 

boats teamed up with a Vietnamese 

National Police Field Force unit, 

a Popular Forces squad, a psychological operations broadcast team, a 

Provincial Reconnaissance Unit, and 

members of the Police Special Branch 

to search the hamlets of An Truyen and 

Ap Trieu Son on 8–9 August. The allies 

killed forty-three Viet Cong, captured 

twenty-three more, and apprehended 

forty criminals.18

Even more productive operations 

followed in late summer and early 

fall. With the enemy avoiding contact, Colonel Cushman introduced a 

technique called “the soft cordon.” 

Designed for use in populated areas 

where organized resistance was not 

expected, the technique minimized 

injury to civilians and destruction to property by limiting the use of artillery 

and firepower. Surprise and speed also helped keep casualties down. Once 

an area was sealed, detailed searches, universal detention and interrogation, 

night ambushes, and civic and propaganda actions rounded out the effort. 

The entire operation was carefully coordinated between U.S. and Vietnamese 

forces in accordance with government pacification plans. U.S. combat units 

worked closely with the territorial forces and the National Police. Perhaps the 

most important aspect of soft cordon, unlike other cordon operations, is that 

units thoroughly combed target areas for a week or more.19

Between 10 September and 31 October, soft cordon operations resulted in 

the death of 313 Viet Cong and the capture of 651 more, 252 of whom were 

members of the clandestine infrastructure. The division also captured over 400 

weapons and charged 77 people with civil crimes, while 120 Viet Cong turned 

themselves in. Allied losses totaled nine dead and fifty-eight wounded. Two of 

the dead and twenty-two of the wounded were Americans. More important 

than the favorable statistics was the boost these operations gave to pacification. 

For example, one of Cushman’s combined area clearance actions, Operation 

18 ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 101st Air Cav Div, 15 Aug 68, pp. 6–7, 18; ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 

68, 101st Abn Div, 22 Nov 68, pp. 2, 5, 14, 17–19. Both in Historians files, CMH. 19 ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, 101st Abn Div, pp. 6–10, 24 (quote)–26.

General Zais

(shown as lieutenant general)
Staying the Course

606

Lam Son 260, enabled over 9,000 of the 13,000 residents who had fled Thua 

Thien’s Vinh Loc District after Tet to return to their homes.20

Cushman’s tactics led some Viet Cong to despair. One demoralized guerrilla captured in July said that he had not seen a North Vietnamese soldier for 

two months. At the beginning of August, the senior adviser in Thua Thien 

Province, Col. Thomas W. Bowen, reported that the 2d Brigade’s “domination 

of the battlefield has accelerated the return of [the government’s] presence in 

the countryside,” and that “the people are beginning to believe that the government does have the upper hand.” More confirmation came in October when 

a U.S. patrol killed a Viet Cong major in Quang Dien District and found on 

his person a report dated in early September. “We used to say,” the major had 

written, “that [the Americans] go sweeping; it is not sweeping now, but we must 

say they go looking for underground bunkers.” The new “sweep and occupy” 

tactics, in which the Americans “do not leave any area unsearched, and they 

continue the search day after day,” had decimated both the guerrilla forces and 

the infrastructure in the district, leading many to defect and the population 

to “lose confidence in the final victory of the people’s revolution.” All this 

was good news for the Americans, yet the division still reported that civilians 

refused to volunteer information, as they knew that eventually the Americans 

would leave, and they feared what the Viet Cong would do to collaborators 

thereafter. Interesting also were aspects of the soft cordon technique described 

by the Viet Cong major that did not get much attention in U.S. reports, namely 

that the allies “fire a lot of artillery,” that they compelled people to leave Viet 

Cong–controlled areas, and that they “burned and destroyed everything left 

behind by the people in the liberation areas, including houses, temples, and 

even trees and bushes, and they forced the people to go back to the area to cut 

or defoliate by hand what they could not burn.” Even “soft” methods had a 

hard edge.21

While Cushman helped pacify the lowlands around Hue, in the highlands southwest of the city Colonel Collins’ 1st Brigade, 101st Air Cavalry 

Division, and the 3d Brigade of the 82d Airborne Division, commanded by 

Col. Lawrence L. Mowery, conducted frequent raids into Base Area 114 to 

prevent the North Vietnamese regiments who were hiding there—the 29th, the 

90th, and the 803d—from returning to the lowlands. Those units, still bruised 

from the two offensives, rarely challenged the incursions, even though that 

meant sacrificing many of their supplies. In mid-July, for example, a South 

Vietnamese patrol discovered a bunker containing 1,000 rocket-propelled gre20 Ibid.; Memo, CG, III MAF, for COMUSMACV, 14 Oct 68, sub: CORDS field Overview, 

pp. 2, 4, 9, Historians files, CMH. 21 Bowen quote from Rpt, Thua Thien Province, Advisory Team 3, 4 Aug 68, p. 1, 

Revolutionary Development files, CMH. Periodic Intel Rpt no. 26-68, III MAF, 23–29 Jun 

68, 30 Jun 68, p. 2; and Periodic Intel Rpt no. 29-68, III MAF, 14–20 Jul 68, 21 Jul 68, p. 6. 

Both in Historians files, CMH. ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 101st Abn Div, 15 Aug 68, p. 5, 

ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP; ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, 

101st Abn Div, pp. 3-1 to 3-3 (quotes).
607

A Summer of Attrition

nades, 100 boxes of small arms ammunition, and 53 boxes of machine gun 

ammunition.22

With the allied position looking strong along the Demilitarized Zone, and 

seeing no immediate threats to Quang Tri City or Hue, in August General 

Stilwell seized the opportunity to make another incursion into the A Shau 

Valley. Dubbed Operation Somerset Plain, the two-week raid would be 

the 101st Air Cavalry Division’s first large-scale airmobile assault. With the 

possibility of stiff resistance, the division initiated the operation by firing 

8,000 artillery rounds from ten batteries, several of which were located at two 

recently completed firebases, Eagle’s Nest and Georgia, on the eastern rim 

of the valley. Bombs dropped during fourteen B–52 strikes and four flights of 

fighter-bombers added to the devastation, while other aircraft dropped tear 

gas at the three western passes that connected the valley to Laos to impede 

enemy movements.23

The first flight of helicopters, loaded with troops from the 1st Brigade, 

101st Air Cavalry Division, now commanded by Col. Harold I. Hayward, 

landed near the abandoned A Luoi airfield in the central part of the valley 

22 ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 101st Abn Div, p. 2; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 29-68, III MAF, p. 3.

23 AAR, Opn Somerset Plain, 1st Bde, 101st Abn Div, n.d., pp. 9, 13, box 32, AARs, 

1965–1971, Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP.

Troops from the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, at Firebase Eagle’s Nest

in the A Shau Valley during Operation Somerset Plain.
Staying the Course

608

on 4 August 1968. Resistance was light and only one aircraft, a gunship, was 

forced to make an emergency landing after being hit by ground fire. The 

next day, several battalions from the South Vietnamese 1st Infantry Division 

landed into the southern part of the valley. All told, fifty helicopter flights 

were needed to bring the allied force into the A Shau. Most of the troops 

flew in from Firebase Birmingham just east of the valley, which XXIV Corps 

headquarters had designated as the operation’s forward supply point. Trucks 

brought supplies from Hue and Camp Eagle to Birmingham to reduce flight 

time and the physical wear on the helicopters. Once the materiel reached the 

firebase, CH–47 helicopters carried it to the main landing zones in the valley 

where it was reloaded onto UH–1 helicopters and then distributed to units in 

the field.24

The assault phase of Somerset Plain ended on 6 August with the 

arrival of the South Vietnamese Hac Bao Company. The reconnaissance unit 

joined the hunt for supply dumps. The enemy impeded the search with small 

ambushes and the occasional night mortar barrage. For the most part, the 

North Vietnamese avoided a stand-up fight because the odds were so clearly 

against them. The wisdom of that approach became clear on 10 and 11 August 

when the 816th and 818th Main Force Battalions came out of hiding to attack 

the South Vietnamese 3d Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, in the southern 

part of the valley. The allies brought air and artillery support to bear almost 

immediately, and the enemy retreated into the jungle after losing several dozen 

killed.25

On 16 August, the allies ended the search phase and began preparing to 

leave the valley. Excess equipment was either lifted out or destroyed. Troops 

demolished their temporary bases, going so far as to fill in every foxhole they 

had dug and to recover all the sandbags. Meanwhile, a pair of long-range 

reconnaissance patrol teams and elements of Company C, 326th Engineer 

Battalion, laid minefields at the western passes into Laos to discourage the 

enemy from returning. Each mine was fitted with a delay fuse to explode after 

a set number of days. Soldiers also placed sensors around the minefield to 

detect movement. A monitoring station at Firebase Eagle’s Nest used direct 

telephone lines to nearby artillery bases so that fire could be brought down 

quickly on the western passes if enemy activity was detected.26

The allies began the extraction phase of Somerset Plain on 17 August, 

airlifting out of the valley during the next three days without incident. The total 

number of North Vietnamese soldiers killed during the operation came to 181, 

with an additional 4 taken prisoner. The South Vietnamese lost eleven killed, 

eight of those from an allied 155-mm. shell that fell short. U.S. deaths came to 

seven, all from Company D of the 2d Battalion, 327th Infantry, after an errant 

air strike on 10 August that also wounded fifty-four men in the unit. The allies 

located and destroyed only a modest amount of supplies, which suggested that 

the North Vietnamese logistical system had still not recovered from Operation 

24 Ibid., p. 13.

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid., p. 17.
609

A Summer of Attrition

Delaware six months earlier. If the results were unremarkable, Somerset

Plain was notable as one of the few operations conducted by the newly coined 

101st Air Cavalry Division. On 15 September, the division changed its name 

once again, this time to 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile).27

The third Army division that operated in I Corps, the Americal Division, 

continued to assist the 1st Marine Division and the South Vietnamese 2d 

Infantry Division in the zone’s southern provinces. On 3 June, General Koster 

returned to the United States to become superintendent of the United States 

Military Academy. His deputy, Brig. Gen. George H. Young, ran the division 

until its new commander, Maj. Gen. Charles M. Gettys, took over on 23 June. 

Young was then reassigned to III Marine Amphibious Force where he became 

the commanding general of Support Command. His replacement as Americal’s 

assistant division commander was Brig. Gen. Howard H. Cooksey.28 

When General Gettys took charge of the Americal Division, the 196th 

Infantry Brigade (Light) under Colonel Gelling was engaged with Operation 

Wheeler/Wallowa in the Que Son Valley, Quang Nam Province, to keep the 

2d PAVN Division out of that vital breadbasket. His second formation, the 

27 Ibid., pp. 18–19.

28 ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, Americal Div, 7 Aug 68, p. 1, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd Historian, 

HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP.

Soldiers from Company A, 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry, 196th Infantry

Brigade, conduct a patrol near Chu Lai.
Staying the Course

610

198th Infantry Brigade (Light) led by Col. J. R. Waldie, continued Operation 

Burlington Trail in Quang Tin Province. It shielded the provincial capital 

of Tam Ky and the Chu Lai Air Base by maintaining an active hunt for the 

five Viet Cong battalions that operated in the hills to the west. Quang Ngai 

Province remained the bailiwick of Gettys’ third brigade, the 11th Infantry 

Brigade (Light), which employed four battalions under the command of 

Colonel Henderson to defend the provincial capital and the brigade’s base 

camp at Duc Pho. The division’s mechanized force, the 1st Squadron, 1st 

Cavalry, operated in all three provinces to protect lines of communications 

and to reinforce the infantry brigades as needed.29

As warning signs grew of a late summer offensive, Gettys tried to calculate 

the enemy’s most likely course of action. The 2d Division remained a threat to 

Tam Ky and Hoi An, while one or more regiments of the 3d Division, having 

moved into Quang Ngai Province in June, menaced its provincial capital. The 

31st, 36th, and 38th PAVN Regiments, new units that were composed of local 

force battalions as well as North Vietnamese fillers that had come down in the 

spring, endangered Da Nang.30

The 2d Division, which operated in and around the Que Son Valley, 

remained the preeminent threat in the Americal zone. Little had been seen 

of the division since May when the North Vietnamese unit had overrun the 

Kham Duc Special Forces camp and briefly threatened the Dak Pek Special 

Forces camp. At the beginning of July, allied intelligence picked up signs that 

the 1st Regiment and support elements from the 2d Division were converging on Hiep Duc at the western end of the valley. General Rosson ordered 

General Gettys to investigate. On 6 July, the Americal Division and the South 

Vietnamese 2d Infantry Division launched a combined operation named 

Operation Pocahontas Forest to search for the regiment and to preempt a 

possible attack on Hiep Duc.31

General Gettys formed a brigade-size task force commanded by his deputy 

to execute the mission. Task Force Cooksey contained two units from the 11th 

Infantry Brigade—the 4th Battalion, 3d Infantry, and the 4th Battalion, 21st 

Infantry—as well as one from the 196th Infantry Brigade, the 4th Battalion, 

31st Infantry. A mechanized platoon from Troop F, 17th Cavalry, a company 

from the 26th Engineer Battalion, and four mobile strike force companies 

composed of Montagnards rounded out the force. The South Vietnamese 2d 

Infantry Division organized a separate combat group based around the 2d 

and the 4th Battalions, 5th Infantry Regiment, and supported by one artillery 

battery.32

During the first week of Pocahontas Forest, allied troops found a few 

supply caches in the hills around Hiep Duc, but no sign of the 1st Regiment. 

29 Ibid., pp. 7, 11.

30 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 27-68, III MAF, 30 Jun–6 Jul 68, 7 Jul 68, pp. 3, A-9. Periodic Intel 

Rpt no. 28-68, III MAF, 7–13 Jul 68, 14 Jul 68, p. 5. Both in Historians files, CMH. 31 Historical Rpt, Opn Pocahontas Forest, 3d Mil Hist Det, n.d., p. 1, box 2, 3d Mil Hist 

Det, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 32 Ibid., p. 2.
611

A Summer of Attrition

General Gettys expanded the search on 11 July when he attached the 5th 

Battalion, 46th Infantry, to Task Force Cooksey, and then added a fifth unit, 

the 2d Battalion, 1st Infantry, ten days later. The wider net caught only a few 

minnows. The month-long operation netted just 127 enemy soldiers. Task 

Force Cooksey reported its own losses as eighteen killed. Nevertheless, the 

main goal of Pocahontas Forest had been achieved. The sweep had kept 

the 1st Regiment away from Hiep Duc and allowed the Americal Division to 

build a series of firebases at the western end of the Que Son Valley, actions 

that supported pacification.33

The 198th Infantry Brigade, which patrolled the rolling hills south of the 

Que Son Valley, also saw few signs of the enemy that summer. The only major 

contact in the Burlington Trail sector came on 23 July when elements of the 

1st Squadron, 1st Cavalry, operating under the command of Colonel Waldie, 

engaged the 105th Local Force Company and elements of the 2d Division’s engineer battalion near the southern mouth of the valley, ten kilometers northeast 

of Tam Ky. Sixty-eight enemy soldiers died in the brief fight. The discovery 

that North Vietnamese engineers were operating alongside local force soldiers 

suggested that the 2d Division was preparing for new attacks in the lowlands. 

That theory gained credence three days later when the Americal Division captured a North Vietnamese soldier south of Hiep Duc. The prisoner claimed 

that his unit, the 21st Regiment, 2d Division, was conducting a resupply mission near Kham Duc but intended to enter the Que Son Valley in August for 

a new offensive.34 

Colonel Henderson’s 11th Infantry Brigade in Quang Ngai Province to the 

south also saw relatively little action in June and July. On 10 June, Henderson 

terminated Operation Muscatine, a five-week search for Viet Cong units west 

of Quang Ngai City. That campaign had killed only seventy-two enemy soldiers but had produced more than one hundred U.S. casualties, mainly from 

mines and traps. Henderson then waited for solid intelligence on the location 

of the enemy before starting a new operation. He got that lead on 15 June 

when the 3d Battalion, 1st Infantry, captured two North Vietnamese soldiers 

from the 22d Regiment, 3d Division, in the foothills west of Quang Ngai City. 

Their capture was the first indication that elements of the 3d Division had 

moved north from Binh Dinh Province into southern I Corps. 

General Gettys and the commander of the South Vietnamese 2d Infantry 

Division, Colonel Tuan, organized a three-pronged search for the 22d 

Regiment. On 19 June, the 3d Battalion, 1st Infantry, commenced Operation 

Chattahoochee Swamp in the foothills southwest of Quang Ngai City near 

the Ha Thanh Special Forces camp. Another unit from the 11th Infantry 

Brigade, the 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, assumed the defense of the Duc Pho 

base. The next day, the 5th Battalion, 46th Infantry, from the 198th Infantry 

Brigade launched a separate operation northwest of Quang Ngai City called 

Vance Canyon to scour the area around the Tra Bong Special Forces camp. 

Colonel Henderson’s 1st Battalion, 52d Infantry, assumed the defense of the 

33 Ibid., p. 7.

34 ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, Americal Div, p. 11.
Staying the Course

612

Chu Lai Special Zone. Colonel Tuan launched his own operation with six battalions to search the river valley that lay between the American sectors.35

The sweeps netted little. In their first week, the two Americal operations 

killed less than two dozen enemy. Convinced that the 22d Regiment had moved 

out of the area, Gettys ended Chattahoochee Swamp on 29 June and Vance

Canyon three days later. For the moment at least, North Vietnamese units 

throughout Military Region 5, the area that encompassed southern I Corps 

and northern II Corps, were staying out of sight.36

Besides conducting these major operations, the Americal Division 

exchanged training missions with the South Vietnamese 2d Division and conducted many combat missions, both large and small, with Vietnamese forces. 

It also assisted pacification through a variety of activities. During Operation 

Golden Fleece, it helped protect the rice harvest, securing by the end of 

October over 6,105 tons of rice and capturing from the enemy another 110 

tons. From May through October, Americal Division trucks hauled 4,799 tons 

of construction supplies and food for CORDS, while the division’s units and 

personnel donated an additional 30,000 tons of relief supplies and $7,000 in 

cash. Working closely with Vietnamese and CORDS officials, division medical 

teams treated 180,000 people, and division units helped civilians build schools, 

wells, dispensaries, markets, a hospital, and a variety of other small community projects. The enemy took note, and on 26 September, a sniper attempted 

to assassinate the commander of the 11th Infantry Brigade, a district chief, 

and several other senior officials in Duc Pho town, Quang Ngai Province, 

as they dedicated a marketplace the brigade had helped build. The assassin 

wounded one Vietnamese official before being apprehended.37

One of the division’s premier projects during the summer was the construction of Ky My, a community in Quang Tin Province’s Hau Duc District 

designed to resettle refugees close to their original homes. The division spearheaded the U.S.–South Vietnamese venture, which produced nicer homes than 

the ones people had left behind, but authorities had difficulty coaxing people 

to move in. The prospective inhabitants wondered if they would have sufficient security, mainly because they felt the new community would be a prime 

target for the Viet Cong. Their concerns were justified. On 28 June, guerrillas 

attacked the refugee hamlet of Son Tra in Quang Ngai Province, killing 78 

refugees and Revolutionary Development cadre, wounding 74 civilians, and 

destroying 570 homes. Like Ky My, Son Tra was one of the “safe haven” communities championed by CORDS advisers to return refugees to areas near 

their original homes, in this case the devastated and largely depopulated Binh 

Son District. 

Determined to stop government encroachment and to drive people back 

into “liberated” areas, the guerrillas conducted many similar outrages throughout the summer. In August, for example, they torched 257 homes and inflicted 

35 Ibid., p. 24.

36 Ibid., p. 28.

37 ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, Americal Div, pp. 30–31; ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, Americal Div, 

7 Nov 68, pp. 14, 40, Historians files, CMH.
613

A Summer of Attrition

17 civilian casualties in Dong Thoi refugee camp in Quang Tin’s Thang Binh 

District. The incendiary raid was just one of 25 similar incidents in I Corps 

that month that left 4,000 people homeless. Whenever one of these incidents 

occurred, U.S. military units, CORDS advisers, and Vietnamese officials 

banded together to repair the physical damage as quickly as possible, but the 

psychological scars were more difficult to mend.38

Like other divisions, Americal worked closely with province and district 

Phoenix committees, neutralizing fifty-six members of the Viet Cong infrastructure between July and September. The division operated its own network of spies that helped thwart several attacks. It was also a leader in the 

Volunteer Informant Program (VIP), in which units paid civilians for information. General Gettys’ division accounted for 90 percent of VIP disbursements 

in I Corps and 45 percent nationwide. Sixty percent of the informants were 

children. Typically, informants turned in war materiel. In August, Americal’s 

38 Memos, CG, III MAF, for COMUSMACV, 14 Jul 68, p. 17; CG, and III MAF, for 

COMUSMACV, 13 Sep 68, sub: CORDS field Overview, p. 3; ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, Americal 

Div, pp. 41–43; ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, Americal Div, pp. 41–43; Rpts, CORDS, Senior 

Adviser, Quang Tin Province, 3 Jul 68, p. 2; and CORDS, Senior Adviser, Quang Tin Province, 

2 Aug 68, p. 2; Memos, CORDS, Senior Adviser, Quang Ngai Province, for CORDS, III MAF, 

30 Jun 68, sub: Monthly Report, p. 1; and CORDS, Senior Adviser, Quang Tin Province, for 

CORDS, III MAF, 3 Sep 68, sub: Monthly Report, p. 2. All in Historians files, CMH.

A military policeman from the Americal Division issues health and comfort 

items to a detainee at the prisioner-of-war collection center in Chu Lai.
Staying the Course

614

VIP resulted in the acquisition of 197 artillery, 1,004 mortar, and 22,560 small 

arms munitions, 41 mines, and 37 pounds of explosives. The program generated almost no intelligence about the Viet Cong themselves, however, a subject 

most people felt was too risky to discuss.39 

During the summer of 1968, U.S. forces had maintained stability in I 

Corps. They had kept the enemy’s conventional forces largely out of populated 

areas and in some cases had eroded the Viet Cong’s presence among the population. In addition to their many combat activities, XXIV Corps’ soldiers and 

marines had devoted 34,000 hours to civic action work between August and 

October, accomplishing many worthy endeavors. CORDS officials reported 

solid progress in pacification in Quang Tri and Thua Thien Provinces, with 

Quang Tin Province showing gains as well. The situations in Quang Ngai, 

and particularly Quang Nam, were less satisfactory. These provinces had been 

lagging behind the rest of I Corps in 1967, and the Tet offensive had only 

worsened their plight. During the summer, assassinations, kidnappings, and 

other incidents of terror and harassment had increased in southern I Corps, 

keeping it off balance. Local officials and security forces had achieved modest 

progress in spreading government control in Quang Ngai, but had made little 

headway in Quang Nam. Taken as a whole, Hamlet Evaluation System (HES) 

scores in I Corps rose from 51 percent rated relatively secure in June to 52.7 

percent in August. If the summer of 1968 was to be a critical period of the war, 

allied success in I Corps had been modest.40 

Operations in II Corps

At the start of the southwest monsoon season, most of I Field Force commander General Peers’ nineteen maneuver battalions were committed to operations in northern II Corps. The 4th Infantry Division continued Operation 

MacArthur, its long-standing defense of the western highlands, while to the 

east the 173d Airborne Brigade continued to assist in protecting populated 

areas in the coastal provinces. During the first half of June, the allies spotted a 

number of North Vietnamese units withdrawing from II Corps. General Peers 

learned that the 2d Regiment and the 22d Regiment of the 3d PAVN Division

had moved into southern Quang Ngai Province, most likely headed for Base 

Areas 118 and 120 in the mountains west of the provincial capital. The 325C 

Division and the 1st Division appeared to have withdrawn from Kontum 

Province to Base Area 701 in Laos. Two units formerly attached to the B3 

Front—the 32d and 33d Regiments—were reportedly heading south toward 

III Corps. “If this is the case,” General Abrams wrote to Peers on 22 June, 

39 ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, Americal Div, pp. 18–19, 77; ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, Americal 

Div, p. 50. 40 ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, HQ, XXIV Corps, 20 Aug 68, pp. 17–20, Historians files, CMH; 

Memo, CG, III MAF, for COMUSMACV, 14 Oct 68, p. 4; Rpt, OASD, Systems Analysis 

(Southeast Asia Programs), Statistical Tables through October 1968, n.d., table 5a, Historians 

files, CMH.
615

A Summer of Attrition

“I should think you would have at hand 

a period of two or three weeks at least 

in which U.S., Republic of Korea, and 

Army of South Vietnam forces could rise 

up and really mop up” the enemy units 

that still remained in II Corps. Abrams’ 

hope would not be realized. As had been 

the case since the start of the war, allied 

formations had great difficulty locating the enemy once he went to ground. 

By withdrawing across the border or 

into remote sanctuaries inside South 

Vietnam, by making the most of concealing and difficult terrain, and by breaking 

down into small detachments and avoiding contact, the enemy effectively denied 

the allies decisive engagements.41

In the Central Highlands, the commander of the 4th Infantry Division, 

General Stone, continued his trifold mission of screening the border, protecting 

provincial capitals and the roads that 

served them, and assisting pacification. 

His 1st Brigade guarded the area between 

Dak To and Dak Pek in northwestern Kontum Province, his 3d Brigade monitored the Polei Kleng region to the west of Kontum City, and his 2d Brigade 

stood in reserve to the south in Pleiku Province. Operations varied based on 

the mission assigned. Being deepest into enemy territory, the 1st Brigade conducted mostly search-and-destroy and patrol missions, while the 3d Brigade, 

stationed closer to Kontum’s population centers, performed more security and 

village cordon-and-search activities. Regardless of where combat operations 

took place, Stone encouraged his subordinates to integrate provincial civil 

affairs advisers into their activities to smooth relations with the inhabitants 

and avoid unnecessary property destruction.42 

Throughout the summer, the division continued its Good Neighbor program in the protected zone outside of Kontum City, with twenty-four civic 

action teams working daily. Stone also continued consolidating small, vulnerable hamlets in the Good Neighbor zone into larger, more defensible villages, 

with eight communities undergoing such a transition. Further afield, each 

of the division’s brigades continued to perform the normal slate of medical, 

sanitation, construction, and humanitarian activities associated with the civic 

41 Quote from Msg, Abrams MAC 6252 to Peers, 22 Jun 68, Abrams Msg files, CMH. 

Periodic Intel Rpt no. 26-68, I FFV, 23–29 Jun 68, 29 Jun 68, p. 3; ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, HQ, 

I FFV, 15 Aug 68, p. 1. Both in Historians files, CMH. 42 ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 4th Inf Div, n.d., p. 44, Historians files, CMH.

General Stone
Staying the Course

616

action program, with the 1st Brigade forming a combined South Vietnamese 

Army–U.S. Army civic action team.43

On 1 July, the 4th Infantry Division, like all other units in I Field Force, 

formally relinquished the last of its Regional and Popular Forces training 

teams to CORDS. The transfer did not mean that U.S. combat units stopped 

working with the territorials. Stone directed his brigade commanders to provide any assistance the new MACV mobile advisory teams might request. Last 

but not least, he continued to do his part in helping to strengthen the indigenous military.44 

In June, General Peers had given expression to MACV policy by ordering that all I Field Force operations be given a Vietnamese name as well as 

an English name to emphasize the importance of combined activities. Thus, 

Operation MacArthur became Operation Binh Tay–MacArthur. The 

change was often symbolic, as U.S. units had already been cooperating 

with the Vietnamese. In practice, the extent of Vietnamese participation in 

U.S. operations under what Peers called the “pair off” system varied widely 

depending on the circumstances. Still, cooperation frequently occurred. Thus 

between August and October, the 3d Brigade, 4th Division, participated in 

twenty-two combined operations with the South Vietnamese Army, forty-six 

with the Regional and Popular Forces and the CIDG, and twenty-three with 

the National Police. Meanwhile, the division provided training in long-range 

reconnaissance patrolling to Vietnamese regulars and initiated an exchange 

program in which the U.S. 4th Division, the South Vietnamese 22d Division, 

and the South Korean Capital Division traded officers for two-week stints. 

The division also began training former Communist soldiers to work as Kit 

Carson Scouts.45

Contact with the enemy was light during the summer, with the 4th Infantry 

Division killing 1,500 Communist troops and capturing 437 weapons and 

21 tons of food between May and October. The division provided 102,000 

civilians with medical exams, and distributed 233,000 youth health packets, 

27 tons of food, and 3.6 tons of clothing. It also assisted with hundreds of 

civil construction projects, from latrines to churches. The officers and men of 

the 1st Brigade supplemented the official civic action program by donating 

$860 of their own money to a school in Kontum. Behind the shield provided 

by the division, CORDS advisers in Kontum, Pleiku, and Darlac reported 

satisfactory progress in most pacification programs, although the amount of 

territory controlled by the government remained unchanged. The price the 

division paid during the summer for these achievements was 303 men killed 

and 1,500 wounded.46

43 Ibid., pp. 23–24; ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, 4th Inf Div, n.d., pp. 24–26, Historians files, 

CMH. 44 ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, 4th Inf Div, p. 12; ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 4th Inf Div, pp. 

13–14. 45 ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 4th Inf Div, p. 12; ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, 3d Bde, 4th Inf Div, 

4 Nov 68, p. 42, Historians files, CMH. 46 ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 4th Inf Div, pp. 10, 23–29; ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, 4th Inf Div, 

pp. 7, 24–30; Rpts, CORDS, province adviser, Jun–Sep 1968, Historians files, CMH.
617

A Summer of Attrition

While the 4th Infantry Division screened II Corps’ western frontier, General 

Allen’s 173d Airborne Brigade scattered its resources along Vietnam’s central 

coast. The brigade’s largest concentration of forces, and its most important 

mission, lay in northeastern Binh Dinh Province. Here two airborne battalions 

assisted by the mechanized 1st Battalion, 50th Infantry, and a company of 

M48 tanks from the 1st Battalion, 69th Armor, continued Operation Cochise

on the Bong Son Plain.47

General Peers was eager to exploit the enemy’s relative passivity in eastern 

II Corps as the Communists tried to recover from their two failed offensives, 

but problems in the South Vietnamese command structure posed difficulties. 

The I Field Force commander thought highly of his counterpart, General Lan, 

who had displayed great energy since taking control of II Corps in March. 

However, Lan lacked the political influence of his predecessor, General Vinh 

Loc, which put Lan at a disadvantage when dealing with willful subordinates. 

That weakness was particularly evident in Binh Dinh Province. Whenever the 

commander of the South Vietnamese 22d Infantry Division, General Hieu, 

wished to organize mobile operations with his 40th Infantry Regiment, based 

at Landing Zone English, or his 41st Infantry Regiment, based at Landing 

Zone Crystal, he had to negotiate with the powerful province chief, Lt. 

Col. Phan Minh Tho, who used those same units to support the pacification 

program. The relationship between the two officers—Peers called it a “vendetta”—had been simmering for years, and to make matters worse, both of 

Hieu’s regimental commanders enjoyed a close relationship with the province 

chief. The result was a pair of regiments that rarely sought the enemy. Peers 

hoped that the temporary absence of the 3d Division would give Hieu the 

opportunity to shake things up in Binh Dinh.48

Those hopes were not fulfilled. Despite attempts by General Allen to get 

the South Vietnamese 22d Division more involved in mobile operations with 

the 173d Airborne Brigade, General Hieu seemed unable or unwilling to free 

up the 40th and 41st Infantry Regiments from their security missions across 

the Bong Son and Phu My lowlands. One of the four battalions from each 

regiment was technically “free” at any given time, but usually received training 

during that period and was not available for operations. Such was the dilemma 

for South Vietnamese officers who had to juggle pacification and modernization programs while trying to develop a mobile offensive capability.

An incident near Tam Quan at the northern edge of the Bong Son Plain 

further highlighted U.S. concerns. On the afternoon of 22 July, enemy mortar 

crews attacked Landing Zone Tom, a firebase on the northeast side of the 

village that contained a battery of U.S. 155-mm. howitzers and a South 

Vietnamese infantry company. When the shelling began, a detachment from 

the U.S. 19th Engineer Battalion that was making repairs to Highway 1 near 

Landing Zone Tom got in its vehicles and drove south to escape the danger. 

Hot on its heels came several armored personnel carriers from the South 

47 Msg, Abrams MAC 7315 to Wheeler, 3 Jun 68, pp. 3–4, Westmoreland Msg files, CMH.

48 Quoted words from Msg, Peers NHT 1011 to Abrams, 14 Jul 68, p. 3, Abrams Msg files, 

CMH.
Staying the Course

618

Vietnamese 3d Battalion, 40th Infantry, which rolled out of Landing Zone 

Tom to investigate the mortar fire. As the engineers were passing through the 

southern part of Tam Quan, they came under heavy fire. The South Vietnamese 

mechanized troopers who were behind them backed out of the ambush zone, 

leaving behind one damaged vehicle and abandoning the Americans at the 

head of the column.49

General Allen offered to send in his paratroopers, but Lt. Col. Nguyen 

Ba Thinh, the commander of the South Vietnamese 40th Infantry, insisted on 

leading the counterattack. At Colonel Thinh’s request, U.S. helicopters landed 

one of his battalions on the outskirts of Tam Quan. With darkness setting in 

and hostile fire coming from the village, the battalion commander elected to 

stay put at the landing zone. Exasperated, Allen dispatched several of his own 

companies to surround the ambush site before sending in his reconnaissance 

platoon to look for survivors. Arriving at 2230, the platoon found a grim scene: 

seventeen allied bodies, including twelve U.S. engineers, two U.S. technical 

advisers, and three South Vietnamese soldiers. One armored personnel carrier 

had been destroyed, and three armored personnel carriers and six engineer 

vehicles had been heavily damaged. Only two Americans, one wounded and 

one unhurt, were still alive. Enemy losses were unknown.50

General Peers hid none of his dismay when he spoke to General Lan about 

the incident. The I Field Force commander warned his counterpart that security in northern Binh Dinh Province was “regressing” because Hieu refused 

to challenge his long-serving regimental commanders, “who are acting like 

small time warlords.” Both South Vietnamese colonels observed entirely “selfimposed” limits that gave them an excuse to avoid operations with the 173d 

Airborne Brigade in the mountains overlooking the Bong Son Plain. General 

Lan promised to light a fire under Hieu, but Peers knew that improvements 

were likely to come slowly if at all.51

If the Americans were frustrated by their inability to get the Vietnamese 

regulars out on the offensive, they realized there was much to do on the pacification front. The allies considered two-thirds of the 350,000 people living 

in the Cochise area of operations to be heavily influenced by the Viet Cong. 

With the 3d PAVN Division making itself scarce, General Allen was able to 

focus much of the brigade’s energy on attacking the local Viet Cong apparatus. Making the most use of long-range reconnaissance patrols to screen 

the approaches to the Bong Son Plain, Allen combined his battalions with 

South Vietnamese forces to conduct frequent security sweeps in the northern 

lowlands.52

Like other U.S. commanders, Allen found it challenging to operate in 

populated areas where the enemy exercised a deep presence. One of the most 

serious problems was the steady stream of casualties inflicted on U.S. soldiers 

49 Msg, Peers NHT1064 to Abrams, 24 Jul 68, pp. 1–2, Abrams Msg files, CMH. 

50 Ibid.

51 Ibid., p. 3; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 30-68, I FFV, 21–27 Jul 68, 27 Jul 68, p. 4, Historians 

files, CMH. 52 ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, 173d Abn Bde, 15 Nov 68, p. 37, Historians files, CMH.
619

A Summer of Attrition

by booby traps. During the summer, Allen’s paratroopers discovered and 

disarmed 125 traps but inadvertently triggered an additional 300 that killed 

several men and left another 150 wounded. Whenever possible, troops followed armored vehicles whose weight detonated antipersonnel devices before 

the infantry reached them. Antitank mines not discovered by observation or 

electronic detectors were rarely powerful enough to damage tanks and did 

minimal harm to armored personnel carriers, but the force of the blast could 

injure those inside a carrier, and for this reason many soldiers rode atop, rather 

than inside, M113s. When vehicles were unable to enter a suspicious area or 

were otherwise unavailable, the lead man in a patrol carried a grappling hook 

attached to a nine-meter nylon cord. Lying prone, the soldier would toss the 

hook over a suspicious patch, then drag it back to snare possible booby trap 

wires. Former Viet Cong recruited as Kit Carson Scouts were particularly adept 

in identifying traps, and during the summer the brigade rapidly increased the 

number of scouts.53

As was the case throughout Vietnam, Allen recorded that “booby traps 

were very bad psychologically for our young paratroopers and commanders, 

in that the men develop a sometimes bitter hatred for the local villagers. The 

men have every reason to believe, and are sometimes correct in this belief, that 

the booby traps are made by the very people they see living in the villages.” 

53 Ibid., p. 85.

A Viet Cong wire-rigged grenade booby trap
Staying the Course

620

Other Viet Cong tactics, such as opening fire from a house before retreating 

behind a shield of women and children, were equally galling to U.S. soldiers. 

Recognizing that his men might take their frustrations out on the populace, 

Allen made a strong effort to enforce long-standing MACV guidance on correct behavior toward civilians and prisoners. He ordered his battalion commanders to monitor their men closely and occasionally went out on operations 

to observe firsthand how his men behaved. The brigade investigated incidents 

involving the injury or mistreatment of civilians and provided compensation 

and assistance when U.S. actions, whether deliberate or accidental, harmed 

civilians. His leadership helped avoid an incident like My Lai, despite the similar operational conditions.54

Complementing Allen’s insistence on proper conduct were his policies on 

the use of fire support in heavily populated areas. Like Colonel Cushman, he 

ordered commanders not to use artillery or airpower in villages unless they 

were engaging a significant enemy unit, in which case they could employ the 

full panoply of firepower available to minimize U.S. casualties. Allen reported 

that his emphasis on proper conduct and firepower restraint helped keep the 

loss of civilian life and property to a minimum. Other factors that contributed to the small number of civilian casualties during operations were the fact 

that every home usually had an underground bunker, and that when an enemy 

main force unit entered a village, many civilians would immediately depart 

before a battle began.55

As it conducted its operations, the 173d Airborne Brigade fully participated in the program to ameliorate civilian suffering and to win public support. Working closely with CORDS advisers and local officials, it treated 

12,000 civilian patients between June and August and assisted in a number 

of humanitarian and community improvement projects. After guerrillas 

destroyed the refugee hamlet of Ngoc An, located south of Bong Son town, 

when its residents refused to return to Communist-controlled territory, the 

brigade gave building materials to the ninety-six families the Viet Cong had 

made homeless. These supplies represented just part of the over thirteen tons 

of construction materials and sixteen tons of food that the brigade delivered 

to communities during the summer.56

On 22 August, Generals Hieu and Allen launched Operation Dan Sinh

22-6, a three-phased pacification-support operation by six battalions (three 

U.S. and three South Vietnamese) to clear the Bong Son Plain. The operation 

differed from the brigade’s previous activities in that, like Colonel Cushman to 

the north, Allen kept allied units in a particular village for a week or two before 

relocating them to another area, thus allowing sufficient time for an in-depth 

search. Otherwise, the techniques he used were indistinguishable from those 

used by all U.S. units in Vietnam for years. Phase I lasted until 6 September 

and consisted of search-and-clear operations across the entire plain. Aided by 

54 Ibid., pp. 84–85.

55 Ibid., pp. 84–86.

56 ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, 173d Abn Bde, pp. 56–58, 82–83; ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 173d 

Abn Bde, 15 Aug 68, pp. 29, 40–41, 55-2, Historians files, CMH.
621

A Summer of Attrition

the extensive use of Rome plows, the allies uncovered and destroyed numerous 

tunnels, caves, fortifications, and traps. Phase II lasted from 7 September to 27 

October, during which time the allies used cordon-and-search actions to screen 

the population. For small communities, the brigade would send a rifle company 

to establish a cordon either at dusk or at dawn. The screening of inhabitants 

became more productive once Vietnamese authorities assigned a company of 

National Police to assist in the interrogations. Popular Forces soldiers also 

helped with the search, while civic action personnel addressed local needs and 

Communist defectors organized into armed propaganda teams proselytized 

the residents. By the end of Phase II, the allies had interrogated nearly 13,000 

people, killed 237 Viet Cong, and detained 122 confirmed and 115 suspected 

enemy personnel. They had also captured seventy-one weapons. During Phase 

III, which was to start 28 October with no definite end date, Allen intended to 

saturate the Bong Son Plain with patrols to prevent the enemy from returning, 

creating a fertile environment for pacification activities. Allied operations on 

the Bong Son Plain helped the province as a whole inch up in the hamlet evaluation standings to a point where by 31 September allied officials considered 

over 71 percent of the province’s population to be relatively secure.57

Allen considered the operation a success. He particularly felt that keeping units in a given locale for an extended period was much more productive 

than a short stay. But he also recognized that such operations were only possible when the enemy’s conventional forces were absent, and that gains could 

easily be lost if an enemy incursion or demands for troops elsewhere led to 

a diminishment of attention, a dilemma that had confronted the allies from 

the start. Consequently, he strongly supported MACV’s long-standing policy 

of using U.S. units to improve the efficiency of the South Vietnamese armed 

forces. Both in the Cochise area of operations and elsewhere in II Corps, he 

“paired off” one U.S. battalion with a South Vietnamese regiment to conduct combined operations and training. He emphasized helping the territorial 

forces, which was the key to establishing permanent control over the hamlets. 

Despite formal relinquishment of the territorial training mission to CORDS, 

he formed an ad hoc team to help a Popular Forces unit build village defenses 

and another to help territorials improve their bridge security techniques. In 

July, he established a Regional and Popular Forces leadership school at An 

Khe that graduated one hundred students per month. The initiative inspired 

General Peers to order the 4th Infantry Division to create a similar academy. 

Allen also created a Regional and Popular Forces Affairs Office within the brigade headquarters that served as a liaison with the territorials. One officer in 

every battalion was charged with knowing everything there was to know about 

the territorial forces operating in his unit’s sector. The officer helped integrate 

territorial troops into battalion operations and provided assistance to those 

forces, thereby supplementing CORDS’ training and development effort. The 

brigade also began giving out awards to individual territorial soldiers to boost 

57 ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 173d Abn Bde, pp. 37–38, 85; AAR, Opn Cochise-Dan Sinh, 31 

Mar 68–31 Jan 69, 173d Abn Bde, 2 Mar 69; Rpt, CORDS, Monthly Pacification Status Rpt, 

Hamlet Evaluation System, 30 Sep 68, pp. 2–5. All in Historians files, CMH.
Staying the Course

622

their esprit, with 1st Sgt. Pham Dai receiving the Bronze Star Medal with “V” 

device for valor.58

While Allen focused most of his attention on the Cochise area of operations, small task forces performed other missions in eastern II Corps. In 

Operation Walker, one battalion defended the brigade’s main base at An 

Khe in western Binh Dinh Province and the road that ran through it linking 

Pleiku City with the coastal logistics hub at Qui Nhon. While important, the 

mission generated little combat in the summer of 1968. Another battalion task 

force continued Operation Bolling in the populated basin surrounding Phu 

Yen’s capital of Tuy Hoa. The force conducted search-and-destroy operations 

and protected roads and farmers harvesting rice. It, too, had little contact with 

the enemy, both because he had withdrawn to lick his wounds and because the 

area was largely under government control. Finally, a third airborne task force 

based in Phan Thiet, Binh Thuan Province, continued Operation McLain

(the successor to Operation Byrd) in southern II Corps alongside South 

Vietnamese Army units.59

58 ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 173d Abn Bde, pp. 26, 55-1, 55-3; ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, 173d 

Abn Bde, pp. 32–33, 40–53, 86–87. 59 ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, HQ, I FFV, p. 14; ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, HQ, I FFV, 9 Mar 

69, p. 66, Historians files, CMH.

 South Vietnamese soldiers during training
623

A Summer of Attrition

Southern II Corps had generally been a quiet area, but Peers and Allen 

found cause for concern during the summer. The region fell under the supervision of the South Vietnamese 23d Infantry Division. One senior U.S. officer 

considered the division commander, General An, to be “an absolutely superb 

commander.” Unfortunately, the same could not be said for his subordinates. 

General An lacked confidence in the commander of the 44th Infantry, Lt. Col. 

Vo Kham, whose mission was to defend Binh Thuan and Lam Dong Provinces. 

As for Kham’s battalion commanders, Peers reported to Abrams that none 

could be classified as an effective officer, “even in ARVN terms.” General An 

was also disenchanted with Lt. Col. Ho Huu Dong, the commander of the 

South Vietnamese 2d Ranger Group. His three ranger battalions served as II 

Corps’ main exploitation force, but Colonel Dong had become exceedingly 

cautious after his units had sustained heavy casualties during Tet.60

Problems surfaced in May, when the Viet Cong defeated the Vietnamese 

22d Ranger Battalion in Tuyen Duc Province. Then on the twenty-eighth, the 

186th Local Force Battalion briefly occupied a portion of the provincial capital 

at Da Lat. General Lan redeployed the South Vietnamese 2d Ranger Group 

to protect the city, but on the first of June the enemy mauled one of Colonel 

Dong’s battalions west of town. Two days later, the Viet Cong ambushed a 

Regional Forces company near Bao Loc in neighboring Lam Dong Province. 

On the fifth and seventh of June, South Vietnamese troops in southern Ninh 

Thuan Province lost two engagements with the Viet Cong near Phan Rang. 

The string of setbacks prompted General Lan to ask for U.S. assistance.61

On 8 June, Peers ordered the commander of Task Force South, Colonel 

Cleland, to suspend Operation McLain in Ninh Thuan Province so that his 

combat group—the 3d Battalion, 506th Infantry, the 192d Assault Helicopter 

Company, and a pair of 105-mm. howitzer batteries—could move to Da Lat. 

Peers designated Cleland’s search for the 186th Battalion as Operation Banjo

Royce. The I Field Force commander also directed General Allen to detach 

a company from the 4th Battalion, 503d Infantry, currently engaged with 

Operation Bolling, for temporary duty in Lam Dong Province.

Task Force South came up empty in Tuyen Duc Province, but on 17 

June Company C from the 4th Battalion, 503d Infantry, came upon the 145th 

Main Force Battalion near Bao Loc, resulting in a sharp battle that cost the 

Americans seven killed and thirty-three wounded. Eager to regain contact, 

Allen airlifted the 3d Battalion, 503d Infantry, 173d Airborne Brigade, 

from the Cochise sector in Binh Dinh Province to Bao Loc, whereupon it 

commenced Operation Harmon Green with its sister company from the 

4th Battalion. General Lan reinforced the mission with two battalions from 

the South Vietnamese 2d Ranger Group (now under the command of Maj. 

Bui Van Sam, who replaced the lackluster Colonel Dong) and three mobile 

strike force companies. Lan and Peers also established a new combined 

60 First quote from Interv, George L. MacGarrigle with Maj Gen Charles P. Stone, 3 Mar 74, 

Historians files, CMH. Second quote from Msg, Peers NHT 742 to Abrams, 5 Jun 68, Abrams 

Msg files, CMH. 61 ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, HQ, I FFV, pp. 20–21.
Staying the Course

624

headquarters in Da Lat to share intelligence and to coordinate operations 

in southern II Corps.62

As soon as Operation Harmon Green got under way, the action switched 

back to Binh Thuan Province. On 18 June, several Regional Forces companies 

and elements of the South Vietnamese 3d Battalion, 44th Infantry, engaged a 

company from the 482d Local Force Battalion just north of Phan Thiet. The 

government troops killed sixty-two Viet Cong, suffering eighteen dead themselves. One U.S. adviser also died. Two days later, two companies from the 

482d Battalion ambushed a patrol from the South Vietnamese 4th Battalion, 

44th Infantry, in the same area as the first encounter. On this occasion, the 

government troops lost thirty-six killed and another thirty-two wounded.63

The reversals led to additional alterations. On 1 July, Peers terminated 

Harmon Green and placed the 3d Battalion, 503d Infantry, 173d Airborne 

Brigade, under the command of Task Force South. Colonel Cleland redeployed his 3d Battalion, 506th Infantry, 101st Air Cavalry Division, to Ninh 

Thuan Province where it resumed Operation McLain from Landing Zone 

Betty near Phan Thiet. General Lan also took steps to improve the situation, replacing the inept commander of the 44th Infantry with a proven leader, 

Lt. Col. Nguyen Ba Thinh. Lan gave Colonel Thinh three new battalion 

commanders.64

Colonel Thinh met his first test on 17 July when his 2d Battalion discovered the 840th Main Force Battalion and the 450th Local Force Company in 

fortifications ten kilometers northeast of Phan Thiet. Thinh committed his 

remaining maneuver unit, the 3d Battalion, 44th Infantry, while Cleland sent 

in several companies from the 3d Battalion, 506th Infantry, and helicopter 

gunships from Troop B, 1st Squadron, 17th Air Cavalry. Backed by the strong 

U.S. force and led by an able commander, Thinh’s men drove the Viet Cong 

from their bunkers in a two-day battle. According to a prisoner, sixty-eight 

enemy soldiers died. Allied losses totaled fifteen South Vietnamese and two 

U.S. soldiers.65

General Peers welcomed the positive turn in southern II Corps, but felt 

that he would have to keep U.S. troops in the region for the foreseeable future. 

That meant he could not return the 3d Battalion, 503d Infantry, to Binh Dinh 

Province, which left General Allen with the 2d Battalion, 503d Infantry, the 1st 

Battalion, 50th Infantry (Mechanized), and elements from the 1st Battalion, 

69th Armor, to defend the Bong Son Plain. The I Field Force commander 

could only hope that the South Vietnamese would be able to take up the slack 

if and when the 3d Division finally returned to its old haunts.66

62 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 25-68, I FFV, 16–22 Jun 68, 22 Jun 68, p. 6, Historians files, CMH; 

ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, HQ, I FFV, p. 22. 63 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 25-68, I FFV, pp. 1, 21.

64 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 27-68, I FFV, 30 Jun–6 Jul 68, 6 Jul 68, p. 7, Historians files, CMH.

65 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 29-68, I FFV, 14–20 Jul 68, 20 Jul 68, pp. 6, 20, Historians files, 

CMH. 66 MFR, MACV, 20 Jul 68, sub: MACV Commander’s Conference, pp. 6–7, Historians files, 

CMH.
625

A Summer of Attrition

Peers was compelled to stretch his forces even more thinly when a new 

threat emerged in the southern highlands. In mid-July, allied intelligence 

learned that the two primary B1 Front units stationed in the mid-coastal 

region—the 95th Regiment in Phu Yen Province and the 18B Regiment in 

Khanh Hoa Province—had started marching west, each leaving behind 

only a skeleton force to protect their base camps. Recent reports also 

indicated that the 1st Division had begun to drift south after spending 

the last six weeks resting in Base Area 701 near the tri-border intersection. Finally, captured enemy documents indicated that the B3 Front was 

combining local Viet Cong battalions in each of the three highland provinces to form new regiments. “It is too early to predict exactly what the 

enemy is up to,” Peers wrote Abrams on 16 July, but his best guess was a 

late summer offensive aimed at Ban Me Thuot with supporting attacks 

elsewhere.67

As a precaution, the I Field Force commander airlifted two infantry 

battalions from the 2d Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, as well as two artillery batteries and one air cavalry troop into Ban Me Thuot on 18 June to 

operate alongside the South Vietnamese 45th Infantry Regiment. General 

Stone’s 1st Brigade, now commanded by Col. Joseph E. Fix, remained in 

northwestern Kontum Province with four infantry battalions to guard the 

Dak To, Ben Het, Dak Pek, and Dak Seang border camps, all of which 

had endured intermittent mortar and rocket attacks in June and early 

July. The commander of the 3d Brigade, 4th Division, Colonel Forrester, 

continued to defend the western approaches to Pleiku City with three 

infantry battalions and one armored cavalry squadron.68

“I have been trying to rationalize what will happen in the highlands,” 

the I Field Force commander wrote to General Abrams. “It appears that 

the enemy’s primary target will be Ban Me Thuot . . . [but] I don’t think 

he is ready as yet.” If the 1st Division attacked with two of its regiments, 

Peers believed that the task force from the 4th Infantry Division currently stationed there and General An’s forces could handle the situation. 

If all three regiments from the North Vietnamese division attacked and 

other B3 Front units launched diversionary strikes in Pleiku and Kontum 

Provinces, he admitted that allied forces could be tied down “to the point 

wherein they may not be able to deploy additional forces” to Ban Me Thuot. 

If so, it might be necessary to airlift a brigade from III Corps, as had been 

done back in late May to defend Dak Pek, but that was assuming things 

remained quiet in III Corps. Peers also asked the South Koreans if they 

could send a brigade into the highlands. The Koreans expressed interest, 

but turning that idea into reality would take time. For the moment then, 

the I Field Force commander had to deal with emerging threats with the 

forces he had on hand.69

67 Quote from Msg, Peers NHT1811 to Abrams, 16 Jul 68, p. 2, Historians files, CMH.

68 Msg, Abrams MAC 9883 to Wheeler, 22 Jul 68, p. 2, Abrams Msg files, CMH.

69 Msg, Peers NHT 1075 to Abrams, 27 Jul 68, p. 1, Westmoreland Msg files, CMH.
Staying the Course

626

II Field Force and the Approaches to Saigon

For the new MACV commander, nothing in the summer of 1968 was 

more important than protecting Saigon from another Communist incursion, 

as much for the political and diplomatic consequences as for the military 

ones, and allied deployments reflected this fact. Of the ninety-four battalions 

available to II Field Force commander General Weyand and III Corps commander General Minh in July, the allies assigned twenty-five to the Capital 

Military District in and around Saigon and posted an additional fifty in the 

five provinces surrounding that district, leaving just nineteen battalions to 

protect the rest of III Corps. Wherever they were located, virtually all of these 

units were committed to Operation Toan Thang, the combined offensive the 

allies had initiated in April to reestablish government presence in populated 

areas. Satisfied with the arrangements he had inherited from Westmoreland, 

Abrams made few substantive changes either to the dispositions or the missions assigned to U.S. units in the III Corps zone.70

America’s most immediate contribution to Saigon’s security came in the 

form of two infantry brigades and supporting air and artillery assets that 

Weyand assigned to General Hay’s Capital Military Assistance Command. 

The brigades—the 199th Infantry Brigade and the 2d Brigade, 25th Infantry 

Division—were so effective in countering the rocket and mortar threat that 

the city experienced few bombardments after 17 June. Aggressive allied action 

in Gia Dinh Province during that month resulted in 1,900 enemy dead, 424 

prisoners, and 987 weapons captured at the cost of 242 allied military deaths. 

By July, security had returned to pre-Tet levels and nearly all of the enemy’s 

main force units had withdrawn from Gia Dinh. The number of contacts fell 

precipitously, with the allies losing 17 dead (4 American) and 132 wounded (78 

American) in July versus the enemy’s 183 dead, 94 prisoners, and 290 weapons 

captured. U.S. forces were responsible for 80 percent of the enemy’s dead. The 

declining statistics reflected the enemy’s withdrawal, rather than a reduction 

in allied effort. During July, the 199th Infantry Brigade set 1,170 ambushes, 

conducted 474 patrols, and launched 578 company-size search-and-destroy 

operations. Although the brigade inflicted few casualties, it destroyed 1,000 

bunkers and captured 466 pounds of TNT and 4 tons of rice.71

Still, allied preoccupation with protecting Saigon from a third offensive 

rather than solidifying pacification meant that the Viet Cong were able to 

penetrate many hamlets at will. In July, U.S. units tried to alter the situation, 

taking advantage of the absence of enemy conventional units to increase their 

activities with the Vietnamese police and territorial forces. The 199th Infantry 

Brigade, for example, performed 52 company-size combined operations, 42 

70 Weekly Forecast, MACV, J–3, Opns to COMUSMACV, 20 Jul 68, p. 4, Encl to MFR, 

MACV, 20 Jul 68, sub: MACV Commander’s Conference, 20 July 1968, p. 5, Historians files, 

CMH. 71 ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, II FFV, 14 Aug 68, pp. 31–32; Rpt, Gia Dinh Advisory Det, 30 

Jun 68, sub: Gia Dinh Province, p. 7; ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 199th Inf Bde, 22 Aug 68, p. 14. 

All in Historians files, CMH.
627

A Summer of Attrition

combined cordon-and-search actions, and joined with the Vietnamese to man 

583 resources-control checkpoints. Guided by information provided by district intelligence centers, these operations were responsible for many of the 

128 members of the Viet Cong infrastructure captured or killed in Gia Dinh 

during the month.72

By the time Maj. Gen. Fillmore K. Mearns assumed command of the 

Capital Military Assistance Command on 3 August, the situation in and 

around Saigon was stable. The city was secure and enemy strength in Gia Dinh 

had declined to two battalions and 350 guerrillas. In the daily grind of patrol 

and ambush, casualties in Gia Dinh during August totaled 23 allied dead (13 

American) and 104 wounded (54 American) versus 103 Viet Cong killed and 49 

combatants and 174 weapons captured. The senior U.S. adviser in the province 

noted a marked improvement in territorial morale and performance, which he 

attributed to two factors: the distribution of M16 semiautomatic rifles, part 

of the post-Tet effort to boost the Regional and Popular Forces, and the many 

opportunities that paramilitary forces had to work with and learn from allied 

regular forces. Most of this effort fell to the Americans, who conducted 652 

actions with the Regional and Popular Forces in August, in contrast to South 

Vietnamese regulars who performed just 48 such operations. Still, challenges 

72 Rpt, Gia Dinh Advisory Det, 30 Jun 68, pp. 1, 4–5, 7; ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 199th Inf 

Bde, p. 14.

1st Infantry Division soldiers wade through a stream during a patrol.
Staying the Course

628

remained, as most of the improvement seemed to occur in the Regional, not 

the Popular, Forces. Moreover, statisticians noted a significant disparity in 

performance based on the presence or absence of American guidance. When a 

U.S. adviser was present on a night ambush, Gia Dinh’s Regional and Popular 

Forces contacted the enemy 4.85 percent of the time. Without an American, 

the contact rate dropped to 0.5 percent.73

CORDS advisers noted similar disparities on the civil side. They reported 

that the Revolutionary Development program in Gia Dinh was effective in 

achieving tangible tasks, such as taking a census and identifying Viet Cong 

sympathizers, but was far less successful in getting people to identify with the 

government. Civil progress was therefore painfully slow. U.S. forces did what 

they could, supplementing their security work with civic actions. In July, the 

199th Infantry Brigade delivered 10 tons of cement, 16 tons of food, 29,000 

bricks, and 69,000 board feet of lumber. It helped build or rebuild thirty-six 

permanent houses, forty-four temporary refugee homes, three schools, and a 

dispensary. It distributed 226 pounds of candy, 800 pounds of soap, and 196 

bottles of vitamins, while its medical personnel treated 10,500 civilians. Last 

but not least, the brigade paid 21,000 piasters to seven families for nine injuries 

and two deaths caused by U.S. artillery fire. It would continue to perform similar actions for the rest of the summer, spending an additional 98,500 piasters 

in solatium payments to thirty-seven civilians harmed in six firearm and eight 

traffic accidents, two artillery incidents, and six cases in which U.S. forces inadvertently hit civilians while responding to hostile fire.74 

By September, pacification and security measures had succeeded in bringing nearly 49 percent of Gia Dinh’s rural population under government 

control. This represented an increase of three percentage points since July. 

Considering the quantity of allied troops in and around Gia Dinh and the 

province’s proximity to Saigon, the number was a testament to the difficulty 

of the task and the challenges that remained.75

While U.S. forces assigned to the Capital Military Assistance Command 

secured Saigon’s environs, the 1st Infantry Division spent the summer attacking the enemy’s bases and lines of communications to the north. Most of 

General Ware’s 1st Infantry Division and the South Vietnamese 5th Infantry 

Division patrolled Binh Duong Province and the northeastern part of Bien Hoa 

Province. The 1st and 2d Squadrons from the 11th Armored Cavalry operated 

with elements of Ware’s division along the Highway 13 corridor in Binh Long 

Province. Here as throughout III Corps, the enemy avoided contact. Viet Cong 

guerrillas maintained an atmosphere of uncertainty through sporadic acts of 

propaganda, intimidation, harassing fire, and terror, but ground attacks were 

rare. In addition to conducting search-and-destroy operations into enemy 

73 Rpt, Gia Dinh Advisory Det, 31 Aug 68, sub: Gia Dinh Province, pp. 1–3; Rpt, Gia Dinh 

Advisory Det, 31 Jul 68, sub: Gia Dinh Province, p. 6. Both in Historians files, CMH. 74 ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, 199th Inf Bde, n.d., p. 20, Historians files, CMH; ORLL, 1 

May–31 Jul 68, 199th Inf Bde, pp. 25–26. 75 Rpt, Gia Dinh Advisory Det, 31 Jul 68, p. 8; Rpt, CORDS, Monthly Pacification Status 

Rpt, Hamlet Evaluation System, 30 Sep 68, pp. 3–12.
629

A Summer of Attrition

sanctuaries and using Rome plows to protect friendly controlled roads and to 

unmask enemy infiltration routes, General Ware used small unit operations to 

harass the foe. As the enemy’s combat units broke down into small groupings 

to avoid detection, the 1st Division followed suit, progressing from battalionto company- to platoon-size operations backed by an increasing number of 

night ambush patrols.76

Generally, the allies made slow but perceptible progress in the 1st Division 

area of operations during the summer of 1968. During June and July, General 

Ware’s 1st and 3d Brigades killed 619 Communists, destroyed 1,900 bunkers, 

and captured 44 soldiers, 200 weapons, and 318 tons of food. The steady 

pressure from search-and-destroy operations and B–52 strikes compelled the 

enemy to alter his logistical system, abandoning large depots and dispersing 

his supplies among many small caches. By so doing, the Communists made 

their system more resilient and preserved their capability, albeit with less efficiency. Food, however, was at a premium, as allied raids and protective measures around farmland forced the enemy to import rice from Cambodia to feed 

his troops. Defectors reported low morale and reduced proficiency as inadequately trained recruits filled the ranks. Frequent cordon-and-search operations likewise hindered the enemy’s ability to acquire support from the villages, 

whose inhabitants showed an increasing reluctance to supply the enemy with 

men and materiel. But the enemy’s infrastructure ran deep, as did the legacy of 

terror, and the 1st Division reported no progress in persuading people to give 

information on enemy activities. Security remained problematic in many areas, 

especially in the far border provinces of Binh Long and Phuoc Long. Nor were 

the 1st Division’s accomplishments pain free. In June and July, the division lost 

94 dead and 595 wounded.77

In a portion of Binh Duong and to the west, the 25th Infantry Division 

performed its part in operation Toan Thang. General Mearns’ 1st and 3d 

Brigades patrolled Tay Ninh Province. The 3d Brigade, 101st Airborne 

Division, operating under Mearns’ control, defended northern Hau Nghia 

Province, while the 2d Brigade, 25th Division, guarded central and southern 

Hau Nghia under the control of the Capital Military Assistance Command. 

Later in the summer, the 25th Division’s 2d and 3d Brigades would swap 

assignments. 

During June and July, the 25th Infantry Division conducted many battalion-size operations against Communist bases. It used airmobile operations 

to strike targets of opportunity, and deployed night ambush patrols along 

avenues of approach to Saigon so extensively that about half of the division’s 

soldiers worked during the day and the other half at night. It did not venture 

76 Memo, G–2, 1st Inf Div, for CG, 1st Inf Div, 30 Jul 68, sub: An Assessment of the NVA/

VC Posture from 1 August 1967–1 August 1968, p. 2; ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 1st Inf Div, n.d., 

pp. 1–3, 9. Both in Historians files, CMH. 77 Rpt, Binh Long Advisory Det, n.d., sub: Binh Long Province Report for August 1968, 

pp. 1–3; Rpt, Phuoc Long Advisory Det, 30 Jun 68, sub: Phuoc Long Province, pp. 1, 4–5; Rpt, 

Phuoc Long Advisory Det, 31 Aug 68, sub: Phuoc Long Province, p. 1. All in Historians files, 

CMH. ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 1st Inf Div, p. 13; Memo, G–2, 1st Inf Div, for CG, 1st Inf Div, 

30 Jul 68, pp. 2–3.
Staying the Course

630

into War Zone C, leaving that region to long-range patrols from I Field Force 

backed by frequent B–52 strikes. The 25th Division’s activities generated few 

contacts with the enemy but destroyed many of his facilities and supplies.78

Because main force units were often unfamiliar with the Saigon region 

and had to depend on locals for guides, II Field Force ordered its subordinates 

to “dig out [the Communists’] infrastructure and his local force units.” Like 

other U.S. formations, the 25th Infantry Division contributed to this effort 

by conducting raids and cordon-and-search operations in collaboration with 

province and district intelligence centers and the local police and paramilitary 

forces.79 

By the end of June, the Hamlet Evaluation System (HES) reported that 

roughly 56 percent of the 867,000 people living in the 25th Division’s zone of 

operations were relatively secure. In Tay Ninh, Revolutionary Development 

was proceeding and combined operations occurred daily. The province adviser 

reported that the “Conditions of cooperation between U.S. . . . and Vietnamese 

official and military forces is of the highest caliber and little can be done to 

improve the rapport. U.S. forces contributed maximum effort to pacification 

and civic action and have been a tremendous asset to Tay Ninh. Troop misconduct is rare and acts which are committed are quickly rectified.” The most 

serious incident involved a soldier who fired an M79 grenade launcher while 

riding in a convoy, wounding four civilians. By the end of the month, U.S. 

officials had been unable to identify the perpetrator.80

The situation in Hau Nghia, a long-standing Viet Cong bastion, improved 

at a slower pace, with CORDS officials attributing the progress more to the 

absence of enemy activity than to allied operations. By the end of July, the 

security situation was still precarious, with most Revolutionary Development 

teams spending their nights in military camps rather than the villages in which 

they worked. A small combined task force, composed of one U.S. company, 

a South Vietnamese ranger company, and Regional and Popular Forces, was 

providing an excellent experience for the territorials, and as elsewhere, the 

25th Division participated in raids against Communist infrastructure personnel whenever the opportunity arose. One airmobile raid by a U.S. rifle company, the division’s Combined Reconnaissance and Intelligence Platoon, and 

a detachment from a Vietnamese Provincial Reconnaissance Unit eliminated 

nine members of the Viet Cong infrastructure and their guards near My Hanh 

village.81 

As elsewhere in Vietnam, the war was a seemingly endless cycle of destruction and construction. During June and July, the 25th Infantry Division and 

its attached brigade from the 101st Airborne Division killed 1,273 enemy 

personnel and destroyed 260 sampans. Captures since 1 May included 37 sol78 ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 25th Inf Div, 1 Aug 68, p. 3, Historians files, CMH.

79 MFR, MACV, 20 Jul 68, p. 9.

80 Rpt, Tay Ninh Advisory Det, n.d., sub: Tay Ninh Province Semi-annual Report for the 

period ending 30 June 1968, p. 11 (quote); Rpt, Tay Ninh Advisory Det, 31 Jul 68, sub: Tay 

Ninh Province, p. 5. Both in Historians files, CMH. ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 25th Inf Div, p. 28. 81 Rpt, Hau Nghia Advisory Det, 31 Jul 68, sub: Hau Nghia Province, pp. 2, 6, 9–10, 

Historians files, CMH. 
631

A Summer of Attrition

diers, 428 weapons, 78 tons of rice, 72,000 rounds of small arms ammunition, 

1,667 rocket and artillery rounds, and 857 pounds of explosives. U.S. Air Force 

fighter-bombers supplemented the destruction by dropping 4,570 tons of ordnance in 3,600 sorties, with B–52s flying another 166 missions. The onslaught 

from the air reportedly destroyed an additional 876 enemy personnel, 4,355 

bunkers, 619 structures, 78 sampans, 20 bridges, and 4,790 meters of trenches, 

causing 331 secondary explosions or fires in the process. On the flip side of 

the counterinsurgency coin, between 1 May and 31 July, the 25th Division 

helped build or repair 3,217 dwellings, 68 kilometers of roads, 10 dispensaries, 

11 schools, and 7 bridges. It distributed considerable quantities of food and 

building supplies and treated 90,000 patients through its MEDCAP teams. 

The price for these accomplishments during June and July were 145 American 

dead, 879 wounded, and the loss of 11 M113s, 6 trucks, 3 helicopters, 1 tank, 

1 M42 antiaircraft vehicle, and a 155-mm. howitzer. The enemy damaged 

another 35 helicopters, 34 trucks, and 36 armored vehicles.82

With the 1st and 25th Infantry Divisions screening the northern and 

western approaches to Saigon, the directions that posed the greatest threat, 

an assortment of nations continued to guard the eastern and southern flanks 

of the capital. In the east, the 3d Squadron of the 11th Armored Cavalry, the 

82 ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 25th Inf Div, pp. 4, 19, 30. 

A U.S. soldier and a South Vietnamese soldier collaborate 

on a psychological information pamphlet.
Staying the Course

632

1st Australian Task Force, and the Royal 

Thai Army Volunteer Regiment assisted 

the South Vietnamese 18th Infantry 

Division. Also present were the rear elements of the 9th Infantry Division that 

guarded Camp Martin Cox and its environs in Bien Hoa Province. The rest of the 

9th Division adjusted its position to better 

screen the capital’s southern approaches. 

In June, the 1st Brigade moved to Long 

An Province, while the 3d Brigade left 

Long An for Dong Tam where it joined 

the 2d Brigade in the Mobile Riverine 

Force. Joining the 9th Division was the 

7th Squadron, 1st Air Cavalry, minus 

one squadron, which moved to Vinh 

Long Province with fifty-nine armed 

helicopters and a ground reconnaissance 

troop. In addition to supporting U.S. 

and South Vietnamese ground forces, 

General Abrams instructed the squadron 

to patrol the 44th Special Tactical Zone 

in the northern delta to interdict enemy 

water traffic carrying supplies across the 

border. Finally, in July, Maj. Gen. Julian J. Ewell, a distinguished World War 

II combat veteran who had assumed command of the 9th Division in late 

February, moved the division’s headquarters from Camp Martin Cox to Dong 

Tam, completing the division’s reorientation.83

During the summer, the 9th Infantry Division operated in over a dozen 

provinces in III and IV Corps, concentrating its efforts in those closest to 

Saigon—Long An, Dinh Tuong, Go Cong, and Kien Hoa. In Long An, the 

1st Brigade worked alongside two regiments from the South Vietnamese 25th 

Infantry Division in seeking the enemy, blocking Communist lines of communications and keeping those of the allies open, and preventing hostile artillery 

from moving into range of Saigon. Typically, the brigade’s one mechanized battalion patrolled the roads and an infantry battalion monitored the areas from 

which enemy rockets could hit Saigon, leaving the other two battalions free 

for mobile operations. The brigade launched search-and-destroy, armed aerial 

reconnaissance, and airmobile raids on a daily basis. Tactically, it resorted to 

all of the techniques that the U.S. Army had developed over the years to fit the 

conditions of Vietnam—eagle flights, in which a small airmobile force roamed 

the skies looking for targets of opportunity; jitterbugging, in which helicopters landed many patrols over a target area; and checkerboarding, in which a 

83 ORLL, 1 May–31 Aug 68, 9th Inf Div, n.d., p. 2, Historians files, CMH; ORLL, 1 May–31 

Jul 68, 7th Armd Sqdn, 1st Cav Div, 31 Jul 68, p. 3, box 4, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd Historian, 

HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 

General Ewell
633

A Summer of Attrition

company deployed as secretly as possible, often as a stay-behind element of a 

larger force, before dispersing to numerous ambush locations for up to three 

days. These and other patrol techniques were based on the long-established 

principle of locating the enemy with a small force and then, if warranted, to 

“pile on” with additional ground troops and fire support when a significant 

contact occurred.84 

Several examples of the pile-on technique occurred in August. When on 

the seventh, a company of the 6th Battalion, 31st Infantry, made contact with 

a Viet Cong battalion, the brigade quickly deployed seven additional companies by helicopter to encircle the foe. Artillery then pummeled the area and its 

egress routes through the night. By dawn the next day, the enemy was gone, 

leaving behind forty-six bodies, eleven prisoners, fourteen individual weapons, 

and one mortar. Four days later, a similar engagement produced 104 Viet Cong 

dead, 8 prisoners, 21 individual weapons, and 5 machine guns. Then, on 19 

August, a company of the 2d Battalion, 39th Infantry, called in eight additional 

companies, air cavalry, fixed-wing aircraft, and artillery to pile onto two Viet 

Cong companies, resulting in the death of ninety-three enemy soldiers and the 

capture of fifteen prisoners, six defectors, and forty-five weapons. These were 

just a portion of the 1,293 enemy the 1st Brigade would kill between August 

and October at a cost to the brigade of 97 dead and 324 wounded.85

One of the ways the enemy attempted to defeat U.S. tactics was to disperse its encampments, with a battalion spread out over four to six kilometers. 

A second was to break down into small groups to exfiltrate encirclements at 

night. The Viet Cong frequently attempted to evade the Americans by wading 

or swimming along the many canals that crisscrossed the region. The brigade 

tried to counter the enemy’s use of streams and canals by dropping concussion 

grenades into the water and by pouring gasoline onto the surface and setting 

it alight.86

As with other U.S. units with area security missions, the brigade supported 

pacification in a variety of ways. It worked with Vietnamese police and territorial forces to combat the enemy’s politico-military apparatus. It strengthened 

local security by providing advice and materiel to the Regional and Popular 

Forces. It also engaged in what it called “Intelligence Civic Action” by placing 

intelligence personnel on MEDCAP teams. As the doctors and medics ministered to the sick, the accompanying intelligence agents unobtrusively gathered information that they then passed on to district intelligence centers. Last 

but not least, the brigade engaged in more traditional civic action activities. 

It distributed supplies, health kits, sports equipment, and food. Along with 

attached engineers, it continued the province’s road-building program and 

helped communities with self-help projects. Included among the latter were the 

electrification of a dispensary and the construction of a maternity clinic, a foot 

84 Msg, Abrams MAC 7315 to Wheeler, 3 Jun 68, p.10, Westmoreland Msg files, CMH; 

ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 9th Inf Div, pp. 1–2; ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, 1st Bde, 9th Inf Div, 

n.d., pp. 19–20, Historians files, CMH. 85 ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, 1st Bde, 9th Inf Div, pp. 5–7, 9–10, 11, 22. 

86 Ibid., pp. 20–22.
Staying the Course

634

bridge, and a boxing arena. Thanks in part to these activities, Revolutionary 

Development made modest gains in Long An, yet by September, lax security 

still enabled the Viet Cong to access many of the province’s pacified hamlets 

after dark.87

The 2d and 3d Brigades of the Mobile Riverine Force had a more varied 

mission than the 1st Brigade, combining limited area security functions with 

wide-ranging waterborne operations. During the summer, the newest member 

of the force, the 3d Brigade, 9th Division, operated mostly in Dinh Tuong 

and Go Cong Provinces as part of Operation Truong Cong Dinh (begun in 

March) and its successor, Operation Quyet Chien (“Determined to Fight” 

begun in August). After transferring the task of protecting Highway 4 to the 

South Vietnamese 7th Division and the territorials in July, the brigade nimbly 

combined airmobile and waterborne operations to strike enemy bases and 

lines of communications. Security in Dinh Tuong returned to pre-Tet levels 

as the allies attacked Viet Cong sanctuaries and helped extend government 

influence into the countryside. CORDS reported slow but steady progress in 

pacification, while ralliers told of low morale and adverse public sentiment 

against the Communists caused by their forced requisition of manpower and 

supplies. Dinh Tuong’s senior U.S. adviser noted that cooperation with the 

9th Division continued “to be extremely helpful in providing assistance in the 

building of outposts, Revolutionary Development, self-help, and other civic 

action projects.” Combined cordon-and-search actions yielded mixed results. 

A large operation in Dinh Tuong’s Long Dinh District on 2 July involving 

three U.S. rifle companies, Popular Forces, and National Police came up empty 

handed, while a similar action nineteen days later on Toi Son Island, Chau 

Thanh District, killed two and captured fifty-five Viet Cong, three of whom 

were members of the infrastructure. To improve the effort against the apparatus, the division proposed, and Dinh Tuong officials accepted, the formation 

of a 42-man unit to target the infrastructure, comprised equally of American 

and Vietnamese territorial volunteers. Slowly the populace evinced more confidence, marred only by occasional incidents of bad conduct by U.S. military 

personnel. Of more serious consequence was the damage combat operations 

did to Dinh Tuong’s irrigation canals, aggravating a severe drought that hit the 

province that year.88

The other member of the Mobile Riverine Force, the 9th Infantry Division’s 

2d Brigade, moved about the northern delta throughout the summer, striking 

enemy bases and logistical routes at will. In addition to its many offensive 

operations, the brigade supported pacification by delivering food, building 

87 Rpt, Long An Advisory Det, 31 Jul 68, sub: Long An Province, pp. 1–2; Rpt, Long An 

Advisory Det, n.d., sub: Long An Province, as of 30 September 1968, p. 1. Both in Historians 

files, CMH. ORLL, 1 May–31 Aug 68, 9th Inf Div, p. 29; ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, 1st Bde, 9th 

Inf Div, pp. 1, 8, 16–17. 88 Rpt, Dinh Tuong Advisory Det, n.d., sub: Dinh Tuong Province, June 1968, pp. 1, 11–13, 

14 (quote); Rpt, Dinh Tuong Advisory Det, 1 Aug 68, sub: Dinh Tuong Province, pp. 1, 3, 6, 

17; Rpt, Dinh Tuong Advisory Det, 2 Oct 68, sub: Dinh Tuong Province, p. 4; Rpt, IV Corps 

Advisory Gp, n.d., sub: CORDS Monthly Field Overview, July 1968, p. 9; ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 

68, 3d Bde, 9th Inf Div, 31 Oct 68, p. 1. All in Historians files, CMH. 
635

A Summer of Attrition

materials, and medical supplies; treating 4,500 civilian patients between May 

and July; and helping the territorials through training missions and the distribution of considerable amounts of weapons and supplies.89

One of the provinces to which the 2d Brigade administered was Kien 

Hoa. By June, the security situation in Kien Hoa was eroding. Of the four 

South Vietnamese Army battalions based in the province, two rarely ventured 

out of the capital city of Ben Tre, and the other two, assigned to support 

Revolutionary Development, did little more than perform perfunctory patrols. 

Although the province adviser reported that the 2d Brigade was helpful in 

supporting the territorials, the Americans conducted just two operations in 

the province that month, killing a single Viet Cong soldier. On 15 July, General 

Ewell increased support to the province by assigning the 2d Brigade to a tactical area of interest in Kien Hoa with the object of destroying those enemy 

units that adversely affected Revolutionary Development. The operation, 

however, lasted just eleven days before he moved the brigade on, first to Vinh 

Long, and then to Phong Dinh and Chuong Thien Provinces.90

89 ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 2d Bde, 9th Inf Div, 11 Aug 68, pp. 9, 18–19, Historians files, 

CMH. 90 Rpt, Kien Hoa Advisory Det, n.d., sub: Kien Hoa Province, June 1968, pp. 1, 8, Historians 

files, CMH.

Members of the 9th Infantry Division walk along an embankment during a 

mission in the Mekong Delta.
Staying the Course

636

The thrust into Chuong Thien, Operation Vi Thanh, took place between 

30 July and 8 August. The movement represented the deepest penetration of 

the Mekong Delta to date by conventional U.S. ground forces. Attached to the 

brigade for this operation was the South Vietnamese 5th Marine Battalion. On 

the operation’s first day both the Vietnamese marines and the 3d Battalion, 

60th Infantry, ran into stiff opposition. Thereafter, actions devolved into a 

series of battalion search-and-destroy operations and heliborne and waterborne raids that generated small contacts. By the time the operation ended, 

the allies had killed 249 Viet Cong and captured 18 prisoners, 278 small arms, 

24 machine guns, and 3 artillery pieces of various types. Allied losses totaled 

three dead and six wounded.91

One incident marred the operation. On 8 August, as the 2d Brigade withdrew from Chuong Thien and sailed north, it reported receiving intense fire 

at three locations along the Can Tho River and Xa No Canal in the waterside 

village of Cai Rang, south of the city of Can Tho, Phong Dinh Province. The 

senior province adviser to Phong Dinh painted a different picture—a weak 

ambush made by no more than a Viet Cong platoon. Whatever the truth, the 

Mobile Riverine Force responded with all the firepower at its disposal. Viet 

Cong casualties are unknown, but by the time the Americans stopped shooting 

they had killed 72 civilians, wounded 204, and damaged or destroyed nearly 

500 houses. The surviving inhabitants were seething. General Ewell, province 

officials, and their U.S. advisers responded rapidly. The 9th Infantry Division 

sent a team to offer condolences, delivered twelve tons of food, and provided 

medical and rebuilding supplies. It also made solatium payments of 924,000 

piasters to the victims and their families. The rapid response headed off civil 

unrest, although it is not known how effective the allies were in convincing the 

inhabitants that the Viet Cong were at fault for the incident.92

After the conclusion of Operation Vi Thanh, the 2d Brigade briefly operated in southern III Corps before returning to the IV Corps zone in September. 

In the interim, security continued to deteriorate in Kien Hoa. The U.S. province 

adviser praised the 9th Division for helping the Regional and Popular Forces 

with artillery and mobility support, but more needed to be done. In response 

General Ewell created a semipermanent land base near Kien Hoa’s capital 

of Ben Tre. Under what was dubbed Operation Homestead, he kept one of 

the 2d Brigade’s battalions at the base at all times, with the 3d Battalion, 47th 

Infantry, being the first to pull such duty. As the rest of the brigade moved by 

boat and helicopter to strike targets throughout Kien Hoa, the 3d Battalion, 

47th Infantry, conducted company-size operations during the day and patrols 

and ambushes at night to secure the area around Ben Tre. Meanwhile, Ewell 

sent a special detachment to train territorial antiguerrilla squads meant to 

target the Viet Cong infrastructure, and provided over sixty men to help the 

province’s Regional and Popular Forces improve their outposts. As a result of 

91 ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, 9th Inf Div, n.d., p. 20; ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, 2d Bde, 9th Inf 

Div, 1 Nov 68, pp. 8–9. Both in Historians files, CMH. 92 Rpt, Phong Dinh Advisory Det, 31 Aug 68, sub: Phong Dinh, pp. 5–6, 9–10, Historians 

files, CMH; ORLL, 1 May–31 Aug 68, 9th Inf Div, p. 30.
637

A Summer of Attrition

the greater attention to Kien Hoa, the number of enemy defections increased, 

including North Vietnamese soldiers assigned to train the local Viet Cong. 

Enemy casualties more than doubled, from 118 in August to 330 in September. 

The province senior adviser attributed much of the improvement to Ewell’s 

actions, with the brigade’s primary targets, the 550th and 516th Battalions, 

being particularly hard hit. He conceded, however, that allied military actions 

had not yet translated into improved security or more effective government 

control at the hamlet level. In fact, Hamlet Evaluation System scores remained 

flat throughout the summer. This contrasted noticeably with provinces in 

which the 9th Infantry Division had maintained a more consistent presence, 

such as Long An, where Hamlet Evaluation System scores had inched up over 

the summer, and Dinh Tuong, where the number of people living in relative 

security increased by over seven percentage points, growing the figure from the 

mid-30s to the low 40s between July and September.93

The 9th Infantry Division was not responsible for everything that occurred 

militarily or politically in the area in which it operated during the summer. 

Consequently, as with other U.S. units, it is difficult to draw a direct line of causation, particularly with regard to developments in pacification. Nevertheless, 

it was clear that Ewell’s actions had weakened the enemy in the northern 

Mekong Delta. Despite the fact that there had been few large battles between 

June and October, the division had killed 1,683 Viet Cong and captured 386 

more, plus hundreds of weapons and considerable stocks of food and supplies. 

The cost to the division for this achievement had been 379 killed and 1,964 

wounded. 

Like most U.S. divisions throughout the war, the 9th Infantry Division 

had operated mostly at the small unit level, although battalion-size operations 

contacted the enemy at a significantly higher rate than the more numerous 

company and platoon actions. And, like other U.S. formations, firepower and 

destruction had a significant role in the division’s operations. Between May 

and October, U.S. artillery had fired 626,179 rounds in support of the 9th 

Infantry Division, while the U.S. Air Force had flown 5,109 sorties dropping 

4,488 tons of bombs and 1,687 tons of napalm. The Air Force reported that 

its efforts resulted in the death of 433 Viet Cong and the destruction of 3,364 

buildings, 9,544 bunkers, and 316 sampans over and above the results achieved 

by the Army.94

The actions of the 9th Division in southern III Corps and northern IV 

Corps contributed to the overall success of II Field Force in keeping the 

enemy’s main forces at bay during the summer of 1968. When taken together, 

the 9th Division’s accomplishments in Operations Truong Cong Dinh and 

Quyet Chien and those of the rest of II Field Force in Operation Toan

93 Rpt, Kien Hoa Advisory Det, 2 Sep 68, sub: Kien Hoa Province, pp. 1–2; Rpt, Kien 

Hoa Advisory Det, 3 Oct 68, sub: Kien Hoa Province, pp. 1–3. Both in Historians files, CMH. 

ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, 2d Bde, 9th Inf Div, pp. 2–3, 7, 9, 15; ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, 9th 

Inf Div, pp. 8, 20. 94 ORLL, 1 May–31 Jul 68, 9th Inf Div, pp. 23, and Encl 6, 7, 8, Historians files, CMH; 

ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, 9th Inf Div, Encl 6, 7, 8.
Staying the Course

638

Thang resulted in the death of over 10,000 enemy combatants between June 

and October and the capture of prodigious quantities of supplies. Behind 

the shield provided by II Field Force operations, the allies had been able to 

repair most of the damage caused by Tet, and most provinces reported slow 

but perceptible gains in pacification. In III Corps, for example, the number 

of “relatively secure” people as measured by HES had crept upward by 1.6 

percent between July and September, meaning that around 80 percent of the 

people now lived under government control.95

The gains in II Field Force’s area of operations were part of a larger, 

nationwide trend. For although there had been no spectacular developments, 

the general counteroffensive initiated by Westmoreland in March and continued by Abrams through the summer had, by the end of September, produced 

a gain of nearly seven percentage points in the number of Vietnamese considered to be relatively secure. The gain virtually erased all of the ground lost 

in pacification as a result of the Tet offensive. The allies had made similar 

progress on the military front. Despite the absence of large battles during most 

of the summer, the allies, and particularly the Americans, had continued to 

inflict disproportionate casualties on the enemy while keeping his bases and 

logistical system under constant attack. True, the allies could not prevent the 

enemy from making up, in quantity if not quality, many of these losses, but 

they had certainly complicated this effort and degraded his morale and capability. On both the political and military fronts, therefore, matters appeared to 

be moving in the right direction.96

There were, however, countervailing factors. To begin with, the enemy had 

inflicted casualties as well, with the Americans losing nearly 3,000 dead during 

the third quarter of 1968. The war of attrition was thus very much alive. 

Although the allies continued to inflict far more damage than they suffered, 

each American casualty in this remote and increasingly unpopular war roiled 

America’s democratic system. Such was not the case for North Vietnam, for 

whom the conflict was of immense importance and whose totalitarian leaders, insulated from public pressure, were determined to push forward almost 

regardless of cost. 

The fact that it had taken seven months to recover most of the people 

lost from government control as a result of Tet was also discouraging, for it 

indicated both how difficult the task had been and how challenging the future 

remained. The explosive military and political riposte that Westmoreland and 

Komer had called for had not occurred, partly because of the enemy’s depth 

and agility, and partly because rapid moves were largely beyond the capability 

of the South Vietnamese government which, even under the best of circumstances, rarely acted with decisiveness. Not only had the allies not dealt the 

enemy’s conventional forces a fatal blow, but the government had yet to assert 

strong control in those areas it had previously abandoned. Thus, U.S. ana95 ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, II FFV, p. 19.

96 Southeast Asia Mil Casualties, Table 52, Encl to Memo, Director of Information Opns, 

Ofc of Asst Sec Def, for distribution, 3 Dec 73, sub: Last Update of Southeast Asia Statistical 

Summary Tables, Historians files, CMH.
639

A Summer of Attrition

lysts reported that 81 percent of South Vietnam’s total population still lived in 

areas where the enemy maintained a political apparatus. Even in communities 

that the allies rated as “relatively secure,” 39 percent of the people were still 

subject to Viet Cong taxes, 45 percent were subject to actions by village-level 

guerrillas, and over 60 percent were exposed to the Communist infrastructure. 

Until South Vietnamese political and security forces made greater progress 

in solidifying the government’s control over rural communities, the insurgent 

aspect of the war would continue to be a problem. 

Clearly, much needed to be done, but for General Abrams, whose immediate concern in the summer had been to ensure the failure of a rumored third 

major enemy offensive, this was of secondary importance. Whether the summer’s accomplishments would be enough to defeat a third offensive and to 

clear the way for future progress in pacification would soon be put to the test.97

97 Thayer, ed., A Systems Analysis View of the Vietnam War, 1965–1972, 9:104–06, 120, 124; 

and 10:57–58; Msg, Abrams MAC 10131 to Wheeler, 28 Jul 68, Abrams Msg files, CMH; Sitrep, 

314/10871-68, MACV, 8 Jul 68, Historians files, CMH.

19

Thwarting the Third Wave

North Vietnamese leaders commenced planning for a third general 

offensive in late June when COSVN and Military Region 5 held 

conferences to review the results of the second wave. Le Duan personally 

attended the COSVN meeting—flying into Phnom Penh, Cambodia, under 

an assumed name and then trekking east by car and then by foot—to deal 

with any confusion that might arise about Hanoi’s policy. Well that he did; 

according to one attendee, the debate proved to be “lengthy and at times 

heated.” Some delegates complained that COSVN’s strategy “had not been 

in keeping with the reality of the situation.” Many believed it had been a 

mistake to send “numerically weaker forces with their lack of firepower” into 

strongly defended urban areas such as Saigon. A clear majority, including 

the dozen Communist Chinese advisers who had been assisting the B2 Front

headquarters, believed that the second general offensive had been too costly 

for the meager gains it had produced.1

After allowing the delegates to express their concerns, General Thai, Le 

Duan, and other senior COSVN leaders reasserted control over the proceedings. Persuaded by their authority as party leaders, the assemblage voted to 

reaffirm the policy of general offensive–general uprising, and to launch a 

third wave by mid-August. The Chinese delegates objected to the decision; in 

protest, they returned home. In the days that followed, General Thai sacked 

several B2 Front officials who had openly criticized the policy. Meanwhile, 

General Man, who had to deal with “rightist and negativist thinking” among 

his own delegates in Military Region 5, used a similar combination of persuasion and strong-arm tactics to win support for a third offensive.2

Back in Hanoi, Le Duan met on 24 July with other top leaders, among 

them the chief of staff of the People’s Army of Vietnam, General Dung, and 

seven other Politburo members who specialized in military affairs, to develop 

an operational blueprint for the third general offensive. After considering 

the recommendations submitted by COSVN and Military Region 5, the Lao 

Dong Party Central Committee agreed that the Eastern Nam Bo Theater of 

the B2 Front (roughly corresponding to the III Corps zone) would once again 

serve as the primary battlefield. Saigon would not be the focal point, however, since the five subregions that surrounded the capital were desperately 

1

 Intel Rpt, CIA, 13 Aug 70, sub: Policy of the General Offensive Reaffirmed at August 1968 

COSVN Conference, pp. 6–7, Historians files, CMH. 2

 Quote from Man, Time of Upheaval, p. 483; Mien Dong Nam Bo Khang Chien (1945–1975) 

Tap II [The Resistance War in Eastern Cochin China (1945–1975), Volume II] (Hanoi: People’s 

Army Publishing House, 1993), p. 364.
Staying the Course

642

short of troops and supplies. The Saigon Party Committee was also in disarray, its secret agent network decimated and its military arm reduced to just 

two sapper squads. 

With the capital temporarily out of reach, Le Duan and the other committee members chose Tay Ninh Province to be the primary theater in the B2 

Front. Its proximity to Communist base areas in Cambodia, its heavily forested terrain, and the relatively low density of allied military forces there gave 

the enemy advantages he did not enjoy in central III Corps. Furthermore, 

Politburo leaders recognized the need to protect and expand the logistical 

routes that ran through the province if they hoped to attack Saigon in the 

future. The plan called for the 5th PLAF Division (which by this point was 

composed almost entirely of North Vietnamese) and the 9th PLAF Division to 

draw out the 25th Infantry Division from the line of outposts it held between 

Tay Ninh City and Dau Tieng before local force units attacked the provincial 

capital. In neighboring Binh Long Province, the 7th PAVN Division was to 

attack Loc Ninh to tie down elements from the 1st Infantry Division and the 

South Vietnamese 5th Infantry Division that might otherwise join the fight 

in Tay Ninh. Enemy units elsewhere in the B2 Front would contribute to the 

offensive with attacks by fire and limited ground assaults.3

The Politburo committee identified two secondary theaters for the 

coming campaign. The first was the southwestern highlands of the B3 Front. 

The plan called for the three-regiment 1st PAVN Division to overrun the Duc 

Lap Special Forces camp, located in Quang Duc Province astride a disused 

section of Highway 14 about nine kilometers from the Cambodian border. 

Seizure of the camp would open the way for North Vietnamese engineers to 

build a high-speed infiltration route through the region. After seizing the 

camp, the 1st Division would head northeast toward Ban Me Thuot, looking for opportunities to destroy allied units that might venture out to meet 

them. To support the Duc Lap operation, the 24th PAVN Regiment would cut 

Highway 14 between Pleiku City and Ban Me Thuot, while the 95C and 101D 

PAVN Regiments, now independent following the return of the 325C PAVN 

Division headquarters to North Vietnam, probed allied posts in northwestern 

Kontum Province. Given the weakness of Communist units in the coastal 

provinces, the Politburo permitted them to make do with attacks by fire and 

a few sapper raids.4

The other secondary theater was central I Corps, the main target being 

Da Nang. Sapper units and local force battalions under the command of 

Group 44 would try to destroy command-and-control facilities within the 

city, while the 368B PAVN Artillery Regiment pummeled the main air base. 

The 31st and 38th PAVN Regiments would pin down the 1st Marine Division 

units shielding Da Nang so that six Viet Cong local force battalions could slip 

past them into the city. 

3

 Minh et al., History of the Resistance War Against the Americans, p. 209; 9th Division, p. 

109; Lung, General Offensives of 1968–1969, p. 110. 4

 Minh et al., History of the Resistance War Against the Americans, p. 210.
643

Thwarting the Third Wave

In southern I Corps where the Americal Division operated, North 

Vietnamese leaders ordered the 2d PAVN Division to attack Tam Ky with 

a reinforced regiment, and for the 3d PAVN Division to attack Quang Ngai 

City with a similar size force. Because of critical food and supply shortages 

in northern I Corps, the Politburo allowed the main force units there to 

remain on the sidelines. The enemy also decided to hold back his forces in 

the eastern Demilitarized Zone—the 320th PAVN Division plus the 138th and 

270th PAVN Regiments—since he had no way of tying down the 1st Cavalry 

Division without attacking Hue and Quang Tri City.5

As Hanoi’s instructions filtered downward to the five front commands 

and their subordinate elements in early August, allied intelligence intercepted 

enough clues to anticipate the basic timing and objectives of the campaign. 

On the tenth, Abrams sent an analysis of the current situation to the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff. He expected as many as seven North Vietnamese regiments to 

attack allied positions in the central Demilitarized Zone within the next five 

days. He saw no immediate danger to Hue, but believed that cities in central 

I Corps, including Da Nang, Tam Ky, and Quang Ngai City, were likely to 

be attacked in regimental strength. In II Corps, a North Vietnamese division was massing to the southeast of Ban Me Thuot. Most threatening of all, 

COSVN had moved two reinforced divisions into Tay Ninh Province, apparently intent on attacking its capital city. No major threat had been detected in 

the Capital Military District or in IV Corps, though limited sapper activity 

and rocket attacks were expected. Abrams reassured his superiors that the 

“current deployment of [allied] ground forces is satisfactory,” and that he was 

“confident in our ability” to defeat the coming offensive.6

 

Allied Preparations 

While the enemy finalized his plans, the U.S. soldiers assigned to II Field 

Force continued executing Operation Toan Thang. On the first of August, 

command of II Field Force passed from General Weyand to Maj. Gen. Walter 

T. Kerwin Jr., the latter being well acquainted with the situation through his 

former role as MACV chief of staff. Otherwise, the general configuration 

of U.S. combat units remained much as it had been throughout the spring 

and summer. General Ware’s 1st Infantry Division and elements of the 11th 

Armored Cavalry guarded Binh Duong and Binh Long Provinces. The 25th 

Infantry Division, now under the command of Maj. Gen. Ellis W. Williamson, 

a former commander of the 173d Airborne Brigade who had brought the unit 

to South Vietnam in 1965, retained his 1st Brigade in Tay Ninh Province 

as a forward screen. He stationed his 2d Brigade plus the 3d Brigade, 101st 

Airborne Division, in Hau Nghia Province to watch the Saigon River and 

5

 Ibid.

6

 Memo, General John P. McConnell, Acting Chairman, JCS, for President Johnson, 12 Aug 

68, sub: Enemy Preparations for Country Wide Offensive in South Vietnam, document 49c, box 

72B, NSF-Vietnam Country Files, Vietnam Center and Archive, TTU.
Staying the Course

644

Vam Co Dong River corridors. The 3d Brigade, 25th Division, was on loan to 

the Capital Military Assistance Command, as was the 199th Infantry Brigade 

(Light). General Ewell’s 9th Infantry Division defended Long An and Dinh 

Tuong Provinces south of the capital, while the 1st Australian Task Force and 

the Royal Thai Army Volunteer Regiment operated east of Saigon.7

 

General Abrams was not overly concerned about an attack on Saigon, 

believing that the enemy was too weak to seriously threaten the city. 

Intelligence agents reported that allied operations had made it extremely 

difficult for the Communists to infiltrate men and supplies into the Capital 

Military District. The enemy “must attempt to fight his way in with the big 

units,” Abrams concluded, and most of those were currently located in northern III Corps. The latest intelligence indicated that the 5th and 9th PLAF 

Divisions were going to attack near Tay Ninh City, while two local force battalions infiltrated the provincial capital itself. The 7th PAVN Division was 

expected to move against Loc Ninh in neighboring Binh Long Province. 

Abrams predicted that the three main force divisions would try to slip south 

if and when the opportunity arose to attack Saigon. Determined not to be 

lured out into the hinterlands and thus expose the city to attack, Abrams 

instructed General Kerwin to fight the coming battles in Tay Ninh and Binh 

7

 Msg, Abrams MAC10868 to Wheeler, 12 Aug 68, pp. 2–3, Westmoreland Msg Files, CMH.

General Kerwin General Williamson

(shown as a lieutenant general)
645

Thwarting the Third Wave

Long Provinces with the minimum forces necessary, while also maintaining 

the essential lines of communications in northern III Corps.8

 

The new commander of III Corps, Lt. Gen. Do Cao Tri, was taking steps 

of his own to prepare for the expected COSVN offensive. Recalled from his 

post as ambassador to South Korea to replace General Khang, General Tri 

was in the process of forming a two-brigade corps reserve consisting of an 

airborne task force and a marine task force that he could commit to northern 

III Corps on short notice. To replace the paratroopers and marines who had 

previously been assigned to the Capital Military District, Tri pulled back a 

half-dozen ranger battalions that had been on loan to his three division commanders and consolidated them in the Saigon area. General Tri also ordered 

his division commanders to free their remaining ranger battalions and a 

few infantry battalions from territorial security duties so that they could 

be employed as mobile reserves in each division tactical area. Regional and 

Popular Forces units assumed the territorial security duties formerly conducted by regular army units. Although borne of necessity, this step reflected 

the growing effectiveness of the Regional and Popular Forces, partly as a 

result of the training they had been receiving from U.S. advisers and combat 

units, and partly from the post-Tet influx of more and better weaponry. Last 

but not least, local security had benefited from the fact that COSVN had 

used guerrillas and local force soldiers as replacements for its conventional 

units, thereby reducing Communist capabilities at the local level.9

 

If MACV’s intelligence was accurate, COSVN’s anticipated offensive 

would begin in central Tay Ninh Province. That put the 1st Brigade of the 

25th Infantry Division and its new commander, Lt. Col. Duquesne A. Wolf, 

squarely in the firing line. Colonel Wolf’s tactical zone, centered on the provincial capital, measured some sixty kilometers wide and about eighty-five 

kilometers deep. He was responsible for defending two major bases—his 

brigade headquarters on the northwestern edge of the capital, known as Tay 

Ninh West, and Camp Rainier, located in Dau Tieng some thirty kilometers 

to the east. Wolf also had to secure five major roads that radiated from the 

provincial capital. Route 13 bisected the city from east to west, and Highway 

22 crossed it from north to south. Most of the brigade’s supplies arrived by 

trucks via Highway 22. Two additional roads branched diagonally from Tay 

Ninh City. Route 4 traveled northeast to the foot of Nui Ba Den, an extinct 

volcano some five kilometers from Tay Ninh City that rose to a height of 

nearly 1,000 meters. The fourth major artery, Route 26, ran southeast from 

the city, passing through the Cau Khoi Rubber Plantation, ten kilometers 

down the road, before continuing another dozen kilometers to the district 

town of Khiem Hanh. Another provincial road, Route 239, crossed Route 26 

just south of the Cau Khoi Plantation, leading east to Dau Tieng and west to 

Highway 22.

To defend his sector, Colonel Wolf controlled two standard infantry battalions, two mechanized infantry battalions, and three tank platoons sup8

 Msg, Abrams MAC 10181 to Wheeler, 28 Jul 68, pp. 1–2, Westmoreland Msg Files, CMH.

9

 Msg, Kerwin HOA 1039 to Abrams, 12 Aug 68, pp. 1–2, Westmoreland Msg Files, CMH.
Staying the Course

646

ported by eight artillery batteries. He positioned most of his troops along 

the northern and eastern approaches to Tay Ninh City, operating from the 

following three main bases: Tay Ninh West, the 1st Brigade headquarters 

located a few kilometers northwest of the city; Firebase Buell II, located 

four kilometers north of Tay Ninh City; and Firebase Rawlins III, located 

two kilometers east of the city. Wolf kept one of his mechanized infantry battalions at Dau Tieng, thirty kilometers to the west. On the South Vietnamese 

side, the province chief protected Tay Ninh City with four Regional Forces 

companies and a smattering of Popular Forces platoons, backed by a mobile 

reserve consisting of ten armored personnel carriers modified to carry extra 

machine guns.10

The Battle for Tay Ninh Begins

The first sign of danger came late on the evening of 17 August when an 

ambush patrol from Company D, 2d Battalion, 27th Infantry, one of several 

teams screening the three-kilometer gap between Nui Ba Den and Route 

13 just east of Tay Ninh City, spotted a column of enemy regulars marching toward the capital. The team called in artillery fire and engaged the foe 

with small arms once the shells began to detonate among the Viet Cong. The 

Communists veered away, retreating north and east, leaving behind dozens of 

killed and wounded. The contact alerted Colonel Wolf that the long-expected 

attack on Tay Ninh City was under way (Map 46).11

10 AAR, Battle for Tay Ninh, 25th Inf Div, 7 Feb 69, p. 9, box 33, AARs, 1965–1971, Cmd 

Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 11 Ibid.

An OH–6 Cayuse scout helicopter with Nui Ba Den in the background
M

a

p 46

272

PLAF

III

273(-)

PLAF

III

275(-)

PLAF

III

271

PLAF

III

275(-) 3

PLAF

I I

33

PAVN

III

D16

PAVN

I I

2-32 B

I

2-13 A

I

11 7

I I

27(-) 2

I I

25 2

X

34(-) 2

I I

3-13 A

I

7-11 B

I

3-22 D

I

4-25 C

I

22(-) 3

I I

7-11 A

I

2-27 A

I

7-11 A

I

1-5 C

I

1-5 A

I

5 1

I I

3-22 C

I

1-5 B

I

4-23 B

I

4-23 A

I

23 4

I I

3-22 A

I

2-27 B

I

2-27 D

I

WAR ZONE C

IRON TRIANGLE

FSB BUELL II

FSB RAWLING

BEN SUC

MINH THANH

Special Forces Camp

SUOI DA

Special Forces Camp

DAU TIENG

BEN CUI

TAY NINH WEST

TAY NINH

18 Aug 0750 hrs

17 Aug 0210 hrs

18 Aug 0230 hrs

18 Aug 0115 hrs

18 Aug 0123 hrs

Song aS no Gi

Song Sai Gon

Suoi Ba Hao

Song Vam Co Dong

22

22

4

13

13

14

19

26

239

Nui Ba Den

MICHELIN

PLANTATION

Old French Fort

PLENTITUDE

Ap Suoi Tre

Ben Soi

Ben Suc

Tay Ninh

Dau Tieng

HAU NGHIA

BINH LONG

BINH DUONG

TAY NINH

TAY NINH

C A M B O D I A

S O U T H V I E T N A M

AUGUST OFFENSIVE

TAY NINH PROVINCE 

17–18 August 1968

0

0 5 Kilometers

Miles 5

0 100 300 500 700 and Above

ELEVATION IN METERS

Fireght Enemy Axis of AttackMilitary Installation
Staying the Course

648

The fighting began in earnest shortly after midnight when a battalion 

from the 273d Regiment, 9th PLAF Division, attacked Firebase Buell II. Two 

platoons from Company D, 3d Battalion, 22d Infantry, two platoons from 

Company C, 4th Battalion, 23d Infantry, and five tanks from Company A, 

2d Battalion, 34th Armor, defended the perimeter with the soldiers manning 

wooden bunkers and the vehicles partly shielded by raised earthwork barriers. The North Vietnamese crawled close enough to hit several of the dug-in 

M48 tanks with B40 rocket-propelled grenades, but the glancing blows did 

not disable the vehicles. Before long, the weight of the defensive fire drove 

the attackers back. The enemy battalion broke contact at first light, leaving 

behind 104 dead and 8 wounded.12

Around the time that the 273d Regiment commenced its attack on 

Firebase Buell II, a company of 9th Division sappers climbed the rocky face 

of Nui Ba Den, two kilometers to the west, to assault the U.S. signal station 

on its summit. Since the last attack back in May had devastated part of the 

facility, the 25th Infantry Division had beefed up security measures by building more bunkers, laying more barbed wire, and stationing a company from 

the 3d Battalion, 22d Infantry, on Nui Ba Den every night. Despite those 

improvements, the North Vietnamese sapper force that struck early on the 

morning of 18 August still penetrated the perimeter to destroy several buildings in the lower half of the compound. Satchel charges demolished the nest 

of electrical generators that provided power to the base; the relay station went 

off-line, and the 25th Infantry Division had to switch to a slower network of 

short-range transmitters to maintain communications between Cu Chi, Dau 

Tieng, and Tay Ninh West. 

The fighting lasted until dawn when the sappers retreated, minus fifteen 

of their dead. In addition to those bodies, the defenders collected about one 

hundred unused satchel charges, more than enough explosives to demolish 

every building on the hill. U.S. losses came to eight killed and twenty-three 

wounded. The transmitter station became operational again later that day 

following the installation of new generators.13

While enemy units were busy attacking Firebase Buell II and Nui Ba Den, 

the D14 Local Force Battalion and a company from the 275th PLAF Regiment

(which despite its designation consisted mostly of North Vietnamese) entered 

the southeastern side of Tay Ninh City. The district chief used the territorial 

forces and policemen at his disposal to keep the enemy from moving toward 

the city center, while the province chief and his senior adviser, Lt. Col. Vernon 

L. Bond, developed a relief plan with Colonel Wolf.14

When daylight came on 18 August, the 1st Brigade commander moved 

Companies A and B, 4th Battalion, 23d Infantry, from Firebase Rawlins III

to the southeastern edge of the city, and deployed Task Force 2-34 along its 

12 Ibid.; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 14, 25th Inf Div, 1–31 Aug 68, 1 Sep 68, p. 11, Historians files, 

CMH. 13 John D. Bergen, Military Communications: A Test for Technology, United States Army in 

Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Center of Military History, 1986), p. 268. 14 Transcript, VNIT 395, p. 1, Encl 24, CMH.
649

Thwarting the Third Wave

southwestern face. When those units had moved into place, the province chief 

organized a counterattack from within the city, sweeping south with a line of 

Regional and Popular Forces soldiers. Progress was slow because the territorial soldiers relied only on small arms, and then sparingly, to save civilian 

lives and property. With darkness approaching, Wolf reinforced the South 

Vietnamese line with Troop B of the 3d Squadron, 4th Cavalry, and the 1st 

Brigade’s combined reconnaissance platoon. Later that evening, Communist 

troops probed the line. Finding the way blocked, and knowing that other 

U.S. forces were positioned to the south, the D14 Battalion returned to the 

jungles southeast of Tay Ninh City.

At the same time that the 9th Division was testing allied defenses northwest of Tay Ninh City, the 5th Division began its mission to cut Route 239 

between Dau Tieng and the provincial capital. Lt. Col. Andrew H. Anderson, 

the commander of the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry, headquartered at Dau 

Tieng, learned of that threat shortly before noon on 18 August when his 

Company B, commanded by Capt. Gregory J. Hayward, located a North 

Vietnamese force dug into the Ben Cui Rubber Plantation several kilometers west of Camp Rainier. The volume of fire convinced Captain Hayward 

that he faced at least two well-equipped enemy battalions. Colonel Anderson 

dispatched Company C and the battalion’s reconnaissance platoon to reinforce Hayward’s company. Assisted by artillery, helicopter gunships, and 

fighter-bombers, the U.S. force finally drove the enemy from the field at 1600. 

Hayward’s soldiers collected ninety-two Communist dead and a large haul of 

equipment, including a field radio and three .50-caliber machine guns, weapons that were usually found at the regimental level. An analysis of captured 

documents revealed that the North Vietnamese force had included a battalion from the 33d PAVN Regiment as well as the D24 Anti-Aircraft Battalion.

15

While the 33d Regiment was moving into the Ben Cui Plantation to cut 

Route 239, another element of the 5th Division, the 275th PLAF Regiment, was 

setting up ambush positions along Route 26 in the Cau Khoi Plantation, eight 

kilometers southeast of Tay Ninh City. At 0930 on 18 August, Troop A, 3d 

Squadron, 4th Cavalry, a unit temporarily based at Checkpoint Tango where 

Route 239 crossed Route 26, was heading north through the plantation when 

it came under fire from Viet Cong hidden on either side of the road. Troop 

A slewed its vehicles to face the attackers. A few minutes later, Colonel Wolf 

dispatched Company A, 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry, which motored south 

down Route 26 and hit the enemy in the flank. Together, the mechanized 

units drove the Viet Cong from their ambush positions, killing thirty-four. 

U.S. casualties totaled four killed and seventeen wounded.16

On the morning of 19 August, Colonel Anderson’s battalion regained 

contact with the 33d Regiment in the Ben Cui Plantation. Companies B and 

C and the reconnaissance platoon of the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry, clashed 

with enemy troops who had reoccupied the fighting pits they abandoned 

the previous day. When several M113s became mired in the water-soaked 

15 AAR, Battle of Tay Ninh, 25th Inf Div, Encl 111, p. 15. 

16 Ibid., p. 16. 
Staying the Course

650

ground, Captain Hayward decided not to press the attack. Neither did the 

enemy. The long-range skirmish continued until dusk when the enemy withdrew deeper into the plantation. U.S. losses totaled two killed and another 

twenty-four wounded.17

The presence of the 33d and 275th Regiments in the plantations just 

east of Dau Tieng convinced General Williamson to reposition the cavalry 

troop at Checkpoint Tango to the relative safety of Dau Tieng. On the afternoon of 19 August, Troop A, 3d Squadron, 4th Cavalry, headed northwest 

on Route 239 toward Dau Tieng. Colonel Anderson sent Company B of the 

1st Battalion, 5th Infantry, west along Route 239 to rendezvous with the 

tankers at the edge of the Ben Cui Plantation and to escort them back to 

Dau Tieng.

At 1845, the mechanized company was driving west through the plantation when the 33d Regiment ambushed the lead platoon. A torrent of rocketpropelled grenades and recoilless rifle shells knocked out the two leading 

vehicles. Company B established a position on the north side of the road, 

while aircraft and artillery pounded the enemy. After two hours of ferocious combat, the cavalry troop from the 3d Squadron, 4th Cavalry, roared 

in from the west and hit the enemy in the flank. The maneuver bought the 

Americans a short respite. After loading up its casualties, the mechanized 

17 Ibid. 

Troops from the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry, 25th Infantry 

Division, move through the Ben Cui Plantation.
651

Thwarting the Third Wave

group motored east, fighting its way through North Vietnamese ambushes 

all the way back to Camp Rainier. On the way, rocket grenades disabled 

two tanks and two armored personnel carriers that had to be abandoned. 

Company B was nearly out of ammunition when it finally arrived at the 

base, carrying a total of eight killed and forty-four wounded. The unit estimated that it had killed up to 200 enemy soldiers.18

While the 5th Division was battling to control the roads and the plantations west of Dau Tieng, the 9th Division tried to find a gap in the defenses 

that protected Tay Ninh West. In the early morning hours of 20 August, a 

platoon from Company A, 2d Battalion, 27th Infantry, spotted a party of 

enemy soldiers while manning a night ambush position two kilometers north 

of Tay Ninh West. After engaging the enemy with their personal weapons, the 

Americans realized from the blistering return fire that they were facing an 

entire battalion. The platoon leader called in air and artillery support while 

fighting desperately to keep the Viet Cong from overrunning his position. 

The enemy withdrew shortly before dawn, leaving behind 155 bodies. U.S. 

losses came to five killed and six wounded. In all likelihood, the platoon’s 

determined stand thwarted what might have been a major ground attack 

against Tay Ninh West.19

18 Ibid., Encl 35, pp. 1–2, Encl 111, p. 17.

19 Ibid., Encl 37, pp. 10, 17.

A soldier aims his M79 grenade launcher.
Staying the Course

652

When Colonel Wolf briefed General Williamson on the morning of 

20 August, the brigade commander asked to borrow an infantry battalion 

from the 3d Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, which had seen almost no 

action since the start of the offensive. Wolf said that he had enough troops 

to defend his firebases and to keep the main roads open, but not enough 

to maneuver aggressively against the enemy. Williamson turned down the 

request since he was still unsure if the Tay Ninh attacks were mere feints 

before the 5th and 9th Divisions plunged south toward Saigon. Wolf would 

have to make do with what he had.

As a result, the 1st Brigade commander maintained an essentially 

defensive posture, swapping individual companies from here to there as the 

situation required, and waiting for the enemy to initiate battle. If Wolf had 

any consolation, it was that both the 33d Regiment and the 275th Regiment

appeared to be staying put for the time being. On the morning of 20 August, 

for example, Company B, 4th Battalion, 23d Infantry, was driving north 

on Route 26 through the Cau Khoi Plantation when it came under heavy 

fire at a bridge where Company A from the battalion had been ambushed 

the day before. While it engaged the ambushers, Company A came south 

down the road from Firebase Rawlins III to join the fight. The mechanized 

units eventually drove off the ambushing force from the 275th Regiment and 

recovered twenty-eight Communist dead. U.S. losses totaled four killed and 

seven wounded.20

The 33d Regiment renewed its fight with the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry, 

on the morning of 21 August when Company C and the reconnaissance 

platoon discovered North Vietnamese troops in the same northwestern section of the Ben Cui Plantation they had occupied on the eighteenth. This 

engagement proved to be far different from the earlier encounters. This 

time the enemy chose to attack, sending two battalions forward to close 

with the advancing line of U.S. infantry and vehicles. North Vietnamese 

troops armed with B40 rocket-propelled grenades targeted the six leading 

armored personnel carriers, knocking them out one by one. In the first 

hour of fighting, almost every officer in the two lead platoons, including the 

company commander, died. 

In Company C’s 1st Platoon, S. Sgt. Marvin R. Young vigorously took 

command after the death of the platoon commander. When the company’s 

sole surviving officer, a second lieutenant, ordered the survivors to pull 

back to a new defensive line, Young stayed where he was to provide covering fire. The withdrawal was well under way when he discovered that 

an element of his platoon had been unable to disengage and was at risk 

of being overwhelmed. As he moved forward to help, he received a severe 

head wound, but nonetheless continued to the trapped men and orchestrated their extraction. During the subsequent retreat, enemy fire wounded 

him in the arm and shattered his leg. Rather than impede the pace of the 

withdrawal, Sergeant Young ordered the men to proceed without him while 

he remained behind to provide cover. He continued to fight until killed by 

20 Ibid., p. 17.
653

Thwarting the Third Wave

the advancing enemy. His selfless action allowed his platoon to survive the 

battle, eventually to return to Camp Rainier without further incident. The 

Americans reported counting 182 enemy dead littering the battlefield, but 

their own casualties had been steep: 18 killed and 23 wounded. The Army 

posthumously awarded Sergeant Young the Medal of Honor for his deeds 

that day.21

Hoping to knock the 33d Regiment out of action, Colonel Wolf decided to 

pursue the North Vietnamese with all the force he could spare. The counterattack would leave him thinly stretched, but he judged the reward was worth 

the risk. He instructed Colonel Anderson to set up a blocking position on the 

east side of the Ben Cui Plantation with the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry. Wolf 

arranged for helicopters to fly two companies from the 2d Battalion, 27th 

Infantry, from Tay Ninh West to the west side of the plantation. The brigade 

commander had to wait until the next morning to do so, however, because 

only one helicopter company was available. He hoped that the 33d Regiment

stayed put until then.

As Colonel Anderson was dealing with the 33d Regiment west of Dau 

Tieng on 21 August, mechanized and cavalry units assigned to protect 

Route 26 continued their battle with the 275th Regiment in the Cau Khoi 

Rubber Plantation. Late that afternoon, Troop A from the 3d Squadron, 

4th Cavalry, and Company A from the 4th Battalion, 23d Infantry, clashed 

with Viet Cong troops just south of the bridge where heavy fighting had 

occurred the previous day. This time, the enemy remained well hidden in 

the trees, withdrawing before the Americans could close in for the kill. U.S. 

losses came to three killed and five wounded.

Later that afternoon at Tay Ninh West, Colonel Wolf briefed General 

Williamson, II Field Force commander General Kerwin, and Kerwin’s 

Vietnamese counterpart, General Tri. Wolf argued that the heavy fighting 

that had taken place over the last four days proved beyond a reasonable 

doubt that Tay Ninh Province, not Saigon, was COSVN’s primary target. 

Having confirmed that his sector contained no less than six main force 

regiments, Wolf asked that he be given at least two more artillery batteries and one infantry battalion. General Kerwin agreed with the colonel’s 

assessment and directed General Williamson, who had been slow to provide 

extra troops thus far, to make the reinforcements available. General Tri also 

promised to send an airborne battalion to Tay Ninh City as a reserve.22

The enemy added urgency to Wolf’s request later that night by launching simultaneous attacks against Firebases Buell II and Rawlins III. At 

Firebase Buell II, Companies C and D of the 3d Battalion, 22d Infantry, 

repulsed a headlong assault by the 174th Regiment. The enemy left behind 

sixty bodies and eleven wounded soldiers. U.S. losses came to three killed 

and eighteen wounded. On the northeastern side of the city, Companies A 

and B from the 4th Battalion, 23d Infantry, defended Firebase Rawlins III

in a four-hour battle with the 3d Battalion, 275th Regiment. The retreating 

21 Ibid., Encl 111, pp. 20–21. 

22 Ibid., p. 22.
Staying the Course

654

enemy left behind twenty-five dead and four wounded, while U.S. losses 

totaled one killed and ten wounded.23

Later on the morning of 22 August, a new round of fighting flared 

to life in the Ben Cui Plantation when Company B, 1st Battalion, 5th 

Infantry, reengaged elements of the 33d Regiment during a sweep of Route 

239. The resulting firefight, which Company C joined a short time later, 

produced another twenty-four enemy dead, while costing the Americans 

four disabled vehicles, five killed, and sixteen wounded.24

Convinced that both the 5th and 9th Divisions were fully committed to 

the battle, General Williamson instructed his 2d Brigade, commanded by 

Col. Raymond O. Miller, to move north into Dau Tieng. On the twentythird, Colonel Miller transferred his headquarters from Cu Chi to Camp 

Rainier, where he gained operational control over the 1st Battalion, 5th 

Infantry. Williamson moved several other units into Dau Tieng to operate under Miller’s command, including Troop A of the 3d Squadron, 4th 

Cavalry, and the 1st and 2d Battalions, 27th Infantry, each minus one 

company. The move allowed Wolf’s 1st Brigade—its maneuver elements 

now consisting of the 4th Battalion, 23d Infantry; three troops from the 

3d Squadron, 4th Cavalry; the 3d Battalion, 22d Infantry; and three companies from the 2d Battalion, 34th Armor—to focus on the immediate 

vicinity of Tay Ninh City.

As soon as Colonel Miller established his new headquarters at Dau 

Tieng, he dispatched a task force to construct a base on Route 239 midway 

between the Ben Cui and Cau Khoi Plantations. Firebase Schofield

became operational that evening, manned by two 105-mm. howitzer units, 

Battery A of the 1st Battalion, 8th Artillery, and Battery C of the 7th 

Battalion, 11th Artillery, as well as Companies A, B, and D of the 2d 

Battalion, 27th Infantry, supported by elements of Troop A, 3d Squadron, 

4th Cavalry.

Shortly after midnight, the enemy reacted to this new threat by hurling two battalions from the 33d Regiment at Firebase Schofield. The 

ferocious four-hour battle cost both sides dearly. The Americans found 

103 North Vietnamese dead and an unusually high number of abandoned 

weapons, including four machine guns, four 60-mm. mortar tubes, two 

recoilless rifles, and eleven rocket-propelled grenade launchers. The 

Americans lost nine killed and forty-one wounded. Four armored personnel carriers and two tanks had been destroyed and five M113s damaged. However, the enemy’s failure to overrun Firebase Schofield meant 

that Colonel Miller now had a strong forward base in between the 33d

and 275th Regiments, which enabled him to respond more quickly to any 

threats on Routes 239 and 26.25

23 Ibid., pp. 18–19.

24 Ibid., p. 19.

25 Ibid., p. 20.
655

Thwarting the Third Wave

The Offensive Widens

On the morning of 19 August, one day after the 5th and 9th Divisions

began their campaign in Tay Ninh, North Vietnamese mortar crews from 

the 7th Division shelled the Loc Ninh Special Forces camp in neighboring 

Binh Long Province. When daylight arrived, the commander of the 1st 

Infantry Division, General Ware, ordered the 2d Squadron, 11th Armored 

Cavalry, which was currently laagered in the district capital, to search for the 

enemy. That afternoon, elements of the armored cavalry regiment clashed 

with troops from the 5th and 6th Battalions, 165th Regiment, in the rubber 

plantations southwest of town. The two-day battle cost the enemy thirty-two 

killed and twenty captured. U.S. losses came to four killed and thirty-one 

wounded, with two armored personnel carriers destroyed.26

Concerned that other elements of the 7th Division were lurking in the 

area, General Ware airlifted an additional unit to Loc Ninh on 20 August, 

the 1st Battalion, 2d Infantry, commanded by Lt. Col. Thomas E. Fitzpatrick. 

Joining forces with the cavalry squadron, Fitzpatrick’s battalion saw sustained action over the next four days, first with the 165th Regiment southwest 

of town, and then with a battalion from the 320th PAVN Regiment northeast 

of Loc Ninh. Nearly 200 enemy soldiers died in those clashes, while U.S. 

casualties amounted to a dozen killed. The North Vietnamese withdrew into 

Cambodia on 25 August, leaving behind a few companies to keep tabs on 

allied movements around Loc Ninh.27

The third general offensive reached IV Corps on the night of 21–22 

August when Viet Cong units in thirteen provinces attacked three provincial 

capitals, seven district towns, eight outposts, two airfields, and two training 

centers. Of the seventy-five separate attacks recorded that night, thirty-nine 

were conducted by long-range fire, and only seven of the ground attacks 

involved more than a single company. The 516th and 550th Battalions conducted the most determined assault, hitting Ben Tre, but government forces 

repulsed the attack with virtually no U.S. help. The Communists called off a 

multibattalion assault on Can Tho when the attack forces failed to reach their 

jump-off point in time. On 24 August, the 263d and 514A Battalions assaulted 

a district headquarters in My Tho Province, but the thrust fell apart when 

enemy mortar crews, their aim spoiled by wet ground giving way beneath 

their tubes, shelled their own advancing infantry.28

COSVN’s offensive also reached Saigon on the night of 21–22 August 

when twenty-two 122-mm. rockets slammed into the city, marking the first 

time that the capital had been shelled in almost two months. One of the warheads plunged into the National Assembly building, severely damaging the 

26 ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, 1st Inf Div, 16 Nov 68, p. 6, box 5, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd 

Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP; 7th Division, p. 73. 27 ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, II FFV, n.d., p. 20, Historians files, CMH.

28 Msgs, Abrams MAC 11355 to Wheeler, 22 Aug 68; and General Eckhardt CTO 397, Senior 

Adviser, IV Corps, to Abrams, 5 Sep 68. Both in Abrams Msg files, CMH. ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 

68, 9th Inf Div, 31 Oct 68, p. 8, box 42, ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 

472, NACP; Minh et al., Military Region 8, p. 659.
Staying the Course

656

unoccupied structure, and the other rocket strikes killed seventeen people 

and wounded sixty-nine others.29

One of the five Viet Cong headquarters in the capital zone, the SubRegion 3 command, had planned on attacking Saigon with ground forces, 

but that plan had unraveled in early August when its combat forces—the 

1st and 2d Long An Battalions, the Dong Phu Battalion (formerly the Phu 

Loi II Battalion), and the 265th Battalion—had run afoul of the 1st Brigade, 

9th Infantry Division, while moving north through Long An Province. Over 

a two-week period, the 9th Infantry Division had killed nearly 400 enemy 

soldiers and captured 50 prisoners, forcing the Sub-Region 3 headquarters 

to abandon its plan to attack the Eighth District and the Nha Be petroleum 

storage facility.30

The fighting spread to I Corps on the night of 22–23 August when Viet 

Cong and North Vietnamese units attacked at least thirty-six cities, towns, 

and allied bases, chiefly with rocket and mortar fire. Enemy sappers also 

struck two of those targets with deadly effect. In the first incident, a team 

29 ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, Capital Military Assistance Command, n.d., p. 2, box 63, 

ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 30 Maj Gen Huynh Cong Than, On the Long An Battlefield: A Memoir (Hanoi: Nha Xuat 

Ban Quan Doi Nhan Dan, 1994), p. 149.

A 1st Infantry Division officer uses a radio while a CH–47 Chinook delivers 

supplies to an American position in Binh Long Province.
657

Thwarting the Third Wave

of commandos fought its way into Landing Zone Bowman, an Americal 

Division outpost in the Que Son Valley. The defenders lost five killed and 

twenty-six wounded before repelling the sappers, who lost one man killed 

and another captured. An even more damaging raid took place in Da Nang 

when a company from the R20 Battalion and a platoon of sappers infiltrated 

Forward Operating Base 4, a compound just south of Marble Mountain at Da 

Nang that contained a MACV Studies and Observations Group headquarters, several U.S. Special Forces teams, and a mobile strike force company. 

Satchel charges and rocket-propelled grenades killed 17 U.S. Army Special 

Forces soldiers, the heaviest one-day loss of Green Berets in the war, and 

wounded another 125 allied personnel.31

In addition to the rocket artillery and sapper attacks, enemy infantry 

attempted to penetrate two major cities. The first was Da Nang, designated 

by the Politburo as a key target of the August offensive. The heaviest fighting 

took place around the Cam Le Bridge, two kilometers south of the main air 

base. The V25 and T89 PLAF Battalions tried to seize the span so main force 

units coming from the south could enter the city. A platoon of U.S. Marine 

military policemen held them at bay, waging a desperate but successful 

defense from a line of bunkers until relieved by troops from the 1st Battalion, 

27th Marines, and South Vietnamese rangers. Just north of the bridge, a 

company from the 402d PLAF Sapper Battalion tried to seize the Hoa Vang 

District headquarters. A combination of U.S. advisers and Regional Forces 

troops defended the position until they, too, were rescued by U.S. marines 

and South Vietnamese rangers. The sappers fell back to the bridge, where the 

fighting continued fiercely for the next nine hours. Hammered by air strikes, 

hemmed in by allied infantry, and pummeled by a platoon of M48 tanks, the 

surviving Viet Cong troops broke and ran late that afternoon. A search of the 

ground between Hoa Vang and the bridge found 184 enemy dead.32

While that fight was still under way, other battles flared in the lowlands 

south of Da Nang. Several Marine outposts came under fire, but two battalions from the South Vietnamese 2d Infantry Division and a pair of ranger 

battalions saw the most action. Assisted by U.S. Marine fighter-bombers, 

the government soldiers turned back probing attacks from the 31st and 

38th PAVN Regiments, killing almost 300 enemy soldiers before the North 

Vietnamese withdrew to the Go Noi Island base zone.33

The other regional capital on the main force target list was Quang Ngai 

City. The 3d Division sent its 1st Regiment down from the coastal mountains 

on the morning of 24 August, but roving patrols from Troop A of the 1st 

Squadron, 1st Cavalry, located the assault group while it was still six kilometers west of the city. Troops B and C from the squadron immediately rushed 

31 ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, 23d Inf Div, 7 Nov 68, p. 10, Historians files, CMH; AAR, Opn 

Burlington Trail, 11th Inf Bde, n.d., p. 12, box 4, AARs, 1965–1971, Cmd Historian, HQ, 

USARV, RG 472, NACP; Periodic Intel Rpt no. 34-68, III MAF, 18–24 Aug 68, 27 Aug 68, p. 2, 

Historians files, CMH; Shulimson, U.S. Marines in Vietnam, p. 377. 32 Shulimson, U.S. Marines in Vietnam, p. 378. 33 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 34-68, III MAF, p. 4.
Staying the Course

658

to the scene, and the 4th Battalion, 21st Infantry, and the 2d Battalion, 

1st Infantry, each provided a company of infantry to support the vehicles. 

After four days of heavy fighting, the North Vietnamese broke contact and 

retreated back into the mountains. The battle claimed the lives of 567 enemy 

soldiers, nearly destroying one battalion from the 1st Regiment and rendering 

the other two combat ineffective.34

In II Corps, the third general offensive began on the morning of 18 August 

when a battalion from the 101D Regiment attacked the Dak Seang Special 

Forces camp in northwestern Kontum Province. The Montagnard defenders 

repulsed the assault, killing thirty-five enemy soldiers and capturing eleven 

more. The following day, North Vietnamese gunners plastered the camp with 

at least 125 rounds of mortar and recoilless rifle fire. Farther south, enemy 

artillery crews pounded a U.S. outpost near Dak To with twenty-one rockets. 

The fighting spread to Pleiku Province on 20 August when a battalion from 

the 24th Regiment assaulted a South Vietnamese firebase, located on Highway 

14 some twenty-two kilometers north of the provincial capital. The defenders 

turned aside the somewhat disorganized attack, killing eighty-seven enemy 

troops while losing nine of their own killed. 

The fighting spread across II Corps on the night of 23–24 August when 

enemy mortar and rocket crews shelled more than thirty locations, among 

them An Khe, Bong Son, Phan Thiet, and Phan Rang. That same evening, 

the 66th Regiment from the 1st Division plus the 20th Sapper Battalion and 

several heavy weapons units converged on Duc Lap, a small village in western Quang Duc Province approximately seven kilometers from Cambodia. 

The division’s 320th Regiment established a blocking position on Highway 14 

northeast of Duc Lap to intercept allied ground units coming from Ban Me 

Thuot. The 95C Regiment stayed back near the Cambodian border with the 

division’s headquarters and support units.

The Dak Sak Special Forces camp, a collection of log and sandbag bunkers manned by two mobile strike force companies, a South Vietnamese 

Special Forces team, U.S. Special Forces Detachment A–239, and a few 

Australian advisers, lay approximately five kilometers southeast of the largest hamlet in Duc Lap village. Highway 14 bisected the community, extending 

southwest toward Cambodia and northeast toward Ban Me Thuot. Inside the 

main hamlet was a subdistrict headquarters, a wood and earth fortification 

not much larger than a football field defended by a half-dozen or so Special 

Forces advisers and a Regional Forces company. Another Regional Forces 

company manned the Bon Sar Pa outpost, located three kilometers to the 

southwest on a knoll overlooking Highway 14.35

The attack began in the early morning hours of 24 August when two 

squads from the 20th Sapper Battalion crept up to the Duc Lap subsector headquarters and cut through several layers of protective wire without alerting the 

34 ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, 23d Inf Div, p. 10; AAR, Opn Burlington Trail, 1st Sqdn, 1st 

Cav, n.d., pp. 3–4, box 31, AARs, Asst Ch of Staff, J–3, MACV, RG 472, NACP. 35 AAR, Battle for Duc Lap, I FFV, 24 Sep 68, pp. 4–5, box 29, AARs, Asst Ch of Staff, J–3, 

MACV, RG 472, NACP.
659

Thwarting the Third Wave

guards. They stormed into the compound and began throwing satchel charges, 

while a North Vietnamese infantry company stationed outside the wire raked 

the compound with covering fire. One of the satchel charges partly collapsed 

the advisory team headquarters, wounding five of the Americans who were 

sleeping inside. When they emerged to rally the Montagnard defenders, heavy 

enemy fire killed one of the advisers and drove the rest back (Map 47).36

Trapped in their headquarters, the advisers in the subsector compound 

radioed the Dak Sak camp for help, only to learn that it, too, was under 

heavy attack. North Vietnamese troops had penetrated the wire and occupied part of the northern hill inside the camp. Nevertheless, the command 

group at Dak Sak promised to send a company of mobile strike force soldiers 

when daylight came. In the meantime, an AC–47 Spooky gunship arrived to 

suppress enemy mortar and machine-gun positions beyond the reach of the 

defenders’ weapons.37

At General An’s headquarters in Ban Me Thuot, the South Vietnamese 

commander met with Generals Peers and Stone to discuss the relief of Duc 

Lap and the security of the provincial capital. To shore up the latter, Peers 

ordered General Allen to airlift the 4th Battalion of the 503d Infantry, 

173d Airborne Brigade, from Tuy Hoa to Ban Me Thuot where it would 

join the newly created Task Force Spoiler. Commanded by Col. Herbert J. 

McChrystal, the task force included his 2d Brigade, 4th Division, as well as 

the 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry, two troops from the 7th Squadron, 17th Air 

Cavalry, and seven artillery batteries. General An ordered a battalion from 

the 47th Infantry Regiment to redeploy from Phu Yen Province to Ban Me 

Thuot. The South Korean Expeditionary Force offered to provide additional 

troops should the need arise.38

Turning to the relief of Duc Lap, General An dispatched two battalions from the 45th Regiment that were currently patrolling Highways 14 

and 21 near Ban Me Thuot. General Stone arranged for the 1st Squadron, 

10th Cavalry, to defend the highways during their absence. General An also 

received permission from his corps commander to fly in several mobile 

strike force companies from the coastal lowlands. They and the two South 

Vietnamese battalions would receive direct 105-mm. artillery support from 

Colonel McChrystal’s 2d Brigade, 4th Division. After establishing a new firebase three kilometers southwest of the Dak Sak camp, McChrystal agreed 

to fly in Battery A from the 4th Battalion, 42d Artillery, and two platoons 

from the 2d Battalion, 35th Infantry, organized as Task Force Lance. Peers 

provided additional help to the Duc Lap defenders with five B–52 Arc Light

strikes that bombed the surrounding hills later that day.39

36 Ibid., p. 16.

37 Ibid., pp. 13, 19–22.

38 ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, 7th Armd Sqdn, 17th Air Cav, 11 Aug 68, p. 8, box 60; ORLL, 

1 Aug–31 Oct 68, 4th Inf Div, pp. 2–3, Encl 1, box 25. Both in ORLLs, 1966–1971, Cmd 

Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP. Msg, Peers NHT 1125 to Abrams, 6 Aug 68, Abrams 

Msg files, CMH. 39 AAR, Battle for Duc Lap, I FFV, pp. 25–26.
Staying the Course

660

On the morning of 24 August, U.S. helicopters airlifted a mobile strike 

force company into Duc Lap, landing them outside the wire of the main camp. 

Fighting its way into Dak Sak, the Montagnard unit attacked the enemy-held 

hill on the northern side of the compound. The assault failed with heavy 

losses. U.S. helicopters tried to land on the airfield to retrieve the dozens of 

Montagnard casualties, but North Vietnamese machine guns on the hill shot 

down four of the aircraft, discouraging further attempts for the moment. 

The allied situation at Duc Lap began to improve late that afternoon 

when helicopters positioned the South Vietnamese 2d Battalion, 45th 

Map 47

66(-)

PAVN

III

66(-)

PAVN

III

66(-)

PAVN

III

BREACH ZONE

BREACH ZONE

25 Aug 1000 hours

24 Aug

BREACH ZONE

BREACH ZONE

562d Co Ammunition Dump

563d Co Headquarters

563d Co Ammunition Dump

561st Co Headquarters

561st Co Ammunition Dump

Tactical Operations Center

564th Co Ammunition Dump

564th Co Headquarters

Camp Perimeter 

24–25 August 1968

SKETCH NOT TO SCALE

AT TACK ON DUC LAP 

SPECIAL FORCES CAMP 

Enemy Limit of Advance, Date

Area under Enemy Control
661

Thwarting the Third Wave

Regiment, into a landing zone near the subsector headquarters in Duc Lap 

village. Enemy fire brought down two helicopters, but the other aircraft got 

the battalion on the ground before nightfall. Around dusk, another flight of 

helicopters deposited two mobile strike force companies into a clearing three 

kilometers south of the Special Forces camp, securing the site for Task Force 

Lance set to arrive the next day.40

The twenty-fifth of August proved to be the turning point in the battle for 

Duc Lap. The North Vietnamese renewed their attack against the subsector 

headquarters, now down to 61 troops out an original complement of 118, but 

the defenders held out until relieved by the South Vietnamese 2d Battalion, 

45th Regiment. After rescuing the compound, General An’s battalion swept 

the high ground to the north where the attack had originated and forced the 

North Vietnamese to retreat from the village of Duc Lap entirely.

The situation that day at the Dak Sak Special Forces camp was more 

precarious. The attacking North Vietnamese infantry took complete control 

over the small hill that dominated the northern end of the compound, forcing 

the defenders—three depleted mobile strike force companies plus their U.S., 

South Vietnamese, and Australian advisers—to withdraw to a second, larger 

hill at the southern end of the camp where the main command post and most 

of the advisory buildings were located.

Help arrived just in time. Once the artillery battery from Task Force

Lance deployed at its designated landing zone three kilometers to the south 

of Dak Sak, the two mobile strike force companies that had secured the 

position the night before headed north and fought their way into the Special 

Forces camp at around 1300 on 25 August. The Montagnards broke up a 

North Vietnamese attack, hitting the enemy from the flank as Communist 

soldiers advanced across the runway toward the southern hill. After pushing the foe back to the northern hill, the two Montagnard units, joined by a 

fresh mobile strike force company that had just arrived from Pleiku, waited 

for air and artillery strikes to soften up the position before they assaulted 

the summit. North Vietnamese fire cut down dozens of the attackers, killing 

three U.S. advisers who led the charge, but the remaining irregulars swept to 

the top of the hill. By 1900, the entire Dak Sak Special Forces camp was back 

in allied hands.41

The intensity of the fighting diminished on the twenty-sixth. The South 

Vietnamese 2d Battalion, 45th Regiment, continued to battle enemy troops 

in the hills just north of the subdistrict headquarters, but the 66th Regiment

made no effort to renew its siege of the Dak Sak Special Forces camp. By 

27 August, the crisis in the Duc Lap area appeared to be over. General An 

flew in the South Vietnamese 1st Battalion, 45th Infantry Regiment, just as a 

precaution, but the government troops found little trace of the 1st Division in 

the days that followed.42

40 Ibid., pp. 28–29.

41 Ibid., pp. 31–35.

42 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 35-68, I FFV, 25–31 Aug 68, 31 Aug 68, p. 4, Historians files, CMH.
Staying the Course

662

Allied casualties for the battle of Duc Lap came to 114 killed and 238 

wounded. Seven of the dead were U.S. advisers. The I Field Force estimated 

that over 700 North Vietnamese soldiers had perished, most from air and 

artillery strikes. Allied commanders later learned that the 1st Division had 

ended the campaign prematurely due to a lack of trained replacements, food 

shortages, sickness magnified by the rainy conditions, and a scarcity of arms 

and ammunition.43

U.S. commanders praised the performance of the South Vietnamese at 

Duc Lap. General Peers singled out the 1st and 2d Battalions of the 45th 

Infantry Regiment, which in his words had “demonstrated professionalism and a fighting spirit equal to that of any unit in the history of the war.” 

Abrams called the performance of the South Vietnamese “magnificent” and 

said that General An had handled the Duc Lap battle “with consummate 

skill.” Tragically, an air accident claimed the life of An and his wife on 8 

September. He was posthumously promoted to major general and awarded 

the highest decoration in the Vietnamese Army.44

Fighting Continues in Tay Ninh Province

One week into the Tay Ninh campaign, a combination of casualties, 

disease, and sodden living conditions had significantly eroded the fighting power of the 5th and 9th Divisions. General Thai decided to make one 

final push before suspending COSVN’s offensive until early September. He 

ordered the 88th PAVN Regiment to move from Hau Nghia Province into 

the rubber plantations that bordered Highway 22 south of Tay Ninh City. He 

also instructed the 275th PLAF Regiment to continue its interdiction efforts 

on Route 26.45

On the morning of 25 August, a convoy of eighty-nine supply vehicles 

manned by troops from the 6th and 7th Transportation Battalions departed 

Long Binh on a routine supply mission to Tay Ninh West. A detachment of 

military policemen, riding in jeeps equipped with machine guns, accompanied them. After passing through Saigon, the convoy headed northwest on 

Highway 1 to Trang Bang before angling onto Highway 22 for the final leg of 

the journey.46

The column of vehicles reached the Thanh Duc, or Little Rubber, 

Plantation around noon. The plantation, located approximately ten kilometers southeast of Tay Ninh City, fronted the east side of Highway 22 for about 

two kilometers and extended about five kilometers nearly to the edge of the 

Cau Khoi Plantation. A string of hamlets lined the west side of the road. As 

43 ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, 2d Bde, 4th Div, 2 Nov 68, pp. 5–6, box 3, ORLLs, 1966–1971, 

Cmd Historian, HQ, USARV, RG 472, NACP. 44 First quote from Telg, Bunker Saigon 37046 to President Johnson, 4 Sep 68, p. 17. Second 

quote from Telg, Bunker Saigon 36596 to President Johnson, 29 Aug 68, p. 25. Both in NSFVietnam Country Files, Vietnam Center and Archive, TTU. 45 AAR, Battle of Tay Ninh, 25th Inf Div, Encl 34, p. 2.

46 Stephen C. Tunnell, “Convoy Ambush At Ap Nhi,” Vietnam 12 (April 1999): 20.
663

Thwarting the Third Wave

the Americans drove past, they spotted troops wearing South Vietnamese 

Army uniforms standing among the trees. All seemed well until those 

troops—actually North Vietnamese soldiers from the 88th Regiment wearing stolen uniforms—opened fire on the column, as did hidden enemy crews 

firing machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, and mortars.47

The initial burst of fire destroyed a tanker toward the front of the convoy 

within seconds; its destruction created a roadblock for the fifty-eight vehicles 

lined up behind it. The vehicles in front of the burning tanker sped away, 

getting clear of the ambush zone within minutes and eventually making their 

way safely to Tay Ninh City. Meanwhile, the drivers of the stalled vehicles 

and the small military police escort dismounted and returned fire from positions behind their vehicles or along the west side of the road (Map 48).48

One of the men caught in the ambush was a nineteen-year-old driver 

from the 62d Transportation Company, Sgt. William W. Seay. As the enemy 

approached within ten meters of the road, Sergeant Seay opened fire from 

behind his truck, killing two. He then spotted a sniper in a tree seventy-five 

meters to his front and killed him. When a North Vietnamese soldier threw a 

grenade under an ammunition trailer, he raced into the open, picked up the 

grenade, and threw it back at the enemy, killing four and saving the lives of 

the men around him. When another grenade landed three meters from his 

position, he again exposed himself to enemy fire to toss it back. After receiving a painful wound in the right wrist, Sergeant Seay spotted three enemy 

soldiers who had penetrated the American position and who were about to 

open fire on his unsuspecting comrades. Despite being weak from loss of 

blood and with his right hand immobilized, he stood up and fired his rifle 

with his left hand, killing all three assailants. It was his last act, as a North 

Vietnamese sniper inflicted a mortal wound. The Army recognized Sergeant 

Seay’s bravery by posthumously awarding him the Medal of Honor.49

About fifteen minutes into the desperate fight, Colonel Wolf received a 

distress call and dispatched his nearest force, Lt. Col. Clifford C. Neilson’s 

4th Battalion, 23d Infantry. An element from Company C, 4th Battalion, 23d 

Infantry, came up Highway 22 from the south, while the balance of Colonel 

Neilson’s troops fought their way into the northern end of the ambush zone. 

Arriving overhead in his command helicopter, Colonel Wolf saw that the 

North Vietnamese were still pressing the attack. Some enemy soldiers were in 

among the supply vehicles, and a few were even collecting artillery shells from 

a flatbed trailer. He asked General Williamson to send a troop from the 3d 

Squadron, 4th Cavalry, based at Cu Chi. He also asked that a company from 

the 3d Battalion, 22d Infantry, land onto the northern edge of the plantation 

so it could move into the trees and hit the enemy from the rear. Williamson 

approved both requests.50

47 AAR, Battle of Tay Ninh, 25th Inf Div, Encl 45, pp. 1–2.

48 Ibid., Encl 111, p. 24.

49 Medal of Honor Citation for Sgt William W. Seay, n.d., Historians files, CMH.

50 AAR, Battle of Tay Ninh, 25th Inf Div, Encl 45, p. 2.
Staying the Course

664

The tanks and armored personnel carriers of Troop B from the 3d 

Squadron, 4th Cavalry, arrived at the southern end of the plantation at 

around 1400. Colonel Wolf ordered the troop commander to send half of 

his force into the rubber plantation to roll up the enemy’s left flank while his 

remaining soldiers secured the trapped and disabled vehicles on the road. 

Fifteen minutes later, helicopters landed Company C of the 3d Battalion, 22d 

Infantry, at the northern end of the ambush zone. They hit the enemy’s right 

flank, while Colonel Neilson’s 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry, battled the North 

Vietnamese from the road.51

The counterattacks pushed the enemy deeper into the plantation, allowing some drivers to reboard their vehicles and navigate them clear of the 

51 Ibid., Encl 42, p. 11.

88(-)

PAVN

III

88(-)

PAVN

III

22 Northbound Convoy

Ap Nhi

Thanh Duc

Rubber Plantation

Bridge

Burning Ammunition Truck

Burning Tranker Pagoda

Ditch

Houses

25 August 1968

SKETCH NOT TO SCALE

AMBUSH AT THE

THANH DUC RUBBER PLANTATION

Enemy Attack

Destroyed Convoy Vehicle

Convoy Vehicle

Map 48
665

Thwarting the Third Wave

ambush zone. However, almost two dozen trucks, including several carrying 

artillery shells, were too damaged to move. Williamson ordered Wolf to tow 

the vehicles back to Tay Ninh West before sundown. 

The colonel faced a dilemma. He did not have enough recovery vehicles 

to tow the damaged trucks, and his work crews on Highway 22 were still 

receiving intermittent enemy fire. The units that he had sent into the Little 

Rubber Plantation were running low on ammunition and fuel. Darkness was 

fast approaching. To make matters worse, a heavy rainstorm had blown in, 

threatening to ground all of his supply helicopters. With the 88th Regiment

still lurking nearby, Wolf decided to consolidate his forces along Highway 22 

for the night. Recovery of the vehicles would have to wait until the next day.

Colonel Wolf sent several companies back into the plantation the next 

morning, 26 August, but found that the 88th Regiment had pulled out during 

the night, leaving behind an extensive network of fortifications and 103 North 

Vietnamese dead. U.S. casualties totaled twenty-one killed, plus twenty-two 

vehicles destroyed and another forty-nine damaged.52

General Williamson was critical of Wolf’s performance. The 25th 

Division commander believed that the colonel had failed to protect the 

stranded convoy vehicles and their cargo to a sufficient degree, choosing to 

chase the enemy through the plantation rather than concentrate on recovering 

the damaged and destroyed vehicles. Wolf, for his part, felt that his options 

had been limited by the circumstances and that Williamson, monitoring the 

battle by radio back in Cu Chi, had not properly appreciated the conditions 

on the ground. The 1st Brigade commander and his superior officer already 

had a tense relationship. Wolf had been agitating for additional forces since 

the start of the offensive because he, unlike Williamson, was convinced that 

the main battle was unfolding around Tay Ninh City and that Saigon was not 

in immediate danger. The ambush at the Little Rubber Plantation strained 

that already frayed relationship. Having lost faith in his brigade commander, 

General Williamson transferred Wolf to a staff position on 27 August, placing the 1st Brigade in the hands of Col. Robert L. Fair.53

Shortly after midnight on 27 August, the 275th Regiment emerged from 

the Cau Khoi Plantation for one final attack. Two battalions converged on 

Firebase Rawlins III, but the halfhearted assault against the 4th Battalion, 

23d Infantry, accomplished little. The enemy left behind fifty-eight bodies, 

two wounded prisoners, three machine guns, five rocket-propelled grenade 

launchers, and seven satchel charges. The defenders sustained eight wounded 

in the attack. With that, the initial phase of COSVN’s third general offensive 

came to an end.54

Enemy losses in Tay Ninh and Binh Long Provinces during that ten-day 

period totaled around 1,500 killed, with perhaps another 2,000 soldiers incapacitated by wounds, as compared to U.S. casualties of 85 killed and about 

300 wounded. Taking all of South Vietnam into account, the enemy had sus52 Ibid., Encl 54, p. 3.

53 Ibid., Encl 111, p. 32.

54 Ibid., p. 21.
Staying the Course

666

tained approximately 8,700 killed during the first eleven days of the August 

offensive. By comparison, that was roughly three-quarters the number of 

men the Communists had lost during the initial phase of the May offensive. 

General Abrams was gratified with the results. At his weekly intelligence 

meeting on 24 August, the MACV commander told his subordinates that the 

enemy was becoming desperate “because he can’t do a goddamn thing militarily. . . . He’s a prisoner of his own damn strategy, and he can’t find a good 

way out. He can’t admit it–that’s impossible for him.” At long last, the enemy 

might have reached his breaking point. “I think he’s got a deteriorating military machine,” Abrams said. “He’s got maybe about three more times, or two 

more times, that he can somehow lash it forward. And, if we can keep at this, 

it’ll just bust open. I think he’s trapped.”55

The September Phase

As the fighting tapered off in the waning days of August, Abrams 

instructed his subordinates to keep pressure on the enemy with reconnaissance-in-force operations and actions to interdict infiltration routes. Recent 

intelligence suggested that North Vietnam intended to resume the third general offensive at some point in the next few weeks. The allies gathered more 

evidence to support that theory, while the lull persisted through the first week 

of September. A reliable informant in III Corps, for example, told authorities 

that COSVN had ordered a new round of attacks to commence between 10 

and 15 September. Abrams doubted that the enemy could mount stronger 

attacks than before, but still expected him to renew the fighting. Writing to 

his subordinates on 3 September, the MACV commander predicated that 

North Vietnam would adopt a “stretched-out and phased offensive” strategy, 

staggering his attacks over time, and switching from region to region to keep 

the offensive going for as long as possible.56

Abrams’ analysis proved correct. At the beginning of the month, North 

Vietnamese leaders instructed all five major front commands to resume the 

offensive as soon as local conditions permitted. Only COSVN reported that 

it would be ready to launch a new round of attacks in September. The plan 

that General Thai submitted for the second phase of the Tay Ninh campaign 

was similar to the first. The 7th PAVN Division would renew the fighting 

around Loc Ninh, while the 5th and 9th PLAF Divisions attacked allied positions north and east of Tay Ninh City. This time, however, COSVN instructed 

those units to commit fewer soldiers, using just one battalion per regiment or 

55 Quotes from Lewis Sorely, Vietnam Chronicles: The Abrams Tapes, 1968–1972 (Lubbock: 

Texas Tech University Press, 2004), p. 33. Msg, Abrams MAC 11822 to Wheeler, 3 Sep 68, 

Abrams Msg files, CMH. 56 Quote from Msg, Abrams MAC 12145 to Kerwin et al., 3 Sep 68, Abrams Msg files, CMH. 

Intel Rpt, DIA, 7 Sep 68, sub: Viet Cong Military and Political Plans in Tay Ninh Province for 

Period 6 to 15 September, Historians files, CMH.
667

Thwarting the Third Wave

one company per battalion at a time, to prolong the offensive without incurring crippling losses.57

At that point in early September, the disposition of allied forces in Tay 

Ninh and Binh Long Provinces remained essentially unchanged. Colonel 

Fair’s 1st Brigade continued to shield Tay Ninh City, while a battalion-size 

task force from General Ware’s 1st Infantry Division screened Loc Ninh. On 

9 September, however, General Kerwin and General Tri agreed to move a 

South Vietnamese Airborne task force and a South Vietnamese Marine task 

force into Tay Ninh Province. Those units began arriving two days later, just 

as COSVN launched the second phase of its third general offensive.

The 320th PAVN Regiment opened the fighting at Loc Ninh on the morning of 11 September by mortaring the Special Forces compound and a nearby 

1st Infantry Division base manned by the 1st Battalion, 2d Infantry. General 

Ware had retained Colonel Fitzpatrick’s battalion at the district capital along 

with Troop E from the 2d Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry, to keep an eye 

on the rubber plantations surrounding Loc Ninh. When daylight came, 

Fitzpatrick sent two companies to look for the mortars. Two kilometers east 

of town, the Americans discovered North Vietnamese fortifications, sparking a fight that cost them five killed and ten wounded. Colonel Fitzpatrick 

pulled back for the night and briefed Ware on the situation.

General Ware decided to send the 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry, commanded by Lt. Col. Leland C. Rew, to Loc Ninh the next morning, 12 

September. When the unit arrived, Rew took three of his companies into the 

plantations north of town, each heading for Hill 222 about six kilometers 

away, and using separate routes of march to widen the search pattern. 

Shortly after noon, Colonel Rew’s companies clashed with battalionsize elements from the 141st, 165th, and 320th PAVN Regiments, which were 

arrayed to the south and southwest of Hill 222. Isolated from one another, 

the U.S. companies faced intense pressure during the opening stage of the 

battle, and at least one company came close to being overrun. Air and artillery strikes plus the arrival of Troop E from the 2d Squadron, 11th Armored 

Cavalry, tipped the balance back in favor of Rew’s infantry, which ended the 

day camped close to one another just south of Hill 222.58

That same morning on the twelfth, Companies C and D from the 1st 

Battalion, 2d Infantry, resumed their eastward push from Loc Ninh. 

After overrunning the bunkers they had encountered the previous day, the 

Americans discovered an even larger complex hidden within an abandoned 

rubber plantation about five kilometers from the district capital. Despite 

assistance from air and artillery strikes, U.S. soldiers failed to take the heavily defended position, later determined to be the command post of the 5th 

Battalion, 320th Regiment.

59

Early the next morning, 13 September, a company of North Vietnamese 

assaulted Fitzpatrick’s men to cover the withdrawal of the main enemy 

57 ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, 1st Inf Div, p. 15.

58 Ibid., Encl 3 p. 2.

59 ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, II FFV, p. 20; 7th Division, p. 76.
Staying the Course

668

force. When the attack ended, Companies C and D from the 1st Battalion, 

2d Infantry, examined the now-abandoned bunker complex and then headed 

east in pursuit. They regained contact at 1300, this time with the fresh 4th 

Battalion, 320th Regiment. Under heavy pressure from the North Vietnamese, 

Colonel Fitzpatrick requested assistance from Troop E of the 2d Squadron, 

11th Armored Cavalry, currently located several kilometers to the north. The 

cavalry unit arrived at the battlefield a few hours later and helped drive off 

the attackers.60

The second major engagement on 13 September took place at Hill 222 

to the north of Loc Ninh. The 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry, got into position 

to assault the enemy-controlled hill, while helicopters landed three companies from the 2d Battalion, 16th Infantry, commanded by Lt. Col. Charles P. 

McLean, into a blocking position just east of the objective. At around 1300, 

shortly before the assault got under way, General Ware flew north in his command helicopter to observe the battle from above. The aircraft was flying low 

over the jungle about five kilometers south of Loc Ninh when machine-gun 

fire ripped through the cabin. The helicopter crashed to the ground, killing General Ware in addition to three members of his staff and four crew 

members. The assistant division commander, Brig. Gen. Orwin C. Talbott, 

immediately stepped in to take charge of the 1st Division.61

Despite that tragedy, Colonel Rew went forward with the 1st Battalion, 

28th Infantry’s assault on Hill 222. Heavy enemy fire drove back his first 

attempt. He tried again after plastering the hill with air and artillery strikes, 

but with no more success. Fighting continued all day, with the enemy launching several counterattacks of his own before darkness brought an end to the 

shooting.

On 14 September, Companies B and C from the 1st Battalion, 2d Infantry, 

marched north to join Colonel Rew’s force at Hill 222 after losing contact 

with the North Vietnamese forces east of Loc Ninh. When the Americans 

went up the hill later that afternoon, they found an abandoned bunker complex with at least eighty fighting positions, all connected with communications wire that led to a central command position on the reverse slope of the 

hill. The fall of Hill 222 marked the end of the third general offensive in Binh 

Long Province. 

The second phase of the Tay Ninh campaign began early on 11 September 

when the 271st Regiment lobbed 200 mortar rounds into Firebase Buell II, 

home to the 3d Battalion, 22d Infantry, 25th Infantry Division. The subsequent assault was halfhearted, with the enemy withdrawing after losing nine 

killed. U.S. casualties totaled seventeen wounded.62

That attack had been a diversion for the main strike. A short time later, 

the D14 Battalion attacked three different Regional/Popular Forces posts on 

the northern edge of Tay Ninh City, opening a way into the city for elements 

60 7th Division, p. 76. 61 ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, 1st Inf Div, p. 8.

62 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 37-68, II FFV, 8–14 Sep 68, 14 Sep 68, p. 10, Historians files, CMH; 

AAR, Battle of Tay Ninh, 25th Inf Div, p. 3.
669

Thwarting the Third Wave

of the 271st Regiment, which had not participated in the attack on Buell II. 

The province chief requested help to deal with the crisis. 

Within a few hours, the South Vietnamese Airborne Division had established a forward command post at Ven Ven, a hamlet on Highway 22 approximately three kilometers southeast of the Little Rubber Plantation. The South 

Vietnamese 6th Airborne Battalion and an artillery battery accompanied the 

forward headquarters. Meanwhile, the South Vietnamese 2d and 3d Marine 

Battalions and another artillery battery set up a second firebase some eight 

kilometers to the east. From those two locations the South Vietnamese could 

interdict enemy units that might attempt to slip south from Tay Ninh to 

attack Saigon.63

The remainder of the South Vietnamese Airborne Division task force 

arrived on the afternoon and evening of 11 September. The South Vietnamese 

3d Airborne Brigade, which included the 2d and 9th Airborne Battalions plus 

the 4th Marine Battalion, deployed to Tay Ninh City by helicopter to clear 

the northeastern suburbs. The senior adviser to the South Vietnamese troops, 

Maj. Roy D. Martin, was impressed by their street fighting skills, recalling 

that he did not see a single civilian killed or a single house destroyed in their 

tactical area. When the enemy withdrew from the city the next morning, the 

government troops recovered twenty-one Communist dead.64

Also on 11 September, the 5th Division resumed its effort to cut Route 239 

when a battalion from the 275th Regiment attacked a fortified camp manned 

by Company A, 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry, of the 25th Infantry Division on 

the western side of the Ben Cui Plantation. The initial barrage of mortar, 

recoilless rifle, and rocket-propelled grenade fire killed the company commander, leaving the senior platoon leader in charge. The new commander 

of the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry, Lt. Col. William E. Klein, fed Companies 

C and B into the fight over the next few hours, assisted by Company B from 

the 3d Battalion, 22d Infantry. The enemy withdrew that morning, leaving 

behind almost one hundred dead. The Americans had lost three killed and 

eighteen wounded.65

Another element of the 5th Division, the 88th PAVN Regiment, executed 

a second road-cutting operation on 12 September by ambushing a convoy on 

Highway 22. The attack that occurred some three kilometers north of the 

Little Rubber Plantation proved to be far less successful than the ambush 

on 25 August. This time, the convoy was a nimble fleet of nineteen vehicles 

from the 48th Transportation Group that included a tank and an armored 

personnel carrier. The opening volley disabled a vehicle in the middle of the 

convoy, bringing the next four vehicles to a halt, but their drivers and passengers quickly dismounted and returned fire. Meanwhile, the front section 

of the convoy sped away and the tail section pulled back to a safe distance. 

Several armored personnel carriers from the 25th Infantry Division that 

were on security duty nearby showed up within minutes, as did several heli63 AAR, Battle of Tay Ninh, Encl 63A, p. 4.

64 Ibid., Encl 60, pp. 1–2.

65 Ibid., Encl 32, p. 3; ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, II FFV, p. 28.
Staying the Course

670

copter gunships. The enemy withdrew some forty-five minutes later, having 

destroyed only one tractor-trailer and slightly damaging three other vehicles. 

Enemy losses came to at least eighteen killed.66

On 13 September, the 9th Division renewed its attack on Firebase Buell

II north of town. It hammered the base with at least 600 mortar rounds before 

the 3d Battalion, 272d Regiment, launched an assault. Having weathered the 

bombardment with minimal casualties, the defenders had no trouble repulsing the attack. The Viet Cong battalion retreated westward, leaving behind 

seventy-six dead. Later that day, the South Vietnamese 2d Airborne Battalion 

caught up with the 3d Battalion, 272d Regiment, which had taken refuge with 

other troops from the regiment in a hamlet southwest of Tay Ninh City. The 

paratroopers stormed the hamlet, killing a reported 150 enemy soldiers while 

sustaining 9 dead and 17 wounded themselves.67

In subsequent days, the main theater of action switched to the region 

between Tay Ninh City and Dau Tieng. On 14 September, Company B of the 

4th Battalion, 23d Infantry, engaged the 1st Battalion, 272d Regiment, some 

twelve kilometers east of Tay Ninh City, killing thirty-three enemy soldiers. 

Approximately six kilometers west of Dau Tieng, mechanized troopers from 

the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry, located an element of the 275th Regiment

while patrolling Route 239, resulting in the deaths of another twenty-five 

enemy soldiers. The 275th Regiment struck back on 16 September, attacking 

the forward outpost that the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry, had established in 

the Ben Cui Plantation. That assault, plus another one on 17 September and 

a third on the twentieth, all failed, costing the enemy several dozen more 

killed. During that same week, the 174th Regiment attacked units from the 

4th Battalion, 23d Infantry, and the 3d Battalion, 22d Infantry, which were 

operating along Route 26 near the Cau Khoi Plantation. For COSVN, those 

assaults proved to be just as fruitless.68

The final chapter of the Tay Ninh campaign began shortly after midnight 

on 20 September when the 1st Battalion, 272d Regiment, attacked a Regional 

Forces outpost in Phuoc Tan hamlet, twenty kilometers west of Tay Ninh 

City. The enemy lost thirty-five killed in the brief assault. Expecting the outpost to be attacked again, General Tri sent the South Vietnamese 1st Marine 

Battalion to defend Phuoc Tan. The next evening, several battalions from the 

271st Regiment attacked the post. Backed by air and artillery support, the 

defenders eliminated another 128 Viet Cong soldiers and captured six prisoners of war. The 272d Regiment attacked the outpost for a third time on 27 

September, now defended by the South Vietnamese 8th Airborne Battalion, 

and reportedly lost another 150 soldiers killed.69

According to information later obtained by the allies, General Thai had 

targeted the remote outpost to achieve a face-saving victory, but most of his 

troops who had fought in the battle were soldiers only recently released from 

66 AAR, Battle of Tay Ninh, 25th Inf Div, Encl 55, pp. 1–2.

67 Ibid., Encl 19, p. 6.

68 Ibid., Encl 32, p. 4.

69 Periodic Intel Rpt no. 39-68, II FFV, 22–28 Sep 68, 28 Sep 68, p. 6, Historians files, CMH.
671

Thwarting the Third Wave

the hospital, many still sick or not fully recovered from their wounds. Having 

lost an estimated 4,415 soldiers killed in August and another 4,617 killed in 

September, and with most of his regiments no longer capable of offensive 

action, General Thai brought COSVN’s Tay Ninh campaign to a close.70

Conclusion

The third general offensive proved to be significantly less powerful than 

the Tet or May attacks. The vast majority of the countryside was hardly 

affected, with pacification emerging unscathed in all but a handful of provinces. The attack generated relatively few refugees, although civilian casualties—1,036 dead and 2,536 wounded—were higher than those created by 

the May offensive. General Abrams noted the widening gap between Hanoi’s 

strategic ambitions and its battlefield strength. “The enemy’s [most recent] 

offensive,” he wrote on 8 September, “has not unfolded as he intended.” 

COSVN had shelved plans for a third strike on Saigon, settling instead for a 

fleeting raid on Tay Ninh City. Allied units had thwarted North Vietnamese 

attacks aimed at Da Nang and Ban Me Thuot. Enemy commanders in the 

70 AAR, Battle of Tay Ninh, 25th Inf Div, Encl 70, pp. 1–2. 

Armored personnel carriers of the 3d Squadron, 4th Cavalry, 25th Infantry 

Division, sweep through a rubber plantation along Highway 1 during a 

search-and-destroy operation.
Staying the Course

672

Mekong Delta and along the central coast had canceled operations before 

they had begun. Most telling of all, the region that had endured the heaviest fighting in February and May—northern I Corps—had stayed quiet in 

August. According to MACV, the allies had killed 16,578 enemy combatants 

in August and 13,163 more in September. Instead of being what Abrams had 

predicted would be “the longest and most intensive [offensive] of 1968,” the 

Communist attack had “foundered from the outset,” demonstrating that 

the enemy was approaching a point of temporary exhaustion. Nevertheless, 

North Vietnam still retained the ability and willingness to fight, and with 

drier weather just around the corner, the MACV commander anticipated 

seeing new attacks before the year was done.71 

71 Msg, Abrams MAC 12145 to Lt Gen Mildren et al., 8 Sep 68, p. 4, Abrams Msg files, 

CMH; ORLL, 1 Aug–31 Oct 68, II FFV, p. 15; Periodic Intel Rpts, MACV, 1–31 May 68, n.d.; 

MACV, 1–30 Apr 68, n.d.; MACV, 1–31 Aug 68, n.d.; MACV, 1–30 Sep 68, n.d.; Rpt, CORDS, 

1969, sub: Daily civilian casualties during Post Tet Offensive, p. 1. All in Historians files, CMH.
20

An Evolving War

I

n 1965, the United States deployed ground combat forces to South 

Vietnam to stem the Communist tide that was threatening to submerge 

that beleaguered nation. Over the next two years, additional deployments by 

U.S. and Free World forces solidified the allied position and began taking 

the war to the enemy. By 1967, Le Duan, the general secretary of the Lao 

Dong Party, had become convinced that the Communists needed to do something dramatic to win the war. His solution was to launch a massive general 

offensive–general uprising in 1968, the purpose of which was, according to 

the resolution of the Vietnamese Communist Party’s Fourteenth Plenum, to 

put “a sharp dagger through the throat of the enemy.” This decision dominated the course of the war during the twelve months between October 1967 

and September 1968, making them the most momentous of the conflict to 

date. Le Duan’s decision, however, proved a gross miscalculation. The people 

refused to rise up, the Communists suffered staggering losses, and the South 

Vietnamese government not only weathered the storm but, galvanized by the 

attack, began to take steps to make its military and political apparatus more 

effective than ever.1

 

Statistics indicated the magnitude of the North’s failure. From October 

1967 through September 1968, the U.S. military reported that the allies had 

killed 175,000 Communist soldiers. About 154,000 of these had died during 

the first nine months of 1968. The allies were also well on their way to meeting 

their goal of eliminating 12,000 members of the enemy’s clandestine infrastructure in 1968, with the Phoenix program reporting 9,600 eliminations by the end 

of September, mostly through capture rather than death. Even the Vietnamese 

Communist Party, not known for candor, acknowledged in 1995 that the 1968 

offensives had led to the death or injury of over 111,000 Communist soldiers 

and political cadre along with “tens of thousands of members of the revolutionary masses.” Allied losses, while serious, paled by comparison: 43,400 

dead from October 1967 through September 1968, of which about 12,500 were 

Americans who had died as a result of fighting in 1968.2

 

1

 Nguyen, Hanoi’s War, pp. 90–94, 100–102. Quote from the resolution of the Fourteenth 

Plenum of December 1967 that gave final approval to the offensive, as quoted in John Prados, 

Vietnam: The History of an Unwinnable War, 1945–1975 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 

2009), p. 230. For Communist admissions of Tet’s failure, see Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A 

History (New York: Viking Press, 1983), pp. 544–45. 2

 Sum, Southeast Asia Mil Casualties, Friendly and Enemy, Table 53, Encl to Memo, 

Director of Information Opns, Ofc of the Asst Sec Def, for distribution, 3 Dec 73, sub: Last 

Update of Southeast Asia Statistical Summary Tables; MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, p. 89; Rpt, 

Thomas C. Thayer, ed., A System Analysis View of the Vietnam War: 1965–1972, vol. 2, Forces 
Staying the Course

674

If there was a ray of hope for the North, it came in the form of war weariness in the United States. Although it had not been Le Duan’s goal, Tet had so 

shocked the U.S. public as to change the political calculus. Many Americans 

became discouraged, the antiwar movement expanded, and a growing number 

of leaders who had once supported the war now called for some form of disengagement. In August, a Gallup poll indicated that for the first time a majority 

of Americans (53 percent) believed that America’s participation in the war had 

been a mistake. The change in mood was palpable.3

Many factors—ideological, political, social, and strategic—had been chipping away at support for the war for years, and it was the existence of these 

factors that made possible the conundrum of the Communists winning a strategic victory out of a battlefield defeat. Factors directly associated with the 

conflict that undermined American will included opposition to the draft, the 

war’s mounting economic costs, and the growing number of U.S. casualties. 

Although Tet significantly increased American casualties, its most consequential effects were to erode Americans’ faith in the nation’s political and military 

leadership and to challenge the belief that victory was possible. Whether or 

not the war was winnable became less important than the perception that it 

could not be won, at least not in a manner acceptable to a growing number 

of people. The political reverberations caused by Tet started the countdown 

toward America’s eventual exit from the Vietnam War.4

 

But when would the clock run out? A stunning defeat at Dien Bien 

Phu had led the French to conduct a precipitous withdrawal of northern 

Vietnam in 1954, but in 1968 it had been the Communists who had lost all 

the major engagements. The Americans were shaken, but not broken. True, 

most Americans now believed the war had been a mistake, but a poll taken in 

September reported that nearly as many respondents wanted to bomb North 

Vietnam with nuclear weapons as those who advocated an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces. Other surveys indicated that the majority of Americans 

still supported the fighting, either to seek victory or as part of a gradual withdrawal tied to successful outcomes on the battlefield and at the negotiating 

table. The Politburo may have been correct in interpreting President Johnson’s 

suspension of bombing over much of North Vietnam and the offer for peace 

talks as signs of weakness, but the United States showed no indication of exiting the war any time soon. Indeed, deeply suspicious of American motives, 

Le Duan worried that the United States would drag out negotiations in order 

to buy time for South Vietnam. It seemed that the only thing Hanoi’s leaders 

and Manpower, n.d., p. 26; Fact Sheet, MACV, 10 Aug 68, sub: Status of Phoenix/Phung for 

Period January–June 1968, p. 1, and Encl 2; Msg, COMUSMACV 33400 to CINCPAC, 5 Nov 

68, sub: Pacification in South Vietnam during September 1968, p. 9. All in Historians files, 

CMH. Communist Party statement as quoted in Nguyen, Hanoi’s War, n. 7, p. 338. 3

 Joseph Carroll, Gallup Poll Asst Ed., The Iraq–Vietnam Comparison, 15 Jun 04, p. 6, 

Historians files, CMH; FRUS, 1964–1968, 6:909. 4

 Andrew H. Sidman and Helmut Norpoth, “Fighting to Win: Wartime Morale and the 

American Public,” Electoral Studies 31 (Winter 2012): 334–40; Cosmas, Years of Withdrawal,

1968–1973, pp. 103–04; Nguyen, Hanoi’s War, pp. 124–26; Karnow, Vietnam: A History, pp. 

545–48; Prados, Vietnam, pp. 241–49.
675

An Evolving War

could count on for the foreseeable future was the continuation of a costly war 

with no end in sight.5

The enemy prepared accordingly. Whether victory was ultimately achieved 

on the battlefield or at the negotiating table, Le Duan was acutely aware that 

military strength was the key to success. Consequently, he spent the year feverishly replacing his losses. Thanks to infiltration from the North, enemy troop 

strength in South Vietnam actually grew despite the enormous casualties, from 

228,000 personnel in December 1967 to around 240,000 troops in September 

1968. And, while Le Duan had still not abandoned his desire to attack South 

Vietnamese cities, the cold facts compelled him to shift his tactics to ones more 

sustainable for the long haul. The Communists began pulling back their conventional forces, avoiding costly offensives to return to a more guerrilla-centric 

strategy of small-scale operations, sapper attacks, and long-range bombardments. Such an approach would keep the pressure on the allies while buying 

time for the North to rebuild.6

Still, all was not well. The proportion of southerners in the enemy’s combat 

formations, already declining before Tet, continued to dwindle, the result not 

just of heavy casualties, but of a growing reluctance by the population to support the enemy cause. Just as important, the rush to refill the ranks meant 

that most of the replacements lacked the level of military and ideological 

preparation of their predecessors. By the summer, U.S. commanders reported 

a noticeable decline in the efficiency and morale of the enemy’s combat forces.7

Compounding the mismatch was the fact that allied forces were expanding far more rapidly than those of the enemy. Between December 1967 and 

September 1968, U.S. forces had grown by 42,000 men to 538,000 personnel, 

and as a result of Johnson’s March decision to raise the troop ceiling, MACV 

was slated to reach 549,500 in 1969. By September 1968, U.S. and Free World 

forces fielded 141 maneuver battalions, the highest number to date. Goaded by 

Tet, South Vietnam’s forces had grown even more quickly—from 643,000 service members in January 1968 to around 824,500 by September. Half of that 

increase had gone to the regular army, which now fielded 162 maneuver battalions. The remainder of the increase went into the Regional and Popular Forces, 

bringing their combined strength to around 400,000 men. Last but not least, 

the newly created People’s Self-Defense Force, a neighborhood watch initiative 

formed in reaction to Tet, had mushroomed to 750,000 civilians, of whom 

62,000 were armed. Although the South Vietnamese still exhibited significant 

weaknesses in leadership and performance, the allies were finally beginning to 

5

 Nguyen, Hanoi’s War, pp. 113–26; Ritgal-Cellard, La Guerre du Vietnam, p. 203; Leo 

Bogart, Polls and the Awareness of Public Opinion, p. 92; Hagopian, Vietnam War in American 

Memory, pp. 26–27, 440. 6 FRUS, 1964–1968, 6:920, 978–79; Rpt, OASD, Systems Analysis (Southeast Asia Programs), 

Statistical Tables through October 1968, n.d., Tables 1a, and 2c, Historians files, CMH. 7

 Quarterly Evaluation Rpt, 1 Jul–30 Sep 68, MACV, 13 Nov 68, p. 14, Historians files, 

CMH.
Staying the Course

676

field the numbers they needed both to combat the enemy’s conventional forces 

and to provide the security necessary for pacification to succeed.8

Equally threatening to the Communists as the growing imbalance in 

numbers were changes in weaponry. The advantage in small arms firepower 

that the enemy had enjoyed over government forces for nearly four years was 

finally coming to an end. By late 1968, most of the South Vietnamese Army 

and a growing proportion of its Regional and Popular Forces were now armed 

with modern M16 rifles instead of World War II surplus rifles. Other weapons, 

such as M60 machine guns, M79 grenade launchers, and M72 light antiarmor 

weapons typically used in antipersonnel roles, were coming to the Vietnamese 

in greater numbers as well, boosting not only the performance but also the 

morale of government forces. Communist dreams that Tet would deal a crippling blow to the armed forces of South Vietnam had come a cropper.9

The enemy had emerged from Tet weaker logistically, too. Not only had 

the offensives drawn mightily on Communist resources, but allied operations 

had disrupted many enemy logistical stores. The 1st Cavalry Division’s monthlong incursion into the A Shau Valley, Operation Delaware, and frequent 

raids into Base Areas 101 and 114, had effectively severed the Communist 

supply channel between Laos and the coastal lowlands of northern I Corps. In 

III Corps, allied units had swept through the base areas that lined the Saigon 

River, disrupting COSVN’s biggest infiltration channel between Cambodia 

and the capital region. These substantial accomplishments were tempered by 

the fact that forty-one of the enemy’s fifty base areas in South Vietnam still 

remained active, as did his sanctuaries in Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam, 

but clearly it would take much time and effort for the enemy to recover.10

Conversely, the allied logistical system had bounced back after Tet. Not 

only was the U.S. military providing a flood of new equipment for South 

Vietnam, but also MACV’s logistical network was now more capable of supporting offensive missions along South Vietnam’s border. The opening of 

Highway 13 between Saigon and Loc Ninh in late 1967 had finally made it 

possible for U.S. forces to operate on the northern fringe of III Corps in large 

numbers during the dry season. In II Corps, engineers had expanded the size 

and strength of the Dak To bases, giving Abrams a strong forward position in 

the western highlands from which to harass Communist infiltration and, should 

the administration ever permit it, to launch major raids against enemy bases 

8

 Ibid.; Monthly Statistics on Vietnam, Table 2, Encl to Memo, Director of Information 

Opns, Ofc of the Asst Sec Def, for distribution, 3 Dec 73; Quarterly Evaluation Rpt, 1 Jul–30 Sep 

68, MACV, pp. 63–64, 115; Rpt, Thomas C. Thayer, ed., A System Analysis View of the Vietnam 

War: 1965–1972, vol. 1, The Situation in Southeast Asia, n.d., p. 33, Historians files, CMH; Msg, 

Bunker Saigon 35472 to the President, 15 Aug 68, p. 5, NSF-Vietnam Country Files, Vietnam 

Center and Archive, TTU; Weekly Sum, 15–21 Sep 68, MACV, Ofc of Information, 26 Sep 68, 

p. 2, Historians files, CMH; Quarterly Evaluation Rpt, 1 Jul–30 Sep 68, MACV, pp. 63–64. 9

 Telg, Bunker Saigon 35472 to the President, 15 Aug 68, p. 5, NSF-Vietnam Country Files, 

Vietnam Center and Archive, TTU; Weekly Sum, 15–21 Sep 68, MACV, Ofc of Information, 26 

Sep 68, p. 2; Quarterly Evaluation Rpt, 1 Jul–30 Sep 68, MACV, pp. 63–64. 10 Quarterly Evaluation Rpt, 1 Jul–30 Sep 68, MACV, 13 Nov 68, sec. 9, p. 3; MACV History, 

1968, vol. 1, pp. 56, 59.
677

An Evolving War

in southern Laos and northern Cambodia. Most critically, Abrams now had a 

supply and transportation system in northern I Corps that could support three 

full divisions, compared to just one reinforced division back in January. The 

logistical improvements that Westmoreland had initiated—airfield upgrades, 

docking facilities, and storage sites—had made possible the incursion into the 

A Shau Valley and the relief of Khe Sanh. What was more, MACV was now 

in a position to execute a major cross-border raid into Laos from I Corps, if 

and when the next president chose to do so. All of these developments put 

additional pressure on the enemy to protect his logistical network in the hinterlands, thereby diverting his strength away from the populated lowlands and 

giving more breathing room to the pacification effort.11

Anything that diverted the Communists from operations among the population represented progress, for here significant challenges remained. Although 

President Thieu had removed many incompetent or corrupt officials in 1968, 

grassroots politics and governmental administration remained critical weaknesses of the South Vietnamese state. The new counterinfrastructure effort, 

the Phoenix program, was still a work in progress, and losses notwithstanding, 

much of the Communist apparatus remained intact. Indeed, by September, 

MACV estimated that at least 46 percent of the population remained under 

some degree of Viet Cong influence. Yet here, too, the Communists had cause 

for concern. The failure of the general uprising and resistance to Communistimposed taxes and recruitment indicated that the enemy faced an increasingly 

hostile environment. Having focused most of their efforts during Tet on military 

rather than political work, the Communists had also failed to capitalize on the 

withdrawal of government forces from the countryside. The result was that the 

government’s population losses were ephemeral. By the end of September, the 

allies had recouped all the population losses associated with the 1968 offensives. Thus, if serious problems remained for the government, the allies could 

at least take comfort that the enemy had failed to accrue significant gains in 

either territory or population, despite his tremendous sacrifices.12

Indeed, apart from the U.S. political scene, the enemy’s efforts in 1968 

had surprisingly little impact on the allied conduct of the war, at least so 

far. America’s overarching goal—to secure the sovereignty of a non-Communist South Vietnam—remained unchanged. So, too, did the methods. As 

Westmoreland had explained at the National Press Club on 21 November 

1967, the United States was fighting “a limited war, with limited objectives, 

and with limited means,” so that there would not be a “total military victory, in the classic sense.” Instead, the Johnson administration’s policy had 

always been to use military force to convince the enemy that “he can’t win,” 

thereby forcing him to accept a negotiated settlement acceptable to the allies. 

11 Msg, Abrams MAC 12535 to Wheeler, 17 Sep 68, Abrams Msg files, CMH.

12 MFR, MACV, 25 Sep 68, sub: MACV Commander’s Conference, 20 September 1968, 

p. 3, Historians files, CMH; Telg, Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker to the President, 19 Sep 68, 

p. 4, Historians files, CMH; Rpt, Thayer, ed., A System Analysis View of the Vietnam War: 

1965–1972, vol. 1, The Situation in Southeast Asia, p. 22; Quarterly Evaluation Rpt, 1 Jul–30 

Sep 68, MACV, pp. 58–59.
Staying the Course

678

Now, nearly a year later, this remained the goal, as did Johnson’s negotiating formula, first put forward in a September 1967 speech in San Antonio, 

Texas. True, Tet accelerated efforts to create an indigenous military that was 

largely capable of holding its own. It also ramped up domestic pressure for a 

U.S. withdrawal. But both of these goals were long-standing aspects of U.S. 

policy. Westmoreland had predicted in November 1967 that 1968 would be the 

year in which “it will be possible for us to phase down our level of commitment and turn more of the burden of the war over to the Vietnamese Armed 

Forces.” The following month, he had initiated withdrawal planning, the socalled T-Day plan, which Abrams would continue. But few people in authority 

countenanced a precipitous withdrawal. Even withdrawal advocate Secretary 

of Defense Clifford conceded that a drawdown could not begin “until there 

is some development,” either on the battlefield or in Paris, “that causes us to 

decide that we can bring some home.”13

Militarily, the conflict also remained much the same as before. Although 

Washington officials debated possible changes in concept, President Johnson 

showed no interest in shifting to an enclave strategy and explicitly rejected 

Clifford’s contention that the war was unwinnable. On the other hand, Abrams 

was no more successful than Westmoreland or the Joint Chiefs in persuading 

the president to use ground troops to cut the flow of men and materiel from 

external sanctuaries, which were the lifeblood of the enemy war effort. With 

no new guidance from Washington, Westmoreland and Abrams continued to 

operate much as they had over the past several years. The change in command had no measurable impact, as General Abrams’ tactical and operational 

methods differed little from those used by his predecessor. Similarly, all of the 

elements of the pacification program—CORDS, Revolutionary Development, 

civic action and nation building, the Phoenix program, and territorial force 

improvement—had been established prior to Abrams’ ascension. As CORDS 

director, Komer recalled of the transition between Westmoreland and Abrams, 

“There was no change in strategy whatsoever.”14

But the circumstances under which the war was being fought were changing, and Abrams intended to adjust accordingly. In doing so, he chose an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary approach, building on a vision he shared 

with Westmoreland. Thus, while operations would continue largely in the mold 

of the past, the Combined Campaign Plan for 1969, which MACV drafted in 

September 1968, called for exploiting the enemy’s post-Tet weaknesses to place 

13 Q&A transcript, Address by General William C. Westmoreland, National Press Club, 

Washington, D.C., 21 Nov 67, pp. 1–2, Historians files, CMH. Quote from Msg, Bunker Saigon 

38774 to President Johnson, 26 Sep 68, pp. 7–8, Historians files, CMH. Drea, McNamara, 

Clifford, and the Burdens of Vietnam, 1965–1969, pp. 196–98. 14 FRUS, 1964–1968, 6:695, 900. Director Robert Komer quoted in W. Scott Thompson and 

Donaldson D. Frizzell, eds., The Lessons of Vietnam (New York: Crane, Russack, 1977), p. 79; 

George C. Herring, “The Reluctant Warrior: Lyndon Johnson as Commander in Chief,” pp. 

104–08, in Shadow on the White House, Presidents and the Vietnam War, 1945–1975, David 

L. Anderson, ed. (Manhattan: University Press of Kansas, 1993). Andrew J. Birtle, “PROVN, 

Westmoreland, and the Historians: A Reappraisal,” Journal of Military History 72 (October 

2008): 1225–26, 1230–38; Cosmas, Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973, pp. 129–39.
679

An Evolving War

greater emphasis on pacification support and counterinfrastructure activities. 

The plan also lessened the traditional dichotomy in missions between U.S. 

and South Vietnamese forces, stressing the importance of preparing for the 

day in which the Army of the Republic of Vietnam could survive without the 

presence of U.S. ground combat units. But Abrams could not envision a day 

in which South Vietnam could literally stand alone. Indeed, MACV’s current 

proposal would keep 20,000 advisory and support personnel in South Vietnam 

until mid-1973, and 16,600 thereafter, with no end in sight.15

If Abrams’ desire to shift more resources to pacification support 

reflected the opportunities created by the enemy’s defeat in 1968, it also 

reflected realities—the expanding opposition to the war at home and the 

newly initiated peace talks in Paris. Although unlikely given the depth of 

disagreement between the two sides, no one could rule out the possibility 

that the talks might suddenly produce a cease-fire that would freeze the 

antagonists in place or produce a speedy U.S. withdrawal. By spring, the 

allies had already detected a movement by the Viet Cong to organize public 

governments in areas they controlled in an effort to bolster their territorial claims should that day arise. The realization had added urgency to 

Komer and Westmoreland’s efforts to thrust the allies back into the countryside in the wake of Tet. Although the allies had reclaimed most of the 

people lost earlier in the year, by September they had not yet expanded 

their holdings over pre-Tet levels. 

Only after the defeat of the third 

offensive did Abrams feel comfortable enough to lend weight 

behind Komer’s quest to lock in 

as much land and people as possible, as quickly as possible, to 

act as a buffer against political 

and diplomatic uncertainties. If 

MACV could persuade President 

Thieu to go along, this would set 

the allies on a new course over the 

next few months. In the meantime, Abrams had every intention to use all the combat power 

at his disposal to hammer the 

Communists, perhaps to a level 

that the South Vietnamese could 

contain once the inevitable U.S. 

withdrawal began.16

15 Cosmas, Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973, pp. 122, 129–39; Birtle, U.S. Army 

Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations Doctrine, 1942–1976, pp. 366–68. 16 Cosmas, Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973, p. 189; Msg, Westmoreland, Chief of Staff, 

Army, Washington, D.C., to Abrams, COMUSMACV, Saigon, 20 Sep 68, Abrams Msg files, 

CMH; Hunt, Pacification, pp. 154–56.

General Abrams
Staying the Course

680

As September 1968 came to a close, General Abrams sent an upbeat 

assessment of the situation to General Wheeler. Noting that the allies had 

completed their post-Tet recovery, he announced his intention “to launch an 

all-out counter offensive to preempt the enemy’s initiative in the political arena 

while maintaining the current tempo of military operations.” He was confident 

the allies would score big gains both militarily and in pacification, particularly 

given “the manner in which all commanders have captured and demonstrated 

the spirit of the offensive.” “By Tet 1969,” Abrams assured Wheeler, “the 

enemy will have nothing to celebrate.”17

17 Msg, Abrams MAC 13117 to Wheeler, 28 Sep 68, pp. 1 (first and second quotes), 5 (third 

quote), Historians files, CMH; MACV History, 1968, vol. 2, p. 780.
Bibliographical Note 

Unpublished Sources 

This book is built on a broad range of materials generated by units involved 

in combat operations and supplemented by records from combat service 

and combat service support units. Foremost among them are command reports, 

quarterly summaries (Operational Reports–Lessons Learned, or ORLLs), 

unit journals, and unit after action reports (AARs). Command reports cover 

a wide range of unit activities over a period from one month to one year, while 

the ORLLs cover unit activities over a three-month period. The quarterly 

reports also describe various challenges encountered during that period as 

well as recommendations on how to overcome them. Unit journals offer daily 

accounts of what a particular unit was doing and where it was located along 

with initial casualty estimates and some raw intelligence. AARs cover specific 

firefights, battles, or operations, often providing the best source of information 

on significant combat events. The records of the various intelligence and 

operations staffs (G–2 and G–3) are also important to the historian. These were 

based on contributions from subordinate headquarters and included situation 

reports, which informed higher headquarters of significant incidents or new 

developments. The G–2 sections (J–2 at MACV) produced daily intelligence 

summaries and, at the field force and MACV level, generated periodic intelligence 

reports, weekly and monthly, respectively. 

National Archives and Records Administration 

Most source documentation for this volume is located in the Washington, 

D.C., area. The largest holding is at the National Archives and Records 

Administration, College Park, Maryland. The U.S. Forces in Southeast Asia, 

1950–1975, file (Record Group [RG] 472) occupies some 30,000 linear feet of 

shelf space. Other important record groups deal with the Army Staff (RG 319); 

U.S. Army Commands (RG 338); interservice agencies such as MACV (RG 334); 

and documents collected during the Westmoreland-CBS libel trial (RG 407). 

U.S. Army Center of Military History 

The second most important record collection dealing with the U.S. Army’s 

role in Vietnam is maintained by the U.S. Army Center of Military History 

in Washington, D.C. Upon completion of the U.S. Army in Vietnam series, 

the materials involved, including interviews conducted by historians, will be 

transferred to the National Archives. 
Staying the Course

682

The Center’s largest and most important holding is a photocopied set of 

the papers of General William C. Westmoreland collected during his tour of 

duty as commander of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam. The originals are in the possession of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library in Austin, 

Texas. A second set of photocopies is on file at the U.S. Army Military History 

Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. 

Occupying about eighteen linear feet of space, the Westmoreland Papers 

are in two parts. The first contains a history that the general dictated at intervals, often daily, to members of his staff. It constitutes a detailed account of 

his activities, his decisions, and often the thinking behind those decisions. 

Attached are copies of relevant incoming and outgoing messages, memorandums, reports, staff studies, and other documents that the general considered 

important. The second is a nearly complete set of backchannel messages 

between Westmoreland and his superiors in Hawaii and Washington. It often 

sheds light on the political policies that affected Westmoreland’s approach 

to the war and the problems that field commanders sometimes confronted. 

The Center of Military History maintains another collection, which also 

has an important bearing on the Vietnam period. It contains more than one 

thousand interviews conducted by members of military history detachments 

dispatched to South Vietnam during the war. In all, twenty-seven military 

history detachments served, most composed of one officer and one enlisted 

man, assigned to various U.S. Army units and commands in Vietnam. They 

produced eyewitness accounts of combat actions, studies of lessons learned, 

and end-of-tour interviews with important officers. Although the quality of 

the workmanship varied with the producer, the collection as a whole is valuable for the understanding of platoon- and company-level operations that it 

imparts. 

U.S. Army Military History Institute

The archives of the U.S. Army Military History Institute have 128 linear 

feet of special collections and documents regarding Vietnam, many of which 

are duplicated at the Center of Military History and the National Archives. In 

addition, during the past twenty years, under the sponsorship of the Military 

History Institute Oral History Office (as part of the larger Department of 

the Army Senior Officer Debriefing Program), students attending the Army 

War College have conducted extensive interviews with senior retired general 

officers, many of whom served in Vietnam. Most of those interviews are available to the public. 

The Vietnam Center and Archive at Texas Tech University

The Vietnam Archive has collected millions of pages of material and tens 

of thousands of photographs, slides, maps, periodicals, audio, moving images, 

and books related to the Vietnam War, Indochina, and the impact of the war 
683

Bibliographical Note

on the United States and Southeast Asia. Most have been digitized and made 

available online through their Web site.

Defense Technical Information Center 

The Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC), a federal agency 

that reports to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and 

Engineering, is an online digital archive. DTIC contains tens of thousands 

of reports and special studies on the Vietnam War produced by various 

departments of the Department of Defense as well as by special contractors 

and think tanks.

Published Sources

Socialist Republic of Vietnam Histories 

The government of Vietnam has its own official history-writing program, and the effort has produced dozens of books and monographs over the 

past three decades. There are histories of each division (as well as of several 

regiments), campaign narratives, oral histories, and many specialized studies. 

Although often unreliable about casualty figures, they provide crucial information on North Vietnamese and Viet Cong battle plans and troop movements. 

By and large, these valuable sources are still unfamiliar to American scholars. 

The works cited in the text and noted below can be found at the Center. 

The Anti-U.S. Resistance War of National Salvation, 1954–1975: Military 

Events. Translated by Foreign Broadcast Information Service. Joint 

Publications Research Service 80968. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing 

House, 1980. 

Cao Minh, et al., Quan Khu 8: Ba Muoi Nam Khang Chien (1945–1975)

[Military Region 8: Thirty Years of Resistance War (1945–1975)]. Hanoi: 

People’s Army Publishing House, 1998.

Chien Dich Tien Cong Duong 9 - Khe Sanh Xuan He 1968 [The Spring-Summer 

1968 Khe Sanh -- Route 9 Offensive Campaign]. Hanoi: Military History 

Institute of Vietnam, 1987.

Chien Troung Tri-Thien-Hue Trong Cuoc Khang Chien Chong My Cuu Nuoc 

Toan Thang (Du Thao) [The Tri-Thien-Hue Battlefield Military Region 

During the Victorious War of National Salvation Against the Americans 

(draft)]. Hue: Thuan Hoa Publishing House, 1985.

Dang,Tran Bach. “Mau Than: Cuoc Tong Dien Tap Chien Luoc” [Tet: 

A Strategic Rehearsal], Vietnam Journal of Military Affairs 26, no. 2 

(February 1988).
Staying the Course

684

Dang, Tran Bach. 35 Nam Mau Than: Bo Chi Huy Tien Phuong A Bon 

Tap; Hai Muoi Chin Tet (28-1-1968-Chu Nhat) [The 35th Anniversary 

of the Tet Offensive: The Forward Headquarters Charges Forward; 29 

Day of the Lunar Month (Sunday, 28 January 1968)]. Bao Cong An 

T.P. Ho Chi Minh. [Ho Chi Minh City Public Security Newspaper] 23 

January 2003. 

Dat, Senior Col. Nguyen Quang, and Hanh, Tan, eds. Mot So Tran Danh 

Trong Khang Chien Chong Phap, Khang Chien Chong My, 1945–1975 

(Tap 1) [A Number of Battles During the Resistance Wars Against 

the French and the Americans, 1945–1975, Volume I]. Hanoi: Military 

History Institute of Vietnam, n.d.

Lich Su Saigon-Cho Lon-Gia Dinh Khang Chien (1954–1975) [History of 

the Resistance War in Saigon-Cho Lon-Gia Dinh]. Ho Chi Minh City: 

Ho Chi Minh City Publishing House, 1994. 

Lich Su Cuc Tac Chien 1945–2000 [History of the Combat Operations 

Department, 1945–2000]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1980.

Luc Luong Vu Nang Nhan Dan Tay Nguyen Nong Kong Chien Chong My 

Cuu Nuoc [The People’s Armed Forces of the Western Highlands During 

the War of National Salvation Against the Americans]. Hanoi: People’s 

Army Publishing House, 1980. 

Man, Senior General Chu Huy. Thoi Soi Dong [Time of Upheaval]. Hanoi:

People’s Army Publishing House, 2004.

Nguyen, Tai. Ve Voi Voi Nguon: Hoi Ky [Back to My Roots: A Memoir].

Hanoi: People’s Public Security Publishing House, 1997.

Nhung Tran Danh Cua Phao Binh Vietnam Trong Cac Cuoc Chien Tranh 

Giai Phong Va Bao Ve To Quoc, Tap II [Battles of Vietnamese Artillery 

During the Wars of Liberation and to Defend the Fatherland, Volume 

II]. Hanoi: Artillery Command Publishing House, 1990.

Phao Binh Nhan Dan Viet Nam: Nhung Chang Duong Chien Dau, Tap II 

[People’s Artillery of Vietnam: Combat History, Volume II]. (Hanoi: 

People’s Army Artillery Command, 1986.

Quan Khu 8: Ba Muoi Nam Khang Chien (1945–1975) [Military Region 8: 

Thirty Years of Resistance War (1945–1975)]. Hanoi: People’s Army 

Publishing House, 1998.

Quan Khu 9: Nam Khang Chien (1945–1975) [Military Region 9: Thirty 

Years of Resistance (1945–1975)]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing 

House, 1996.
685

Bibliographical Note

Su Doan 2, Tap 1 [2d Division, Volume I]. Da Nang: Da Nang Publishing 

House, 1989.

Su Doan Sao Vang (Su Dong 3) Binh Doan Chi Lang Quang Khu 1; Ky Su 

Yellow Star Division (3d Division), Chi Lang Military Group, Military

Region 1; Memoir. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1984.

Su Doan 7: Ky Su [7th Division: A Record] Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing 

House, 1986.

Su Doan 9 [9th Division]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1990.

Su Doan 304, Tap II [304th Division, Volume II]. Hanoi: People’s Army 

Publishing House, 1990.

Su Doan 325, Tap II [325th Division, Volume II]. Hanoi: People’s Army 

Publishing House, 1986.

Than, Maj. Gen. Huynh Cong. On the Long An Battlefield: A Memoir. 

Hanoi: Nha Xuat Ban Quan Doi Nhan Dan, 1994. 

Tong Ket Cuoc Khang Chien Chong My Cuu Nuoc: Thang Loi va Bai Hoc 

[Review of the Resistance War Against the Americans to Save the Nation: 

Victory and Lessons]. Hanoi: National Political Publishing House, 1995.

Primary Publications 

McGarvey, Patrick J., ed. Visions of Victory: Selected Vietnamese 

Communist Military Writings, 1964–1968. Stanford, Calif.: Hoover 

Institution Publications, 1969.

Military History Institute of Vietnam, Victory in Vietnam: The Official 

History of the People’s Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975. Vol. 2. Trans. by 

Merle Pribbenow. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2002.

The Senator Gravel Edition of the Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department 

History of the United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam. 4 vols. Boston: 

Beacon Press, 1971.

U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations. The U.S. 

Government and the Vietnam War: Executive and Legislative Roles and 

Relationships, Part IV, July 1965–January 1968. Washington, D.C.: 

Government Printing Office, 1994. 

U.S. Senate, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Medal of Honor Recipients, 

1863–1973. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1973.
Staying the Course

686

U.S. Department of Defense Official Histories 

Birtle, Andrew J. U.S. Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations 

Doctrine, 1942–1976. Washington D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 

2006.

Bergen, John D. Military Communications: A Test for Technology. United States 

Army in Vietnam. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 

1988.

Bowers, Ray L. Tactical Airlift. United States Air Force in Southeast Asia. 

Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1983.

Carland, John M. Combat Operations: Stemming the Tide, May 1965 to October 

1966. United States Army in Vietnam. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center 

of Military History, 2000.

Clarke, Jeffrey J. Advice and Support: The Final Years, 1965–1973. United States 

Army in Vietnam. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 

1988. 

Cosmas, Graham A. MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of Escalation. 1962–

1967. United States Army in Vietnam. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center 

of Military History, 2006.

________. MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973.

United States Army in Vietnam. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of 

Military History, 2007.

Drea, Edward J. McNamara, Clifford, and the Burdens of Vietnam, 1965–69. 

Washington, D.C.: Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2011.

Hammond, William M. Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1962–1968. 

United States Army in Vietnam. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of 

Military History, 1988.

________.Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1968–1973. United States 

Army in Vietnam. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 

1996.

MacGarrigle, George L. Combat Operations: Taking the Offensive, October 1966 to 

October 1967. United States Army in Vietnam. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army 

Center of Military History, 1998.

Schlight, John. The War in South Vietnam: The Years of the Offensive, 1965–

1968. United States Air Force in Southeast Asia. Washington, D.C.: 

Government Printing Office, 1988. 
687

Bibliographical Note

Shore, Capt. Moyers S. The Battle for Khe Sanh. Washington, D.C.: 

Headquarters, United States Marine Corps, Historical Branch, G–3 

Division, 1969. 

Shulimson, Jack, et al. U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The Defining Year, 1968. 

Washington, D.C.: History and Museums Division, U.S. Marine Corps, 1997.

Telfer, Maj. Gary L., Rogers, Lt. Col. Lane, and Fleming, V. Keith, Jr. U.S. 

Marines in Vietnam: Fighting the North Vietnamese, 1967. Washington, 

D.C.: Headquarters, United States Marine Corps, History and Museums 

Division, 1984.

Traas, Adrian G. Engineers at War. United States Army in Vietnam. Washington, 

D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2010.

Memoirs, Firsthand Accounts, and Special Studies 

Adams, Sam. War of Numbers: An Intelligence Memoir. South Royalton, Vt.: 

Steerforth Press, 1994.

Allison, William T. My Lai: An American Atrocity in the Vietnam War. 

Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012.

Cash, John A., et al. Seven Firefights in Vietnam. Vietnam Studies. Washington, 

D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, U.S. Army, 1970. 

Eckhardt, Maj. Gen. George S. Command and Control, 1950–1969. Vietnam 

Studies. Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 1974. 

Fulton, Maj. Gen. William B. Riverine Operations, 1966–1969. Vietnam 

Studies. Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 1973. 

Giap, Vo Nguyen. Big Victory, Great Task. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 

1968. 

Gropman, Alan L. Airpower and the Airlift Evacuation of Kham Duc, USAF 

Southeast Asia Monograph Series. Vol. V, Monograph 7. Montgomery, 

Ala.: Air War College, 1979.

Hay, Lt. Gen. John H., Jr. Tactical and Materiel Innovations. Vietnam Studies. 

Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 1974.

Larsen, Lt. Gen. Stanley R., and Collins, Brig. Gen. James L., Jr. Allied 

Participation in Vietnam. Vietnam Studies. Washington, D.C.: Department 

of the Army, 1975. 
Staying the Course

688

Lung, Hoang Ngoc. The General Offensives of 1968–1969. Indochina Monographs. 

Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1981.

McChristian, Maj. Gen. Joseph A. The Role of Military Intelligence, 1965–

1967. Vietnam Studies. Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 1974. 

Nalty, Bernard C. Air Power and the Fight for Khe Sanh. Washington, D.C.: 

Government Printing Office, 1973.

Ott, Maj. Gen. David E. Field Artillery, 1954–1973. Vietnam Studies. 

Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 1975. 

Pearson, Lt. Gen. Willard. The War in the Northern Provinces, 1966–1968. 

Vietnam Studies. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1975.

Peers, William R. The My Lai Inquiry. New York: Norton, 1979.

Sharp, Admiral U. S. G., and Westmoreland, General William C. Report of 

the War in Vietnam (As of 30 June 1968). Washington, D.C.: Government 

Printing Office, 1968. 

Starry, General Donn A. Mounted Combat in Vietnam. Vietnam Studies. 

Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 1978. 

Tolson, Lt. Gen. John J. Airmobility, 1961–1971. Vietnam Studies. Washington, 

D.C.: Department of the Army, 1973. 

Vien, General Cao Van, and Khuyen, Lt. Gen. Dong Van. Reflections on 

the Vietnam War. Indochina Monographs. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army 

Center of Military History, 1980. 

Westmoreland, William C. A Soldier Reports. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 

1976. 

Secondary Publications 

Ankony, Robert P. Lurps: A Ranger’s Diary of Tet, Khe Sanh, A Shau, and 

Quang Tri. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2006.

Arnold, James R. The Tet Offensive 1968. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2001.

Bergerud, Eric M. The Dynamics of Defeat: The Vietnam War in Hau Nghia 

Province. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1991. 

________. Red Thunder, Tropic Lightning: The World of a Combat Division 

in Vietnam. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1993.
689

Bibliographical Note

Berman, Larry. Planning a Tragedy: The Americanization of the War in 

Vietnam. New York: Norton, 1982. 

________. Lyndon Johnson’s War. New York: Norton, 1989. 

Berry, F. Clifton. Chargers. New York: Bantam Books, 1988.

Blood, Jake. The Tet Effect: Intelligence and the Public Perception of War. 

New York and Abingdon: Routledge, 2005.

Boatner, James G. American Tactical Units in Revolutionary Development

Operations. Air University Report 3570. Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.: 

Air War College, August 1968. 

Bowden, Mark. Hue 1968: A Turning Point in the American War in Vietnam. 

New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2017.

Bradford, Alfred S. Some Even Volunteered: The First Wolfhounds Pacify 

Vietnam. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1994.

Brewin, Bob, and Shaw, Sydney. Vietnam on Trial: Westmoreland vs. CBS. 

New York: Atheneum, 1987. 

Clifford, Clark. Counsel to the President: A Memoir. New York: Random 

House, 1991.

Daddis, Gregory A. Westmoreland’s War: Reassessing American Strategy in 

Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

________. No Sure Victory: Measuring U.S. Army Effectiveness and Progress 

in the Vietnam War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Dallek, Robert. Lyndon B. Johnson: Portrait of a President. New York: 

Oxford University Press, 2004.

Daniels, Victory, and Erdheim, Judith C. Game Warden. Washington, D.C.: 

Office of Naval Research, 1976.

Davidson, Phillip B. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, 

Calif.: Presidio Press, 1988. 

________. Secrets of the Vietnam War. Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1990.

Duiker, William J. The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam. Boulder, Colo.: 

Westview Press, 1981. 
Staying the Course

690

Elliott, David W. P. The Vietnamese War: Revolution and Social Change in the 

Mekong Delta, 1930–1975. Armonk, N.Y.: Sharpe, 2003.

Ford, Ronnie E. Tet 1968: Understanding the Surprise. London: Frank Cass, 

1995.

Gilbert, Marc Jason, and Head, William, eds. The Tet Offensive. Westport, 

Conn.: Praeger, 1996.

Hammel, Eric. Fire in the Streets: The Battle for Hue, Tet 1968. Chicago: 

Contemporary Books, 1991.

________. Marines in Hue City: A Portrait of Urban Combat, Tet 1968. St. 

Paul, Minn.: Zenith (MBI Publishing), 2007.

________. Khe Sanh, Siege in the Clouds: An Oral History. New York: Crown, 

1989.

Hennessy, Michael. Strategy in Vietnam: The Marines and Revolutionary 

Warfare in I Corps, 1965–1972. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1997.

Herring, George C. LBJ and Vietnam: A Different Kind of War. Austin: 

University of Texas Press, 1996.

Humphries, James F. Through the Valley: Vietnam, 1967–1968. Boulder, Colo.: 

Lynne Rienner, 1999.

Hunt, Ira A. The 9th Infantry Division in Vietnam: Unparalleled and Unequaled.

Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2010.

Hunt, Richard A. Pacification: The American Struggle for Vietnam’s Hearts 

and Minds. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1995. 

Hymoff, Edward. Fourth Infantry Division, Vietnam. New York: Ladds 

Publishing, 1968.

Irzyk, Albin F. Unsung Heroes, Saving Saigon. Raleigh, N.C.: Ivy House 

Publishing, 2008.

Johnson, Thomas L., and Himes, Mary R. Historical Account of the Military 

Police Corps Regiment: Assault on the American Embassy: TET-68. Fort 

McClellan, Ala.: Department of the Army, 1983.

Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. New York: Viking Press, 1983.

Krohn, Charles A. Lost Battalion of Tet: The Breakout of 2/12th Cavalry at 

Hue. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2013.
691

Bibliographical Note

Mahler, Michael D.  Ringed in Steel: Armored Cavalry, Vietnam 1967–68.

Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1986.

Mangold, Tom, and Penycate. John. The Tunnels of Cu Chi: The Untold Story 

of Vietnam. New York: Random House, 1985. 

Maslowski, Peter, and Winslow, Don. Looking for a Hero: Staff Sergeant Joe 

Ronnie Hooper and the Vietnam War. Lincoln: University of Nebraska 

Press, 2005.

McAulay, Lex. The Battle of Coral. Hawthorn, Australia: Hutchinson, 1988.

Meyerson, Harvey. Vinh Long. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970. 

Murphy, Edward F. Dak To: The 173d Airborne Brigade in South Vietnam’s 

Central Highlands, June–November 1967. Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 

1993. 

Nguyen, Lien-Hang T. Hanoi’s War: An International History of the War 

for Peace in Vietnam. Raleigh: University of North Carolina Press, 

2012.

Nolan, Keith William. House to House: Playing the Enemy’s Game in Saigon, 

May 1968. St. Paul, Minn.: Zenith (MBI Publishing), 2006.

________. Battle for Hue: Tet 1968. Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1983.

________. The Magnificent Bastards: The Joint Army-Marine Defense of Dong 

Ha, 1968. Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1994. 

________. Search and Destroy: The Story of an Armored Cavalry Squadron in 

Viet Nam: 1/1 Cav, 1967–1968. Minneapolis, Minn.: Zenith Press (MBI 

Publishing), 2010.

Oberdorfer, Don. Tet! Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.

Phillips, William R. Night of the Silver Stars: The Battle of Lang Vei. Annapolis: 

Naval Institute Press, 1997.

Prados, John. Vietnam: The History of an Unwinnable War, 1945–1975. 

Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009.

________, and Stubbe, Ray W. Valley of Decision: The Siege of Khe Sanh. 

Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991.

Race, Jeffrey. War Comes to Long An: Revolutionary Conflict in a Vietnamese 

Province. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.
Staying the Course

692

Robbins, James S. This Time We Win: Revisiting the Tet Offensive. New York: 

Encounter Books, 2010.

Rowe, John. Vietnam: The Australian Experience. North Sydney, Australia: 

Time-Life Books, 1987.

Schandler, Herbert Y. The Unmaking of a President: Lyndon Johnson and 

Vietnam. N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977.

Schmitz,  David F. The Tet Offensive: Politics, War, and Public Opinion. 

Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005.

Smith, George W. The Siege at Hue. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1999.

Sorley, Lewis. A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and the Final Tragedy 

of America’s Last Years in Vietnam. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1999.

________. Vietnam Chronicles: The Abrams Tapes, 1968–1972. Lubbock: Texas 

Tech University Press, 2004.

Spector, Ronald. After Tet: The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam. New York: Free 

Press, 1993.

Stanton, Douglas. The Odyssey of Echo Company: The Tet Offensive and the 

Epic Battle to Survive the Vietnam War. New York: Scribner, 2017.

Stanton, Shelby L. Anatomy of a Division: The 1st Cavalry in Vietnam. Novato, 

Calif.: Presidio Press, 1987. 

Thayer, Thomas C., ed. A Systems Analysis View of the Vietnam War: 1965–

1972. Vol. 5, The Air War. Arlington, Va.: Defense Documentation Center, 

Defense Logistics Agency, 1975. 

Thi, Lam Quang. The Twenty-Five Year Century. Denton: University of North 

Texas Press, 2003.

Tonsetic,  Robert L. Days of Valor: An Inside Account of the Bloodiest Six 

Months of the Vietnam War. Havertown, Pa.: Casemate, 2007.

Warr, Nicholas. Phase Line Green: The Battle for Hue, 1968. Annapolis: Naval 

Institute Press, 1997.

Wiesner, Louis A. Victims and Survivors, Displaced Persons and Other War 

Victims in Viet-Nam, 1954–1975. New York: Greenwood Press, 1988.

Willbanks, James H. The Tet Offensive: A Concise History. New York: 

Columbia University Press, 2006.
693

Bibliographical Note

Yarborough, Thomas R. A Shau Valor: American Combat Operations in the 

Valley of Death, 1963–1971. Havertown, Pa.: Casemate, 2016.

Zaffiri, Samuel. Westmoreland: A Biography of General William C. 

Westmoreland. New York: William Morrow, 1994.

Map Symbols and Terms

Military Units

Function

Armor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I

I I

ARMOR

AMPHIBIOUS TRACTOR (USMC)

AVIATION

CAVALRY (ARMORED)

ENGINEER OR SAPPER

FIELD ARTILLERY 

INFANTRY

INFANTRY (AIRBORNE)

INFANTRY (AIR ASSAULT)

INFANTRY (MECHANIZED)

PLATOON OR DETACHMENT

BATTERY, COMPANY OR CAVALRY TROOP

BATTALION OR CAVALRY SQUADRON

USMC

Amphibious Tractor (USMC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I

III

I I

ARMOR

AMPHIBIOUS TRACTOR (USMC)

AVIATION

CAVALRY (ARMORED)

ENGINEER OR SAPPER

FIELD ARTILLERY 

INFANTRY

INFANTRY (AIRBORNE)

INFANTRY (AIR ASSAULT)

INFANTRY (MECHANIZED)

PLATOON OR DETACHMENT

BATTERY, COMPANY OR CAVALRY TROOP

BATTALION OR CAVALRY SQUADRON

REGIMENT OR GROUP

USMC

Aviation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I

III

I I

ARMOR

AMPHIBIOUS TRACTOR (USMC)

AVIATION

CAVALRY (ARMORED)

ENGINEER OR SAPPER

FIELD ARTILLERY 

INFANTRY

INFANTRY (AIRBORNE)

INFANTRY (AIR ASSAULT)

INFANTRY (MECHANIZED)

PLATOON OR DETACHMENT

BATTERY, COMPANY OR CAVALRY TROOP

BATTALION OR CAVALRY SQUADRON

REGIMENT OR GROUP

USMC

Cavalry (Armored) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I

III

I I

ARMOR

AMPHIBIOUS TRACTOR (USMC)

AVIATION

CAVALRY (ARMORED)

ENGINEER OR SAPPER

FIELD ARTILLERY 

INFANTRY

INFANTRY (AIRBORNE)

INFANTRY (AIR ASSAULT)

INFANTRY (MECHANIZED)

PLATOON OR DETACHMENT

BATTERY, COMPANY OR CAVALRY TROOP

BATTALION OR CAVALRY SQUADRON

REGIMENT OR GROUP

USMC

Engineer or Sapper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I

III

I I

X

ARMOR

AMPHIBIOUS TRACTOR (USMC)

AVIATION

CAVALRY (ARMORED)

ENGINEER OR SAPPER

FIELD ARTILLERY 

INFANTRY

INFANTRY (AIRBORNE)

INFANTRY (AIR ASSAULT)

INFANTRY (MECHANIZED)

PLATOON OR DETACHMENT

BATTERY, COMPANY OR CAVALRY TROOP

BATTALION OR CAVALRY SQUADRON

REGIMENT OR GROUP

BRIGADE

USMC

Field Artillery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I

III

I I

X

ARMOR

AMPHIBIOUS TRACTOR (USMC)

AVIATION

CAVALRY (ARMORED)

ENGINEER OR SAPPER

FIELD ARTILLERY 

INFANTRY

INFANTRY (AIRBORNE)

INFANTRY (AIR ASSAULT)

INFANTRY (MECHANIZED)

PLATOON OR DETACHMENT

BATTERY, COMPANY OR CAVALRY TROOP

BATTALION OR CAVALRY SQUADRON

REGIMENT OR GROUP

BRIGADE

USMC

Infantry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I

III

I I

X

ARMOR

AMPHIBIOUS TRACTOR (USMC)

AVIATION

CAVALRY (ARMORED)

ENGINEER OR SAPPER

FIELD ARTILLERY 

INFANTRY

INFANTRY (AIRBORNE)

INFANTRY (AIR ASSAULT)

INFANTRY (MECHANIZED)

PLATOON OR DETACHMENT

BATTERY, COMPANY OR CAVALRY TROOP

BATTALION OR CAVALRY SQUADRON

REGIMENT OR GROUP

BRIGADE

USMC

Infantry (Airborne) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I

III

I I

X X

X

ARMOR

AMPHIBIOUS TRACTOR (USMC)

AVIATION

CAVALRY (ARMORED)

ENGINEER OR SAPPER

FIELD ARTILLERY 

INFANTRY

INFANTRY (AIRBORNE)

INFANTRY (AIR ASSAULT)

INFANTRY (MECHANIZED)

PLATOON OR DETACHMENT

BATTERY, COMPANY OR CAVALRY TROOP

BATTALION OR CAVALRY SQUADRON

REGIMENT OR GROUP

BRIGADE

DIVISION

USMC

Infantry (Air Assault) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I

III

I I

X X

X

ARMOR

AMPHIBIOUS TRACTOR (USMC)

AVIATION

CAVALRY (ARMORED)

ENGINEER OR SAPPER

FIELD ARTILLERY 

INFANTRY

INFANTRY (AIRBORNE)

INFANTRY (AIR ASSAULT)

INFANTRY (MECHANIZED)

PLATOON OR DETACHMENT

BATTERY, COMPANY OR CAVALRY TROOP

BATTALION OR CAVALRY SQUADRON

REGIMENT OR GROUP

BRIGADE

DIVISION

USMC

Infantry (Mechanized) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I

III

I I

X X

X

ARMOR

AMPHIBIOUS TRACTOR (USMC)

AVIATION

CAVALRY (ARMORED)

ENGINEER OR SAPPER

FIELD ARTILLERY 

INFANTRY

INFANTRY (AIRBORNE)

INFANTRY (AIR ASSAULT)

INFANTRY (MECHANIZED)

PLATOON OR DETACHMENT

BATTERY, COMPANY OR CAVALRY TROOP

BATTALION OR CAVALRY SQUADRON

REGIMENT OR GROUP

BRIGADE

DIVISION

USMC

Size Symbols

Platoon or Detachment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I

III

I I

X X

XXX

X

ARMOR

AMPHIBIOUS TRACTOR (USMC)

AVIATION

CAVALRY (ARMORED)

ENGINEER OR SAPPER

FIELD ARTILLERY 

INFANTRY

INFANTRY (AIRBORNE)

INFANTRY (AIR ASSAULT)

INFANTRY (MECHANIZED)

PLATOON OR DETACHMENT

BATTERY, COMPANY OR CAVALRY TROOP

BATTALION OR CAVALRY SQUADRON

REGIMENT OR GROUP

BRIGADE

DIVISION

CORPS

USMC

Battery, Company, or Cavalry Troop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I

III

I I

X X

XXX

X

ARMOR

AMPHIBIOUS TRACTOR (USMC)

AVIATION

CAVALRY (ARMORED)

ENGINEER OR SAPPER

FIELD ARTILLERY 

INFANTRY

INFANTRY (AIRBORNE)

INFANTRY (AIR ASSAULT)

INFANTRY (MECHANIZED)

PLATOON OR DETACHMENT

BATTERY, COMPANY OR CAVALRY TROOP

BATTALION OR CAVALRY SQUADRON

REGIMENT OR GROUP

BRIGADE

DIVISION

CORPS

USMC

Battalion or Cavalry Squadron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I

III

I I

X X

XXX

X

ARMOR

AMPHIBIOUS TRACTOR (USMC)

AVIATION

CAVALRY (ARMORED)

ENGINEER OR SAPPER

FIELD ARTILLERY 

INFANTRY

INFANTRY (AIRBORNE)

INFANTRY (AIR ASSAULT)

INFANTRY (MECHANIZED)

PLATOON OR DETACHMENT

BATTERY, COMPANY OR CAVALRY TROOP

BATTALION OR CAVALRY SQUADRON

REGIMENT OR GROUP

BRIGADE

DIVISION

CORPS

USMC
Staying the Course

696

Reginent or Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A 

I

PLA

I I

PAVN

III

ARV

X X

X

USM

X X

PAVN

X X

X X

X

X X

1 

I I

Recon 

I

III

I I

X X

XXX

X

Company A, 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry

1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment

173d Airborne Brigade

1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile)

Reconnaissance Platoon, Company C, 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry 

3d Marine Division

South Vietnamese 5th Infantry Division

1st Australian Task Force

South Korean 9th Infantry Division

1st PAVN Division 

267th PLAF Battalion

32d PAVN Regiment

PLATOON OR DETACHMENT

BATTERY, COMPANY OR CAVALRY TROOP

BATTALION OR CAVALRY SQUADRON

REGIMENT OR GROUP

BRIGADE

DIVISION

CORPS

Brigade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A 

I

PLA

I I

PAVN

III

ARVN

X X

X

USM

X X

PAVN

X X

X X

X

X X

1 

I I

Recon 

I

III

I I

X X

XXX

X

Company A, 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry

1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment

173d Airborne Brigade

1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile)

Reconnaissance Platoon, Company C, 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry 

3d Marine Division

South Vietnamese 5th Infantry Division

1st Australian Task Force

South Korean 9th Infantry Division

1st PAVN Division 

267th PLAF Battalion

32d PAVN Regiment

PLATOON OR DETACHMENT

BATTERY, COMPANY OR CAVALRY TROOP

BATTALION OR CAVALRY SQUADRON

REGIMENT OR GROUP

BRIGADE

DIVISION

CORPS

Division . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A 

I

PLA

I I

PAVN

III

ARVN

X X

X

USM

X X

PAVN

X X

X X

X

X X

1 

I I

Recon 

I

III

I I

X X

XXX

X

Company A, 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry

1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment

173d Airborne Brigade

1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile)

Reconnaissance Platoon, Company C, 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry 

3d Marine Division

South Vietnamese 5th Infantry Division

1st Australian Task Force

South Korean 9th Infantry Division

1st PAVN Division 

267th PLAF Battalion

32d PAVN Regiment

PLATOON OR DETACHMENT

BATTERY, COMPANY OR CAVALRY TROOP

BATTALION OR CAVALRY SQUADRON

REGIMENT OR GROUP

BRIGADE

DIVISION

CORPS

Corps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A 

I

PLAF

I I

PAVN

III

ARVN

X X

X

USMC

X X

PAVN

X X

X X

X

X X

1 

I I

Recon 

I

III

I I

X X

XXX

X

Company A, 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry

1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment

173d Airborne Brigade

1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile)

Reconnaissance Platoon, Company C, 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry 

3d Marine Division

South Vietnamese 5th Infantry Division

1st Australian Task Force

South Korean 9th Infantry Division

1st PAVN Division 

267th PLAF Battalion

32d PAVN Regiment

PLATOON OR DETACHMENT

BATTERY, COMPANY OR CAVALRY TROOP

BATTALION OR CAVALRY SQUADRON

REGIMENT OR GROUP

BRIGADE

DIVISION

CORPS

Examples

Company A, 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A 1-18

I

267

PLAF

I I

32

PAVN

III

ARVN

5

X X

1 ATF

X

USMC

3

X X

1

PAVN

X X

9 ROK

X X

173

X

1 Cav

X X

1 26

I I

Recon C/5–60

I

III

I I

X X

XXX

X

any A, 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry

ttalion, 26th Infantry Regiment

Airborne Brigade

valry Division (Airmobile)

naissance Platoon, Company C, 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry 

rine Division

 Vietnamese 5th Infantry Division

ustralian Task Force

 Korean 9th Infantry Division

VN Division 

PLAF Battalion

AVN Regiment

Y, COMPANY OR CAVALRY TROOP

ON OR CAVALRY SQUADRON

NT OR GROUP

E

N

1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

A 1-18

I

267

PLAF

I I

32

PAVN

III

ARVN

5

X X

1 ATF

X

USMC

3

X X

1

PAVN

X X

9 ROK

X X

173

X

1 Cav

X X

1 26

I I

Recon C/5–60

I

III

I I

X X

XXX

X

any A, 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry

ttalion, 26th Infantry Regiment

Airborne Brigade

valry Division (Airmobile)

naissance Platoon, Company C, 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry 

rine Division

 Vietnamese 5th Infantry Division

ustralian Task Force

 Korean 9th Infantry Division

VN Division 

PLAF Battalion

AVN Regiment

Y, COMPANY OR CAVALRY TROOP

ON OR CAVALRY SQUADRON

NT OR GROUP

E

N

173d Airborne Brigade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

A 1-18

I

267

PLAF

I I

32

PAVN

III

ARVN

5

X X

1 ATF

X

USMC

3

X X

1

PAVN

X X

9 ROK

X X

173

X

1 Cav

X X

1 26

I I

Recon C/5–60

I

III

I I

X X

XXX

X

any A, 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry

ttalion, 26th Infantry Regiment

Airborne Brigade

valry Division (Airmobile)

naissance Platoon, Company C, 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry 

rine Division

 Vietnamese 5th Infantry Division

ustralian Task Force

 Korean 9th Infantry Division

VN Division 

PLAF Battalion

AVN Regiment

Y, COMPANY OR CAVALRY TROOP

ON OR CAVALRY SQUADRON

NT OR GROUP

E

N

1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

A 1-18

I

267

PLAF

I I

32

PAVN

III

ARVN

5

X X

1 ATF

X

USMC

3

X X

1

PAVN

X X

9 ROK

X X

173

X

1 Cav

X X

1 26

I I

Recon C/5–60

III

I I

X X

XXX

X

any A, 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry

ttalion, 26th Infantry Regiment

Airborne Brigade

valry Division (Airmobile)

naissance Platoon, Company C, 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry 

rine Division

 Vietnamese 5th Infantry Division

ustralian Task Force

 Korean 9th Infantry Division

VN Division 

PLAF Battalion

AVN Regiment

ON OR CAVALRY SQUADRON

NT OR GROUP

E

N

Reconnaissance Platoon, Company C, 5th Battalion, 

60th Infantry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

A 1-18

I

267

PLAF

I I

32

PAVN

III

ARVN

5

X X

1 ATF

X

USMC

3

X X

1

PAVN

X X

9 ROK

X X

173

X

1 Cav

X X

1 26

I I

Recon C/5–60

III

I I

X X

XXX

X

any A, 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry

ttalion, 26th Infantry Regiment

Airborne Brigade

valry Division (Airmobile)

naissance Platoon, Company C, 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry 

rine Division

 Vietnamese 5th Infantry Division

stralian Task Force

 Korean 9th Infantry Division

VN Division 

PLAF Battalion

AVN Regiment

ON OR CAVALRY SQUADRON

NT OR GROUP

E

N

3d Marine Division . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

A 1-18

I

267

PLAF

I I

32

PAVN

III

ARVN

5

X X

1 ATF

X

USMC

3

X X

1

PAVN

X X

9 ROK

X X

173

X

1 Cav

X X

1 26

I I

Recon C/5–60

III

I I

X X

XXX

X

any A, 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry

ttalion, 26th Infantry Regiment

Airborne Brigade

valry Division (Airmobile)

naissance Platoon, Company C, 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry 

rine Division

 Vietnamese 5th Infantry Division

ustralian Task Force

 Korean 9th Infantry Division

VN Division 

PLAF Battalion

AVN Regiment

ON OR CAVALRY SQUADRON

NT OR GROUP

E

N

South Vietnamese 5th Infantry Division . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

A 1-18

I

267

PLAF

I I

32

PAVN

III

ARVN

5

X X

1 ATF

X

USMC

3

X X

1

PAVN

X X

9 ROK

X X

173

X

1 Cav

X X

1 26

I I

Recon C/5–60

III

X X

XXX

X

any A, 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry

ttalion, 26th Infantry Regiment

Airborne Brigade

valry Division (Airmobile)

nnaissance Platoon, Company C, 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry 

arine Division

 Vietnamese 5th Infantry Division

ustralian Task Force

 Korean 9th Infantry Division

VN Division 

PLAF Battalion

AVN Regiment

NT OR GROUP

E

N

1st Australian Task Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

A 1-18

I

267

PLAF

I I

32

PAVN

III

ARVN

5

X X

1 ATF

X

USMC

3

X X

1

PAVN

X X

9 ROK

X X

173

X

1 Cav

X X

1 26

I I

Recon C/5–60

III

X X

XXX

X

any A, 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry

ttalion, 26th Infantry Regiment

Airborne Brigade

valry Division (Airmobile)

nnaissance Platoon, Company C, 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry 

arine Division

 Vietnamese 5th Infantry Division

ustralian Task Force

 Korean 9th Infantry Division

VN Division 

PLAF Battalion

AVN Regiment

NT OR GROUP

E

N

South Korean 9th Infantry Division . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

A 1-18

I

267

PLAF

I I

32

PAVN

III

ARVN

5

X X

1 ATF

X

USMC

3

X X

1

PAVN

X X

9 ROK

X X

173

X

1 Cav

X X

1 26

I I

Recon C/5–60

III

X X

XXX

X

any A, 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry

ttalion, 26th Infantry Regiment

Airborne Brigade

valry Division (Airmobile)

nnaissance Platoon, Company C, 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry 

arine Division

 Vietnamese 5th Infantry Division

ustralian Task Force

 Korean 9th Infantry Division

VN Division 

PLAF Battalion

AVN Regiment

NT OR GROUP

E

N

1st PAVN Division . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

A 1-18

I

267

PLAF

I I

32

PAVN

III

ARVN

5

X X

1 ATF

X

USMC

3

X X

1

PAVN

X X

9 ROK

X X

173

X

1 Cav

X X

1 26

I I

Recon C/5–60

X X

XXX

X

any A, 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry

ttalion, 26th Infantry Regiment

Airborne Brigade

valry Division (Airmobile)

nnaissance Platoon, Company C, 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry 

arine Division

 Vietnamese 5th Infantry Division

ustralian Task Force

 Korean 9th Infantry Division

VN Division 

PLAF Battalion

AVN Regiment

E

N

267th PLAF Battalion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

A 1-18

I

267

PLAF

I I

32

PAVN

III

ARVN

5

X X

1 ATF

X

USMC

3

X X

1

PAVN

X X

9 ROK

X X

173

X

1 Cav

X X

1 26

I I

Recon C/5–60

X X

XXX

X

any A, 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry

ttalion, 26th Infantry Regiment

Airborne Brigade

valry Division (Airmobile)

nnaissance Platoon, Company C, 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry 

arine Division

 Vietnamese 5th Infantry Division

ustralian Task Force

 Korean 9th Infantry Division

VN Division 

PLAF Battalion

AVN Regiment

E

N

32d PAVN Regiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

A 1-18

I

267

PLAF

I I

32

PAVN

III

ARVN

5

X X

1 ATF

X

USMC

3

X X

1

PAVN

X X

9 ROK

X X

173

X

1 Cav

X X

1 26

I I

Recon C/5–60

X X

XXX

any A, 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry

ttalion, 26th Infantry Regiment

Airborne Brigade

valry Division (Airmobile)

nnaissance Platoon, Company C, 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry 

arine Division

 Vietnamese 5th Infantry Division

ustralian Task Force

 Korean 9th Infantry Division

VN Division 

PLAF Battalion

AVN Regiment

N

Geographic Terms

Ap Hamlet

Chu Mountain

Cua Channel, river mouth

Dak Stream
697

Map Symbols and Terms

Dam Lake, marsh

Ia River

Kinh Canal

Nui Mountain, ridge

Prek Stream

Rach Stream

Se River

Song River

Suoi Stream

Xa Village

Ya Stream

Abbreviations and Acronyms

ARVN Army of the Republic of Vietnam 

 (South Vietnam)

CIA Central Intelligence Agency

CIDG Civilian Irregular Defense Group 

CINCPAC Commander in Chief, Pacific

CORDS Civil Operations and Revolutionary 

 Development Support

COSVN Central Office for South Vietnam

CRIP Combined Reconnaissance and 

 Intelligence Platoon

CTZ Corps Tactical Zone

DIOCC District Intelligence and Operations 

 Coordination Center

FFV Field Force, Vietnam

GVN Government of Vietnam

HES Hamlet Evaluation System

I FFV I Field Force, Vietnam

ICEX Intelligence Coordination and Exploitation

II FFV II Field Force, Vietnam

IMPACT Improvement Action

JCS Joint Chiefs of Staff (U.S.)

JGS Joint General Staff (South Vietnam)

JUSPAO Joint United States Public Affairs Office

LST Landing Ship, Tank 

MACV Military Assistance Command, Vietnam

MAT Mobile Advisory Team

MEDCAP Medical Civic Action Program

MR Military Region

MSF Mobile Strike Force

NCO Noncommissioned Officer

NLF National Liberation Front

PAVN People’s Army of Vietnam (North Vietnam)
Staying the Course

698

PBR Patrol Boat, River

PLAF People’s Liberation Armed Forces (Viet Cong)

RD Revolutionary Development

SKS Simonov Semi-Automatic

SLAM Search, Locate, Annihilate, Monitor

USAID United States Agency for 

 International Development

USARV U.S. Army, Vietnam

VC Viet Cong

VIP Volunteer Informant Program
Index

5A Bridge: 575–76, 579. See also

Highways; Routes. 

A Luoi airfield: 519, 520, 521, 

523–25, 607

A Shau Valley: 499, 501, 504–06, 

517, 519–20, 526, 531, 539, 602, 

607, 676–77

“Punchbowl”: 524–25

Abrams, General Creighton W. Jr.

assessment of: 676–80

correspondence with Wheeler, 

592, 680

on counteroffensive: 496

Khe Sanh and A Shau Valley 

operations: 499–502

Mekong Delta operations and: 

136

Mini-Tet and: 592–93

northern provinces, fighting in: 

273, 412, 416, 418–19, 431

planning for 1968 and: 8, 18

replacing Westmoreland: 597, 598, 

599

summer of 1968, military actions 

in: 597–600, 602, 614–15, 623, 

625–26, 632, 638–39

Tet offensive and: 273, 447, 456

third general offensive and: 643, 

644, 662, 666, 671–72

Acheson, Dean: 455

Aerorifle reconnaissance squads: 

200, 229, 232

Ai Tu airfield: 382

Air bases

Bien Hoa: 21, 69, 101, 346–47, 

349, 355, 500

Chu Lai: 610

Da Nang: 236, 313, 316

Tan Son Nhut: 27, 332, 336, 562, 

570

Air Force units, U.S.

Seventh Air Force: 22, 167, 222, 

264–65, 332, 430, 500, 507, 521

13th Air Force: 5

3d Security Police Squadron: 346, 

349

377th Security Police Squadron: 332

Air strikes

counteroffensive: 465, 486

Khe Sanh and A Shau Valley 

operations: 515–16, 526

Mini-Tet: 570–71, 580, 582

opening battles: 54, 56, 63–64, 65, 

67, 160, 163–64, 171–72, 196, 

202, 207, 222, 247

Tet offensive: 286, 377, 398, 422, 

448, 543–44, 546, 554

third general offensive: 657

Airborne Battalions

1st, 327th Infantry, 101st 

Airborne Division: 418, 420, 

504–05, 523, 525–26

1st, 501st Infantry, 101st Airborne 

Division: 273, 387, 538

1st, 502d Infantry, 101st Airborne 

Division: 273, 504

1st, 503d Infantry, 173d Airborne 

Brigade: 155, 158, 162, 164, 

170–71, 181, 205, 298, 474, 476

1st, 505th Infantry, 101st 

Airborne Division: 538

1st, 506th Infantry, 82d Airborne 

Division: 463

2d, 327th Infantry, 101st Airborne 

Division: 339, 418, 504–05, 523, 

608
Staying the Course

700

2d, 501st Infantry, 101st Airborne 

Division: 389, 409, 416, 419, 

424–27, 504, 538

2d, 502d Infantry, 101st Airborne 

Division: 273, 504, 523

2d, 503d Infantry, 173d Airborne 

Brigade: 155, 165–66, 170–74, 

176–77, 473–74, 479, 505, 624

2d, 505th Infantry, 82d Airborne 

Division: 418

2d, 506th Infantry, 101st Airborne 

Division: 350, 463

3d, 187th Infantry, 101st Airborne 

Division: 463

3d, 503d Infantry, 173d Airborne 

Brigade: 155, 205–06, 474, 

623–24

3d, 506th Infantry, 101st Airborne 

Division: 478, 623–24

4th, 503d Infantry, 173d Airborne 

Brigade: 151–52, 155–58, 

162, 164–65, 172–74, 176–77, 

205–06, 287–88, 290, 473–74, 

477, 623, 659

Airborne Brigades

1st, 101st Airborne Division: 45, 

212, 223, 226, 229, 230, 339, 

418, 420, 430, 502, 504–05, 523, 

525, 604, 606–07

2d, 101st Airborne Division: 46, 

69, 72, 267, 272–73, 387, 389, 

502, 504–05, 537, 543, 604

3d, 82d Airborne Division: 

418–19, 499–500, 502, 604,

 606

3d, 101st Airborne Division: 

46, 69, 70, 72, 463, 465, 556, 

558–59, 561, 584, 629, 634, 652

173d: 149, 151–52, 155, 158, 160, 

163–64, 166, 170, 174, 177, 179, 

181, 188, 204–06, 287–88, 290, 

473–75, 477, 479, 481, 547–48, 

614, 617–18, 620, 623–24, 643, 

659

Airborne Division/Air Cavalry 

Division

101st: 9, 45–46, 69–72, 212, 223, 

226, 229–30, 257, 267, 272–74, 

329–30, 339, 346, 350, 387, 389, 

411–12, 414, 418, 420, 428, 430, 

460, 463, 465, 478, 499–502, 

504–06, 520, 523, 525, 537–38, 

543, 556, 558–59, 561, 584, 600, 

604, 606–07, 609, 624, 629–30, 

643, 652

Aircraft, bombers

B–52 Stratofortress: 22, 65, 75, 

83, 155, 176, 177, 179, 180, 265, 

381, 500, 507, 521, 544, 556–57, 

597, 607, 629, 630, 631, 659

Aircraft, cargo

C–7 Caribou: 507, 524

C–123 Provider: 189, 507, 524, 

546, 547

C–130 Hercules: 151, 167, 168, 

189, 269, 271, 272, 273, 282, 

350, 382, 390, 391, 401, 410, 

411, 430, 500, 507, 510, 524, 

540, 544, 546, 547

C–141 Starlifter: 69

Aircraft, fighter-bombers

A–1E Skyraiders: 338, 542, 570

F–4C Phantom: 174

F–100 Super Sabre: 54, 64, 65, 

134, 152, 189, 290, 338

Aircraft, miscellaneous

AC–47 Spooky: 52, 54, 58, 67, 

134, 157, 189, 212, 317, 543, 

557, 659

O–1 Bird Dog: 364

Airmobile Battalions

1st, 5th Cavalry: 203, 383, 386, 

512, 514, 536, 537

1st, 7th Cavalry: 236, 419, 423–24, 

427, 510, 522–23

1st, 8th Cavalry: 200–201, 514, 

524

1st, 12th Cavalry: 166, 383, 386, 

514, 517, 524–25

2d, 5th Cavalry: 512, 514, 536, 537

2d, 7th Cavalry: 208, 211–13, 511, 

514–16, 523

2d, 8th Cavalry: 166, 201, 524

Airborne Battalions–Continued
701

Index

2d, 12th Cavalry: 230, 235, 239, 

402, 405, 408–10, 415, 419, 

424–27, 512, 515

5th, 7th Cavalry: 233–34, 407, 

409, 415–16, 419, 423–25, 511, 

514, 516, 522–23, 526

Airmobile Brigades

1st, 1st Cavalry Division: 166, 

197, 198, 203, 267, 272, 382, 

386, 417–18, 517, 520, 524–26, 

538, 539

2d, 1st Cavalry Division: 197, 202, 

203, 272, 294, 500, 512, 531, 

532, 536, 602

3d, 1st Cavalry Division: 197, 

223–24, 226, 228, 232, 235, 239, 

267–68, 272, 273, 390–91, 401, 

407, 410–12, 416, 418–19, 423, 

427, 429–30, 499, 510, 512, 517, 

520–23, 526, 538

Airmobile Division

1st Cavalry: 15, 163, 166, 170, 

183, 187–89, 192, 194, 196–98, 

202–03, 208, 214, 223–26, 228, 

232, 235, 250, 252, 257, 267–68, 

272–73, 275, 294, 317, 382, 

386–87, 389–91, 394, 401, 409, 

411–12, 416, 418–19, 428–30, 

487, 499–502, 504–05, 507, 510, 

512, 514, 517–20, 523–24, 526, 

531–32, 536–39, 602–04, 643, 

676

Allen, Brig. Gen. Richard J.: 474, 

548, 617–19, 620–24, 659

Alley, 1st Lt. Lee: 374

Alsop, Joseph: 526

Am, Lt. Col. Nguyen: 381, 382, 383, 

386

An, Col. Nguyen Huu: 148

An Bao: 548, 550–53, 555

An Cuu Bridge: 389, 393, 396, 414

An Giang: 367, 440

An Hoa: 220, 483, 540

An Khe: 188, 267, 475–76, 621–22, 

658

An Loc: 48, 51, 66–67, 71–72

An Nhon: 282, 290, 294

An Nhut Tan: 113, 117

An Xuyen Province: 112, 367

Anderson, Lt. Col. Andrew H.: 

649–50, 653

Andreotta, Sp4c. Glenn: 490–92

Anh, Lt. Col. Tran Ngoc: 524

Antila, Lt. Col. Eric F.: 576–77, 578, 

581

Ap Binh Long: 569–70

Ap Doi Moi: 10, 14–15, 20

Ap Hoa Thanh: 569–71

Arc Light missions (B–52): 507, 

557, 659

Area security: 16, 96, 98, 117, 119, 

190, 196–97, 214, 467, 633–34

Armor Battalions

1st, 69th Armor, 4th Infantry 

Division: 147, 299–300, 305, 

548, 550, 552–54, 617, 624

1st, 77th Armor, 1st Brigade, 5th 

Infantry Division (Mechanized): 

601

2d, 34th Armor: 75, 94, 462, 562, 

648, 654

Armored Cavalry Squadrons

1st, 11th Armored Cavalry: 70, 71, 

461, 465, 628

2d, 11th Armored Cavalry: 70, 71, 

461, 465, 628, 655, 667–68

3d, 11th Armored Cavalry: 71, 

460, 462, 465, 573, 631

Army of the Republic of Vietnam 

(ARVN). See South Vietnamese 

Army.

Army Reserve: 457

Artillery Battalions

1st, 5th Artillery, 1st Infantry 

Division: 65

1st, 8th Artillery, 25th Infantry 

Division: 654

1st, 21st Artillery, 1st Cavalry 

Division: 510–11

1st, 30th Artillery: 514

1st, 77th Artillery, 1st Cavalry 

Division: 512

1st, 84th Artillery, 9th Infantry 

Division: 127, 373
Staying the Course

702

2d, 4th Artillery, 9th Infantry 

Division: 113, 131–33

2d, 19th Artillery, 1st Cavalry 

Division: 514

2d, 33d Artillery, 1st Infantry 

Division: 64

2d, 35th Artillery: 105, 567, 583

2d, 40th Artillery, 199th Infantry 

Brigade: 102–03, 567

2d, 77th Artillery, 25th Infantry 

Division: 77

2d, 84th Artillery: 127

3d, 13th Artillery, 25th Infantry 

Division: 77, 573

3d, 34th Artillery, 9th Infantry 

Division: 125

3d, 82d Artillery, 196th Infantry 

Brigade: 544

3d, 319th Artillery, 173d Airborne 

Brigade: 162, 477

4th, 42d Artillery, 4th Infantry 

Division: 659

5th, 2d Artillery: 77, 354

5th, 4th Artillery, 5th Infantry 

Division (Mechanized): 601

6th, 15th Artillery, 1st Infantry 

Division: 67

6th, 29th Artillery, 4th Infantry 

Division: 151, 557

6th, 32d Artillery: 287–88

7th, 11th Artillery, 25th Infantry 

Division: 75, 573, 654

8th, 6th Artillery, 1st Infantry 

Division: 67

Artillery Groups

23d: 83, 88

41st: 187

52d: 147, 151, 298, 355

54th: 83, 107

108th: 224

Artillery weapons and howitzers: 

54, 64, 67, 75, 80, 103, 105, 113, 

125, 127, 131, 132, 133–34, 155, 

157, 160, 162, 163, 208, 236, 

265, 287, 297, 299, 302, 303, 

305, 308, 312, 336, 346, 347, 

359, 373–74, 376, 382, 402, 406, 

408, 420, 426, 469, 477, 501, 

507, 510, 511, 512, 514, 520, 

523, 542, 543, 544, 547, 558, 

567, 574, 583, 601, 617, 623, 

631, 654

M101A1 howitzer: 26

M102 howitzer: 26

M107 self-propelled howitzer: 26

M109 self-propelled howitzer: 26, 

77, 573–74, 583

M110 self-propelled howitzer: 26

M114 towed howitzer: 26

Assault Helicopter Companies

57th: 302–03

119th: 298

120th: 333

145th: 80

155th: 295

170th: 298

179th: 298

188th: 80

189th: 298

192d: 623

Australian forces

counteroffensive and: 465

in Mekong Delta: 583

in National Priority Area: 84, 100, 

107–08, 110–11

northern provinces, fighting in: 

389

planning for 1968 and: 3, 16, 

21–22, 45

renewed general offensive and: 

540, 543

Saigon, fighting around: 355, 632

in third general offensive: 644, 

658, 661

Australian Task Force, 1st: 45, 84, 

100, 107–08, 110–11, 355, 465, 

583, 632, 644

Aviation Battalions

10th: 187

52d: 298

123d: 490, 492

145th: 350

229th: 401

Artillery Battalions–Continued
703

Index

268th: 287

307th: 363

Aviation Groups

11th: 522

12th: 83, 101, 347

16th: 313

17th: 188

52d: 147

160th: 600

164th: 125

Ba, Lt. Col. Nguyen Van: 287, 288, 290

Ba Ria: 107, 355

Ba River: 204

Ba Xuyen Province: 366

Bac Lieu Province: 366–67

Ban Me Thuot: 149, 166, 261, 268, 

295–96, 298, 479, 556, 625, 

642–43, 658–59, 671

Bao Dinh River: 368

Bao Loc: 623

Bao Trai: 89–91, 96

Barker, Lt. Col. Frank A.: 488, 489, 

492, 493, 494

Barnes, Col. John W.: 298, 442

Barnes, Thomas J.: 467

Barrier systems: 221, 223, 225

Barsanti, Maj. Gen. Olinto M.: 69, 

70, 502, 504, 505, 537, 604

Base areas, enemy 

101: 224, 273, 382, 386–87, 392, 

416, 499, 501, 526, 602, 676

114: 224, 261, 416, 499, 501, 504,

520, 524, 526, 604, 606, 676

117: 485

353: 77

355: 466

470: 130–31, 135, 359, 369, 470

607: 520, 526

701: 614, 625

704: 124

Ban Long Secret Zone: 130

Cam Son Secret Zone: 130

Hat Dich Secret Zone: 101, 

107–08, 110

Iron Triangle: 47, 85, 92–94, 119, 

584–85

Long Nguyen Secret Zone: 50, 85

Mao Tao Secret Zone: 109

Pineapple Forest: 484

Trapezoid, the: 85, 94

See also Cambodia; War Zone C; 

War Zone D.

Bases, U.S. 

Bien Hoa–Long Binh military 

complex: 21, 45, 101, 106, 119, 

323, 346–47, 561, 584

Camp Blackhorse: 71, 107, 110, 

461, 465

Camp Carroll: 265, 295, 297, 507

Camp Eagle: 500, 502, 608

Camp Enari: 145, 147, 183–84, 

298, 300

Camp Evans: 272–73, 390–91, 

401–02, 405–06, 409–10, 412, 

415–16, 419, 487, 505, 510, 

517, 521, 533, 536, 538–39,

 602

Camp Frenzell-Jones: 99, 101

Camp Holloway: 298–99

Camp Le Van Duyet: 325, 336, 

343, 564, 569–70

Camp Martin Cox (“Bearcat”): 

101, 106, 109–10, 347, 351, 

370–73, 464, 579–80, 632

Camp McDermott: 282, 285

Camp Oasis: 147, 301–02

Camp Radcliff: 188, 474–75

Camp Rainier: 645, 649, 651, 

653–54

Dau Tieng: 73–74, 77, 353, 463, 

642, 645–46, 648–51, 654

Di An: 84, 87, 105, 331–32, 565,

571

Tay Ninh West: 74–75, 353, 568, 

645–46, 648, 651, 653, 662, 665

See also Air bases; Special Forces 

camps.

Bassac River: 123, 365

Batangan Peninsula: 240, 488–89

Baxley, Lt. Col. William J.: 319–20

Belnap, Lt. Col. Glen D.: 151, 152, 

154–55, 160–62

Ben Cat: 85, 354, 466
Staying the Course

704

Ben Cui Rubber Plantation: 649–50, 

652–54, 669–70

Ben Het: 151–52, 155, 157–58, 162, 

177–78, 181, 295, 479–80, 

555–59, 625

Ben Luc: 114, 576

Ben Tre: 116, 264, 367, 369, 371, 380, 

471, 635–37, 655

Ben Tre River: 361, 370

Benewah, USS: 469

Bertholf, Lt. Col. Cheney L. Jr.: 473

Bien Hoa: 23, 43, 101, 111, 119, 324, 

347, 350, 352–54, 370, 465, 563, 

571

Bien Hoa Province: 43, 45–46, 70, 

83–84, 99–101, 106–11, 324, 346, 

354, 370, 463–65, 468, 628, 632

Binh Chanh District: 96, 99

Binh Dinh Province

I Corps and: 240, 611

II Corps and: 617–18, 622–24

battles in Saigon area: 324, 339

Central Coast defenses and: 

187–88, 190–97, 198, 203, 208, 

214

Central Highlands and: 163, 166

in counteroffensive: 473, 475, 481, 

483

in renewed general offensive: 

547–55

from Saigon perspective: 441

Tet offensive and: 267–68, 272, 

275, 290–94

Binh Duong Province

II Field Force and approaches to 

Saigon: 628–29

battles north and west of Saigon: 

43, 47, 50–52, 69–70, 73, 81

battles in Saigon area: 324, 354

in counteroffensive: 460–61, 468

in Mini-Tet: 561

National Priority Area: 83–89, 

92–93, 95, 102

in renewed general offensive: 530

Saigon perspective on: 441

in Tet offensive: 266

in third general offensive: 643

Trapezoid, the: 85, 94

Binh Loi Bridge: 563, 571, 575

Binh Long Province: 46, 48, 50–51, 

56, 62, 66, 71, 74, 460, 465, 467, 

561, 628, 642, 644, 655, 668

Binh Phuoc: 113

Binh Son: 239, 241, 254–55, 612

Binh Thuan: 187, 189, 208, 210–13, 

216, 478, 622–24

Binh Tin: 288–90

Binh Tri Dong: 571, 572, 574

Binh Tuy: 100–101, 107, 110, 208, 464

Bishop, Lt. Col. Bertram J.: 504

Bland, Lt. Col. Ivan C.: 359, 368, 371

Blue Team. See Aerorifle reconnaissance squads.

Bo Dieu River: 531–33, 535–37

Bo Duc: 62–63, 65–66, 71–72

Bo Mung: 315

Boats and landing craft: 101, 114, 

130, 139, 145, 372, 377, 399, 

401, 420, 423, 430, 469, 605, 636 

enemy: 31, 131

Landing Ship, Tank (LST): 533

LCM–6 (Landing Craft, 

Mechanized) boats (Tango 

boats): 127, 135–36

Patrol boats: 22, 113, 125, 291, 

361, 364–65, 370

See also Mobile Riverine Force; 

Navy, U.S.

Boi Loi Woods: 94

Bolin, Capt. Harold E.: 63

Bombs 

in I Corps Tactical Zone: 243

in Central Coast: 222–23

in Central Highlands: 154, 161, 

179, 181

in Khe Sanh and A Shau Valley: 

500, 507, 512–13, 521

Mini-Tet: 572, 580–81

in National Priority Area: 120

north and west of Saigon: 40, 54, 

56, 59, 63–64, 67, 73, 80

planning for 1968: 5–6, 20, 22

Tet offensive: 265, 271, 290, 328, 

455, 457–58, 544, 554, 557
705

Index

in third general offensive: 607, 637

See also Napalm.

Bon Tri: 538

Bond, Lt. Col. Vernon L.: 648

Bong Son Plain: 197–98, 203, 257, 

548, 617–18, 620–21, 624

Booby traps: 35, 92, 131, 172, 196, 

241, 489, 574, 619

Bowen, Col. Thomas W.: 606

Boyd, Lt. Col. William Jr.: 546

Brewer, S. Sgt. Gary D.: 337

Brewer, Robert B.: 381

Brown, Pfc. Claude S.: 516

Bu Gia Map: 62

Buckner, Lt. Col. David L.: 477

Buddha Statue Hill: 284, 286–87

Bunker, Ellsworth: 17, 257, 328, 330, 

445, 591

Ca Lu: 507–08, 519

Ca Mau: 367, 379

Ca Nhip Canal: 130

Cahill, James P.: 302

Cai Be District: 130

Cai Lay: 469

Cai Rang: 636

Calhoun, Maj. Charles: 493

Calley, Lt. William H. Jr.: 490–94

Cam, Senior Col. Hoang: 48, 49–52, 

55–56, 59–61, 63, 65, 79

Cam Le Bridge: 316, 320, 657

Cam Lo: 532

Cam Ranh Bay: 189, 290

Cambodia

Abrams and: 597, 599, 629

assessment of: 676–77

battles north and west of Saigon 

and: 43–47, 50–51, 60, 62, 

65–66, 71, 73, 76, 80

counteroffensive and: 463, 467, 

479–80

Fishhook region: 76–77, 79, 562

Mekong Delta and: 123–24, 128, 

148, 151, 158, 162, 166

Mini-Tet and: 585

National Priority Area and: 84, 

107–08, 112, 119

Parrot’s Beak: 112

planning for 1968 and: 4, 12, 

15–16, 23, 29, 31, 36–37, 39–41

Tet offensive and: 295, 308, 365, 

440, 452, 457

third general offensive and: 

641–42, 655, 658

Campbell, Col. Hubert S.

I Corps and: 226, 238

Khe Sanh and A Shau Valley 

operations and: 510–11, 512, 

514, 521, 523

northern provinces, fighting in: 

390, 391, 401–02, 406, 407, 409, 

410–11, 412, 415–16, 418, 419, 

423, 424, 426, 430

Camps. See Base areas, enemy; 

Bases, U.S.; Special Forces 

camps.

Can Giuoc: 113–14, 128

Can Tho: 23, 264, 359–61, 364, 372, 

377–79, 443, 636, 655

Can Tho River: 636

Canberra, USS: 408, 419

Cao Lanh: 367

Capital Military Assistance 

Command: 593, 626–29, 644

Capital Military District: 324, 336, 

346, 561–62, 575, 583, 589, 593, 

626, 643–45

Captured documents, contraband, 

weapons, and food: 55–56, 92, 

94–95, 118, 131, 141, 160, 170, 

194, 206, 214, 228, 234–35, 239, 

242, 247, 257, 266, 268, 274–75, 

387, 413, 424, 428, 430, 463, 487, 

492, 504–05, 526, 539, 605–07, 

621, 625–27, 629, 631, 633, 

636–38, 649

Carbines: 28, 34

Carper, Lt. Col. William C. III: 567

Carter, Lt. Col. John B.: 548, 550, 

552, 554

Casualties

in I Corps, II Corps, and II 

Field Force: 194–95, 201, 

202–03, 206–07, 212–15, 228, 
Staying the Course

706

230–34, 235–36, 238–39, 242, 

246–47, 250, 252–54, 598, 601, 

604–06, 608, 611–12, 616, 

618–19, 621, 623–24, 625–27, 

628, 629–30, 631, 633, 634, 

635, 636–38

under Abrams’ command: 599, 

605, 611, 618, 624, 636, 638

assessment of: 673, 675, 677

in battles north and west of 

Saigon: 51–52, 54, 55, 56, 

58–67, 69, 76, 79–81

on Central Coast: 194–95, 201, 

202–03, 206–07, 212–15

in Central Highlands: 130–31, 

134–36, 141, 154–58, 160–61, 

162, 164–66, 168, 170–74, 

176–77, 178, 179–82

civilian casualties: 11, 87, 182, 

246, 254, 290, 368, 453, 590, 

613, 620, 671

in counteroffensive: 462–63, 

465–67, 469–71, 473–74, 477, 

479, 481–82, 484–90, 491, 

492–93, 494, 495, 498

at Khe Sanh and A Shau: 504, 

506, 509, 512–15, 517, 518, 

522, 524, 525–26

in Mekong Delta: 128, 130–31, 

133–36, 141, 361, 363–64, 366, 

367, 369, 371, 372–74, 376–79

in Mini-Tet: 562, 563, 565, 567, 

569, 570–74, 577, 579–82, 

583–88, 589–91, 593

in National Priority Area: 87, 

89, 90, 92, 93, 94–95, 102, 

104–06, 110, 117–18, 120

in northern provinces: 384, 

386–87, 393, 396, 399–400, 

404–05, 407, 410, 413, 415–16, 

422, 424, 427–28, 430

planning for 1968 and: 3, 7, 9, 

11, 16, 24, 31–32, 34, 40

reactions to: 436–37, 439, 441, 

443, 445, 446, 447–49, 451, 

455

in renewed general offensive: 

532–33, 535–39, 542–43, 544, 

546–47, 551–56, 558–59

in Saigon region: 325, 326, 329, 

330–32, 337, 338–39, 340, 341, 

342–43, 344, 347, 349, 352, 

354–55, 356, 357 

in Tet offensive: 264, 269, 275–76, 

287, 290–91, 293–94, 298, 300, 

301, 303, 304, 306, 307, 310–12, 

313–15, 316, 317, 320–21

in third general offensive: 646, 

648–59, 660, 661, 662–63, 665–73

Cau, Maj. Bui The: 324

Cau Do River: 315–16, 318–20

Cau Khoi Rubber Plantation: 645, 

649, 652–54, 662, 665, 670

Cau Mat: 576–82

Cavalry Squadrons (Air)

1st, 9th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry 

Division: 232–33, 294, 507, 514, 

517, 521, 604

3d, 17th Cavalry: 74–75, 80, 

104–06, 351, 568

7th, 1st Cavalry/Air Cavalry: 557, 

565, 577, 580, 632

7th, 17th Cavalry/Air Cavalry: 147, 

304, 468, 482, 659

Cavalry Squadrons (Ground)

1st, 1st Cavalry, 23d Infantry 

Division: 228, 230, 233, 484–86, 

542, 610–11, 624, 657

1st, 4th Cavalry, 1st Infantry 

Division: 67, 339, 354, 466, 565, 

566

1st, 10th Cavalry, 4th Infantry 

Division: 147, 302, 659

1st, 17th Air Cavalry, 3d Brigade, 

82d Airborne Division: 624 

2d, 1st Cavalry: 147, 183, 302–03, 

306, 476

2d, 17th Air Cavalry, 101st Air 

Cavalry Division: 600

3d, 4th Cavalry, 25th Infantry 

Division: 92, 337–39, 353, 561, 

569–72, 587, 649–50, 653–54, 

663–64

Casualties–Continued
707

Index

3d, 5th Cavalry, 9th Infantry 

Division: 71, 106, 108–10, 370, 

418, 425, 500, 509, 602, 604

Cavalry Troops

A, 4th Squadron, 1st Brigade, 

12th Cavalry, 5th Infantry 

Division (Mechanized): 601

D, 17th Cavalry, 199th Infantry 

Brigade: 104, 344–45, 567, 571

E, 17th Cavalry, 173d Airborne 

Brigade: 477

F, 17th Cavalry, 196th Infantry 

Brigade: 230, 610

Cavazos, Lt. Col. Richard E.: 52, 54, 

55, 59, 60

Cay Giep Mountains: 197, 201–03, 

294

Central Coast defenses: 187–218

assessment of: 214–18

counteroffensive: 473–79

pacification support in Binh Dinh: 

190–97

Phu Yen and Khanh Hoa 

Provinces: 204–08

Tet offensive strikes on: 281–90

Yellow Star Division: 197–204

Central Highlands: 145–48 

II Corps and: 615

Central Coast defenses and: 187, 

205

counteroffensive and: 474, 481

counteroffensive in: 479–583

Good Neighbor area: 183–86, 615

Mini-Tet and: 584

National Priority Area and: 100

planning for 1968 and: 12, 23

renewed general offensive and: 

558

Tet offensive and: 257, 281

See also Dak To; Dak To, battle 

of.

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA): 

17, 35–36, 95, 145, 276, 328, 

451, 453

Central Office for South Vietnam

(COSVN) 

7th Front: 381, 532

assessment of: 676

B2 Front: 37, 47, 529, 585, 641–42

B8 Front: 524, 526

battles north and west of Saigon 

and: 47–49, 51, 72, 74, 76–77

Central Coast defenses and: 190

counteroffensive and: 459–60, 

464–65

DMZ Front: 37, 381, 509, 511, 531

fighting in Saigon area and: 346, 

353–54, 357

Hue City Front: 261, 381, 392–93, 

405, 425, 532

Mekong Delta fighting and: 123

Military Region 2: 123, 130, 379

Military Region 3: 124, 377–79

Military Region 6: 190, 208, 

212–13, 478

Military Region 10: 47, 51, 62, 65, 

76, 465

Mini-Tet and: 567, 572, 584–85

National Priority Area and: 92, 

102, 105, 118

planning for 1968 and: 36–37, 

39–41

reactions to 1968 fighting: 435–36, 

438

renewed general offensive and: 

529–31

Resolution 4: 36

Resolution 5: 40

Resolution 12: 39

Resolution 13: 39

Resolution 14: 41, 259

Sub-Region 1: 77, 530, 572, 586, 

589

Sub-Region 2: 112, 573, 588

Sub-Region 3: 112, 575, 656

Sub-Region 4: 575

Sub-Region 5: 575, 586, 590

Sub-Region 6: 328

Tet offensive and: 266, 275, 281

third general offensive and: 641, 

643, 645, 653, 655, 662, 665–67, 

670–71

See also Military Region 5.

Chain of command, U.S.: 16–23
Staying the Course

708

Chau, Maj. Gen. Nguyen Minh: 190, 

208, 212, 478

Chau Doc: 365, 367, 380

Chau Doc Province: 365, 366

Chau Thanh: 85, 87–88, 634

Chieu Hoi (“Open Arms”) program. 

See Defectors.

China

I Corps and: 221, 225, 248

Central Coast defenses and: 187, 

204

Central Highlands fighting and: 

145, 172

Mekong Delta fighting and: 123

northern provinces, fighting in: 388

planning for 1968 and: 4–5, 14, 34, 

40

renewed general offensive and: 540

Saigon area fighting and: 328, 343

Tet offensive and: 282, 290

third general offensive and: 641

Chinh, Brig. Gen. Phan Trong: 113

Chinh, Truong: 30

Cholon District: 29, 343–45

Chon Thanh: 50

Chu Lai: 223, 230, 239–40, 242, 249, 

312–13, 484. See also Bases, U.S.

Chu Lai Special Zone: 612

Chuong Thien Province: 366–67

Citadel: 310, 382–84, 386, 388–90, 

392–93, 396, 398–99, 401–02, 

408, 412–16, 418–20, 423–27. See 

also Hue.

Civic action

I Corps and: 248, 250, 252

assessment of: 678

battles north and west of Saigon 

and: 45, 66

Central Coast defenses and: 196

Central Highlands and: 182–84

counteroffensive and: 468, 472, 

475, 482

MEDCAP (Medical Civic Action 

Program): 120, 140, 248, 631, 

633

Mekong Delta and: 138, 140

Mini-Tet and: 595

National Priority Area and: 83, 

86, 88, 91, 95, 99, 106, 111, 117, 

120

summer fighting season and: 603, 

605, 614–16, 621, 628, 630, 

633–34

Civil affairs: 120, 183, 250, 615

Civil Affairs Company, 29th: 250

Civil Operations and Revolutionary 

Development Support 

(CORDS) 

I Corps and: 242, 245–55

assessment of: 678

Central Coast defenses and: 190, 

206, 211, 215–16

in Central Highlands: 141, 143, 

183

in counteroffensive: 468, 474–75, 

477, 482, 495, 497

National Priority Area and: 84, 

87–89, 91, 100, 111, 115, 119

planning for 1968 and: 18–21, 

26–27

reactions to war and: 439, 444

summer fighting season and: 

612–14, 616, 620–21, 628, 630, 

634

Tet offensive and: 258

See also Pacification; 

Revolutionary Development 

(RD) efforts.

Civilian casualties: 11, 87, 182, 246, 

254, 290, 368, 453, 590, 613, 

620, 671

Civilian Irregular Defense Group 

(CIDG): 29, 48, 131, 148, 181, 

292–93, 474, 479–80, 540–44, 

546–47, 616

Cleland, Lt. Col. John R. D.: 206, 

623–24

Clifford, Clark M.: 451, 453–55, 456, 

592, 678

Co Gong: 470

Co Loa Artillery Training Center: 

334, 339

Coast Guard, U.S.: 16, 21–22

Cochran, Lt. Col. James F. III: 59, 64
709

Index

Colburn, Sp4c. Lawrence: 490

Collins, Col. John W. III: 418, 504, 

505, 606

Combined Campaign Plans

1968 (AB 143): 12, 14, 115, 187, 

245, 259, 472, 474, 678

1969: 678

Combined operations: 86, 90, 96–98, 

114, 137, 196, 210, 216, 460, 

467, 475, 478, 605, 616, 621, 

626, 630

Combined Mobile Inspection 

Teams: 182

Combined Mobile Training 

Teams: 182, 196

Combined Operation Intelligence 

Center: 117

Combined Reconnaissance and 

Intelligence Platoon (CRIP): 91, 

94–95, 117, 119, 630

Cordon-and-search missions: 86, 

91, 94, 117, 119, 192, 194–95, 

603, 605, 615, 621, 627, 629–30, 

634

District Intelligence and 

Operations Coordination 

Centers (DIOCCs): 91, 117

Marine Combined Action 

Platoons: 226, 236, 255, 317, 

319–20

Mobile Advisory Team: 86–87, 91, 

99, 117, 119, 138, 182, 616

Mobile Resource Control Team: 

86

Improvement Action Team: 

86–87, 106, 117, 119, 138, 182

Intelligence Coordination and 

Exploitation (ICEX): 19, 91, 258

Project Recovery: 444, 591

Soft cordon technique: 605–06

Commander in Chief, Pacific 

(CINCPAC): 20, 258, 267

Communist perspective on Tet offensive: 435–38

Con Thien: 222, 265, 499, 502, 509, 

584

Condina, Lt. Col. Ernest F.: 93

Cong Thanh: 101, 102

Cooksey, Brig. Gen. Howard H.: 

609

Copley, Capt. Jay C.: 550, 551

Corps, XXIV: 599, 602, 608, 614. 

See also Provisional Corps, 

Vietnam.

Corps tactical zones: 22–23, 43, 45, 

123, 219, 411, 451. See also

South Vietnamese commands 

and units.

Corruption: 143, 216–17, 475

Cottrell, Sterling J.: 141, 142

Counterinfrastructure campaigns: 

91, 95, 117, 119–20, 142, 

195, 211, 215–16, 249, 443, 

497, 595, 603, 677, 679. See 

also Pacification; Phoenix 

(Phuong Hoang) program; 

Revolutionary Development 

(RD) efforts.

Counteroffensives

Central III Corps: 459–68

Central Coast defenses: 473–79

in Central Highlands: 479–583

My Lai massacre: 488–95, 620

in northern Mekong: 468–73

southern I Corps, Americal 

Division in: 483–88

urgency, sense of: 496–98

Cousland, Lt. Col. Walter C.: 484

Cu Chi

battles north and west of Saigon: 

69, 73, 81

battles in Saigon area: 353

in counteroffensive: 462–63, 468

in Mini-Tet: 561–62, 569–70, 573

National Priority Area: 89–90, 

92–93

in Tet offensive: 273

in third general offensive: 648, 

654, 663, 665

Cua Viet: 382, 401, 412, 533, 536

Cuong, Lt. Col. Luu Kim: 324, 334, 

336, 342, 570

Cuong, Senior Col. Giap Van: 235, 

315, 316, 317, 318, 320
Staying the Course

710

Curtis, Col. Charles H.: 602

Cushman, Col. John H.: 273, 504, 

537, 605–06, 620

Cushman, Lt. Gen. Robert E.

I Corps and: 219, 220–25, 245, 

255

Abrams and: 599

counteroffensive and: 483

fighting in northern provinces 

and: 401, 412, 418, 429

Khe Sanh and A Shau operations: 

502, 520

planning for 1968 and: 22, 23

renewed general offensive and: 

542, 545

Tet offensive and: 267, 273, 315

Da Lat: 264, 623–24

Da Nang

I Corps and: 219–20, 225–26, 599, 

610

counteroffensive: 483

Operation Pegasus and: 517

planning for 1968 and: 23

in renewed general offensive: 531, 

538, 540

in Tet offensive: 261, 265, 267, 

290–91, 314–15, 317–21, 390, 

394, 401, 411–12, 429–30

in third general offensive: 642–43, 

657, 671

Da Phuoc: 581–82

Da Rang River: 287

Daems, Col. Leonard R. Jr.: 75, 77, 

79, 80, 81, 94

Dai, 1st Sgt. Pham: 622

Dai Do: 533, 535–36

Dai Dong: 198, 200–202

Dak Bla River: 302, 305

Dak Hodrai River: 158

Dak Hodrai Valley: 162, 166

Dak Klong Valley: 152, 155, 158, 

162–66, 170

Dak Pek: 555, 558–59, 615, 625

Dak Seang: 625

Dak Sir Valley: 166–67

Dak Son: 66, 72

Dak To

II Corps operations and: 615, 625

battles around Saigon and: 339, 342

Central Coast defenses and: 197, 

205

counteroffensive and: 479–80, 482

renewed general offensive and: 

555–56, 558

Tet offensive and: 257–58, 295, 

302, 306–07

third general offensive and: 658

Dak To, battle of

allied counteroffensive: 158–62

beginning of: 151–58

in Dak Klong Valley: 162–67

events leading up to: 148–49

Hill 875 in: 170–78

pursuit: 167–70

results and interpretations: 178–82, 

676 

Rocket Ridge: 152, 154–55, 158, 

163, 167–68, 170, 181

Dak To Valley: 150, 152

Danford, Lt. Col. Howard H.: 504

Darlac Province: 145, 148, 149, 161, 

177, 183, 268, 295, 441, 479, 480, 

482, 616

Dau Tieng: 75–77, 463, 642, 645–46, 

649–51, 653–54, 670

David, Col. Burt A.: 130, 135, 136, 

137, 359, 360, 367, 368, 369, 371, 

372, 377, 378, 379

Davidson, Brig. Gen. Phillip: 264, 

266, 268, 269, 275

Davis, Pfc. Sammy L.: 133–34

Davison, Col. Frederic E.: 347, 348

Defectors: 92, 357, 481, 599, 606, 621, 

629, 633, 637

Chieu Hoi (“Open Arms”) program: 17, 19, 91, 95, 118, 196, 

215, 248, 589

Dac, Lt. Col. Tran Van: 527, 530, 

561

Kit Carson Scouts: 94, 196, 616,

619

Defoliants: 147, 476. See also

Napalm.
711

Index

Degyansky, Capt. Al W.: 515

DeLuca, Lt. Col. Anthony P.: 370, 

371, 577, 578, 579, 580–81

Demilitarized Zone

I Corps and: 219–20, 224–25,

252, 601, 607

II Field Force and: 643

Khe Sanh and A Shau: 499, 502

National Priority Zone and: 108, 

110

northern provinces, fighting in: 

381

planning for 1968 and: 5, 15, 37

reactions to operations and: 449

renewed general offensive and: 

531–37

Tet offensive and: 268, 273

Dennis, Capt. Ronald G.: 551, 552

Department of Defense (DoD): 447, 

455–56

Deployment packages

Program 5: 21, 257, 452

Program 6: 452, 456–57

Desobry, Brig. Gen. William R.: 125

Diem, Ngo Dinh: 39

Dien, Lt. Col. Nguyen Tuong: 361

Dien Ban: 316

Dien Bien Phu: 40, 271, 602, 674

Diller, Lt. Col. Richard W.: 507

Dinh Tuong Province: 116, 125, 

128, 130, 143, 339, 361, 368–69, 

371–73, 377, 469–72

Dix, S. Sgt. Drew D.: 366

Do Xa War Zone: 224

Doan, Lt. Col. Nguyen Hop: 304, 

442

Dobbins, Capt. Raymond H.: 61

Doi, Senior Col. Chu Phuong: 482

Doi Canal: 575, 579, 581

Dong, Maj. Gen. Du Quoc: 442, 

572

Dong, Lt. Col. Ho Huu: 623

Dong, Pham Van: 30

Dong Ba Thin: 189, 286

Dong Ha: 221, 222, 382, 399, 401, 

411–12, 419, 430, 502, 509, 

530–33, 537, 559, 584–85, 601

Dong Nai River: 45, 101–02, 346–47, 

355, 561, 583–84

Dong Tam: 113, 125, 127, 130–32, 

136, 140, 257, 368, 370–73, 377, 

470, 632

Dorland, Maj. Gilbert N.: 230, 231, 

232

Draft, U.S.: 4, 86, 95, 113, 141, 189, 

244, 249, 674

Dragon Mountain: 147

Duan, Le: 30–31, 37–38, 39, 40, 41, 

435, 438, 458, 529, 589, 599, 

641–42, 673, 674, 675

Dubia, Lt. Col. Christian F.: 201, 

202

Duc Hoa: 89–90, 462, 573, 585

Duc Hue: 89, 95

Duc Lap: 658–62

Duc Pho: 226, 230, 239, 249, 483, 

488, 610–12

Duc Pho District: 240, 250, 252–53

Dung, Col. Phan Viet: 567

Dung, Senior General Van Tien: 31, 

39, 260–61, 264, 281, 539, 641

Duong Lam: 317

Duong Son: 319–20

Duy Xuyen: 316

Dye Marker barrier system. See

Barrier systems.

Eckhardt, Maj. Gen. George S.: 359, 

360, 363, 364, 367–68, 369, 372

Eckman, Capt. Philip L.: 578, 579, 

580

Eighth District: 575–79, 581–82, 656

Emerson, Col. Edwin W.: 84, 89–90, 

92–93

Engineer Battalions

4th, 4th Infantry Division: 

299–300

8th, 1st Cavalry Division: 507

15th, 9th Infantry Division: 110, 

117, 125, 373

20th: 469

26th, 23d Infantry Division: 610

46th: 591

69th: 363
Staying the Course

712

70th: 540, 544

86th: 110

299th: 302

326th, 101st Airborne Division: 

608

588th: 75

Engineer Brigades

18th: 21

20th: 21

Engineer Command (Provisional), 

U.S. Army: 21

Engineer Group, 79th: 83

Everett, Col. George W.: 112, 113, 

116, 117, 118, 131, 135, 370, 

371, 372

Ewell, Maj. Gen. Julian J.: 632, 635, 

636–37, 644

Fair, Col. Robert L.: 665, 667

Field Force, Vietnam, I (I FFV)

approaches to Saigon and: 630

Central Coast defenses and: 187, 

188, 190, 203, 214, 215, 217

in Central Highlands: 145, 148, 

149, 152, 155, 163

in counteroffensive: 473, 478, 479, 

493

Operation Carentan and: 502

operations in II Corps and: 614, 

616, 617, 623, 624, 625

planning for 1968 and: 23

renewed general offensive and: 

556, 558

in Tet offensive: 265, 285, 287

third general offensive and: 663

Field Force, Vietnam, II (II FFV)

approaches to Saigon and: 626–40

battles to north and west of 

Saigon: 45, 46, 50, 51, 66, 72

battles in Saigon area and: 323, 

324, 336, 338, 347

in counteroffensive: 460

in Mekong Delta: 125, 130, 136, 

367, 372

Mini-Tet and: 561, 562, 564, 565, 

567, 569, 584, 593

in National Priority Area: 83, 100, 

101, 105, 107, 109, 120

planning for 1968 and: 23

Tet offensive and: 266, 268

third general offensive and: 643, 

653

Filhol Plantation: 92–93

Firebases

6: 155, 160–61

12: 178

14: 480–82

15: 162–65

16: 166, 170, 174, 177

25: 295, 556

29: 557–58

Bastogne: 505–06, 523, 525, 538

Beauregard: 75, 77, 80

Birmingham: 504–06, 608

Bowman: 486, 657

Buell II: 646, 648, 653, 668–70

Burt: 77, 79–81

C–4: 532, 533, 536

Coral: 583, 586

Cudgel: 131–35

Custer: 75–76

 Eagle’s Nest: 607, 608

Fels: 374, 376

 Georgia: 607

 Henry: 504

 Hessian: 374

 Horseshoe Bend: 567, 574

Jaeger: 372–74, 376–77

Keane: 105

Mace: 131–32, 135

Maury: 573–74

 Nashua: 103–06

Pike VI: 574

 Rawlins III: 646, 648, 652–53, 

665

 Schofield: 654

 Smoke: 567

 Stephanie: 567–68, 571

Veghel: 523

Wildcat: 109–10

Fishhook region. See Cambodia.

Fitzpatrick, Lt. Col. Thomas E.: 655, 

667–68

Engineer Battalions–Continued
713

Index

Fix, Col. Joseph E.: 625

Flamethrowers: 52, 60, 66, 107, 127, 

136, 160, 176, 201, 236, 447, 

480, 550

Food issues 

I Corps and: 222–23, 231, 233, 

239, 248

for I and II Corps: 599, 612, 616, 

620

in A Shau Valley: 526

battles to north and west of 

Saigon and: 43, 66

Central Coast defenses and: 187, 

190, 192, 194–96, 203, 206, 216

in Central Highlands: 147, 178, 

182–83, 185

in counteroffensive: 468, 473, 475, 

482, 484, 487, 495

in Mekong Delta: 123, 141

National Priority Area and: 84, 

86, 90, 92, 107, 112

in northern provinces: 401, 

407–08, 410, 415

planning for 1968 and: 19, 23

reinforcement debate and: 447

renewed general offensive and: 

539, 545

in Saigon: 329, 438, 444, 628–29, 

631, 633, 635–37

starvation of enemy: 6, 203, 223

Tet offensive and: 275, 325

in third general offensive: 643, 

662

See also Rice.

Forbes, Brig. Gen. Robert C.: 98, 

99, 101, 102, 103, 105, 106, 567, 

571

Forrester, Col. Eugene P.: 473, 625

Forsythe, Maj. Gen. George L.: 19

Fort Mara: 211–12

Forward Operating Base 4: 657

Free World Military Assistance 

Forces: 16, 21, 37, 45, 139–40, 

277, 323, 436, 673, 675

Fuller, Lt. Col. Howard R. Jr.: 71

Fulton, Brig. Gen. William B.: 125, 

128, 137

Gallup polls: 4, 494n71, 674

Garver, 1st Lt. Ronald P.: 576

Gelling, Col. Louis: 230, 232, 

237–38, 240, 318, 320, 609

General offensive–general uprising 

(tong cong kich/tong khoi nghia) 

I Corps and: 235

A Shau Valley operations and: 527

American perspective on: 445–47

assessment of: 673, 677

battles to north and west of 

Saigon and: 47, 81

Central Coast defenses and: 214

Communist perspective: 435–38

Mekong Delta and: 379

northern provinces and: 381

planning for: 37–41

reinforcement debate and: 447–53

South Vietnamese perspective on: 

438–45

summer fighting season and: 

598–99

See also Counteroffensives; 

Mini-Tet (in Saigon); Renewed 

general offensive; Tet offensive; Third general offensive 

(August).

Gettys, Maj. Gen. Charles M.: 

609–10, 611, 612, 613

Gia Dinh

counteroffensive and: 459–60

fighting to north and west of 

Saigon: 43, 45

Mekong Delta and: 128

Mini-Tet and: 561–62, 574, 576, 

583–85, 591, 593

in National Priority Area: 83, 93, 

96–101, 103, 106, 114, 118

Saigon area fighting and: 324, 

336, 344, 346, 353

Saigon perspective on Tet offensive: 441

third general offensive and: 

626–28

Gia Hoi Island: 414, 427

Giai, Brig. Gen. Do Ke: 107

Giai, Lt. Col. Vu Van: 532, 533, 536
Staying the Course

714

Giam, Col. Nguyen Van: 324

Giap, General Vo Nguyen: 30, 31, 40

Gibler, Lt. Col. John K.: 344, 345, 346

Gio Linh: 499, 509, 531–33, 536, 601

Glikes, Col. Richard J.: 600–601

Go Cong: 367

Go Cong Province: 113, 143, 367, 

472

Go Noi Island: 315–16, 319, 657

Go Vap: 332, 334, 339, 353, 585

Go Vap Logistical Area: 332, 334

Good Neighbor area: 183–86, 615

Gorder, Col. Charles R.: 462

Government of Vietnam

I Corps and: 245, 251, 254

assessment of: 673

Central Coast defenses and: 187, 

190, 196, 216

Central Highlands and: 182–84

in counteroffensive: 459, 467–68, 

475, 477

fighting in Saigon area and: 323, 

357

Mekong Delta and: 123, 136–41, 

143, 379

Ministry of Defense: 31, 150, 235, 

259, 281

Ministry of Revolutionary 

Development: 19, 258

National Priority area and: 87, 

111–12, 114

perspective of: 438–45

planning for 1958 and: 12, 14, 

16–17, 19, 22, 41

reactions to war: 436, 444, 454

in renewed general offensive: 530

summer fighting season and: 599, 

638

in Tet offensive: 258, 277, 281

Gravel, Lt. Col. Marcus J.: 400

Gregory, Lt. Col. Robert L.: 239

Grenade launchers 

B40 rocket-propelled grenade 

launcher: 34, 326, 328, 340, 467, 

648, 652

B41 rocket-propelled grenade 

launcher: 34

M79 grenade launcher: 24, 61, 

304, 467, 630, 676

MK19 automatic grenade 

launcher: 127

See also Rockets and rocket 

launchers.

Griffin, Lt. Col. Joseph T. Jr.: 212

Grogan, Capt. Timothy J.: 550–51, 

552

Hai, Maj. Gen. Tran Qui: 260, 381, 

511–12, 531, 537

Hai Lang Forest: 224

Hai Van Pass: 267, 390, 394, 412, 

416, 502

Hall, Lt. Col. Kenneth W.: 567

Hamburger, Capt. Ken E.: 401

Hamlet Evaluation System (HES): 

142, 216, 248, 252, 254, 257, 

439, 614, 630, 637–38

Han River: 313, 401

Hanh, Lt. Col. Nguyen Huu: 381, 

382, 384, 386

Hanoi: 5, 31, 641

Harrold, Lt. Col. Thomas U.: 75, 77, 

94

Hau Nghia Province

II Field Force and: 629–30, 643, 

662

battles in Saigon area: 324

in counteroffensive: 460–62, 468

fighting to north and west of 

Saigon: 43, 73, 81

Mini-Tet and: 561–62, 572, 

574–75

National Priority Area and: 

83–96, 100, 114

Tet offensive and: 266, 441

Hay, Maj. Gen. John H. Jr.

II Field Force and: 626

battles to north and west of 

Saigon: 50–51, 56, 60, 62–65, 

71–72

Mini-Tet and: 564, 569, 570, 575, 

577, 584, 593

National Priority Area and: 84

Hayward, Capt. Gregory J.: 649, 650
715

Index

Hayward, Col. Harold I.: 607

Heintges, Lt. Gen. John A.: 7

Helicopters 

AH–1 Cobra: 349, 350

AH–1G: 364

CH–46: 399, 543, 547

CH–47: 102

CH–54 Tarhe (“Flying Crane”): 

507

OH–13 Sioux: 507, 510

OH–23 Raven: 229, 490, 495

OV–1 Mohawk: 149

UH–1 Huey: 80, 125, 147, 187, 

195, 200, 212, 229, 329, 330, 

332, 407, 408, 492, 543, 608

UH–1B Huey: 52, 112, 176, 198, 

226, 228–30, 288, 336, 407

See also Assault Helicopter 

Companies.

Helms, Richard M.: 451

Henchman, Lt. Col. John M.: 74, 75

Henderson, Col. Oran K.: 492, 493, 

494, 610, 611

Hickman, Brig. Gen. Don R.: 556, 

558, 559

Hiep Duc: 225, 228, 610–11

Hieu, Brig. Gen. Nguyen Van: 187, 

292, 294, 617, 618, 620

Hieu Duc District: 236

Hieu Xuong District: 204

Highway 1

I Corps and: 219, 221, 225–26, 

249, 617

battles to north and west of 

Saigon and: 71

battles in Saigon area and: 333, 

336–37, 351, 353–54

Central Coast defenses and: 

197–98, 208, 211–13

Central Highlands and: 158

counteroffensive and: 473, 475

fighting in northern provinces 

and: 382, 384, 386, 389–90, 

393–94, 396, 398–99, 401–02, 

410–12, 424, 427, 430

Khe Sanh and A Shau: 502, 526

Mini-Tet and: 562–63, 569

Mobile Riverine Force and: 370

National Priority Area and: 

89–90, 93, 101, 106–11, 120

renewed general offensive and: 

531–33, 535–36, 539, 548, 

550–51

Tet offensive and: 257, 272–73, 

282, 287, 290, 310–11, 316, 

318–19

third general offensive and: 662

Highways

2: 107

4: 45, 112–16, 118, 120, 130, 141, 

257, 361, 367, 372–74, 377, 

469–70, 472, 567, 571, 574–75, 

634

5A: 113–15

9: 501, 507–08, 510–14, 517–19, 

532

13 (“Thunder Road”): 45, 47–48, 

50–51, 66–67, 69–72, 84–85, 92, 

120, 257, 354, 461, 628, 676

14: 147, 158, 295, 298, 302, 305, 

540, 544, 556, 642, 658

14A: 71

19: 147, 167, 188, 257, 290, 298, 

301, 475–77

21: 295

22: 645, 662–63, 665, 669

Hill, Lt. Col. John G.: 359, 368, 371, 

372

Hills

63: 230, 232

218: 485

222: 667–68

471: 513, 515

684: 307

689: 515, 517

721: 307

724: 154–55, 160–62, 166

785: 154

823: 155–58, 162

824: 557

843: 154, 160–61

845: 165

875: 170–78, 181

881 North: 517
Staying the Course

716

882: 154–55, 170–71

889: 164

990: 556, 558–59

1001: 154, 160

1338: 152, 160, 168

1416: 168, 170, 179

Hinton, Lt. Dennis E.: 550, 552

Ho Bo Woods: 92–94

Ho Chi Minh Trail. See Trails, enemy.

Hoa, Senior Col. Nguyen: 66, 67

Hoa Hao sect: 440

Hoa My: 89

Hoa Vang: 313–15, 657

Hoang, Col. Vo Van: 588

Hoc Mon: 337, 339, 353, 462, 571

Hoi An: 226, 240, 308, 315–16, 318, 

483–85, 610

Holder, Col. Leonard D.: 462

Holladay, Lt. Col. John: 492, 493

Hub, The. See Operations, U.S.; Tuy 

Hoa.

Hue

I Corps and: 220, 224, 602, 

604–08

fighting in northern provinces 

and: 381, 387–423, 425, 427–31

Khe Sanh and A Shau campaigns: 

499–502, 504, 506, 508, 518–20, 

527

Mini-Tet and: 589, 595

National Priority Area and: 89, 95

planning for 1968 and: 37

reactions to offensive and: 437, 

449

renewed general offensive and: 

531–32, 537–39

Tet offensive and: 261, 267–68, 

272–73, 321

third general offensive and: 643

Triangle, The: 389, 393–94, 401, 

412–15

west of Hue, fighting to: 415–18

Hughes, Col. Stanley S.: 412, 413, 

419–20

Hung, Pham: 41, 529

Huong, Sgt. Vu: 151–52, 155

Imperial Palace: 295, 297–98, 389, 

422, 425, 427. See also Hue.

Inappropriate behavior of U.S. military: 111, 139, 251. See also My 

Lai massacre.

Infantry Battalions

1st, 2d Infantry, 1st Infantry 

Division: 65, 655, 667–68

1st, 5th Infantry (Mechanized), 

25th Infantry Division: 89, 561, 

570, 649–50, 652–54, 669–70

1st, 6th Infantry, 196th Infantry 

Brigade: 318–20, 485–86, 542

1st, 8th Infantry, 4th Infantry 

Division: 161, 162, 166

1st, 11th Infantry, 5th Infantry 

Division (Mechanized): 143, 

600

1st, 12th Infantry, 4th Infantry 

Division: 177, 306–07

1st, 14th Infantry, 25th Infantry 

Division: 242, 319–20, 482

1st, 18th Infantry, 1st Infantry 

Division: 52, 54–56, 59, 61, 67, 

338–39, 354, 557, 561, 565

1st, 20th Infantry, 11th Infantry 

Brigade: 488–90, 492, 494–95, 

611

1st, 22d Infantry, 4th Infantry 

Division: 305–07, 482

1st, 26th Infantry, 1st Infantry 

Division: 60–61

1st, 27th Infantry, 25th Infantry 

Division: 92–94, 561, 571, 574, 

654

1st, 28th Infantry, 1st Infantry 

Division: 56, 59–60, 64, 354, 

571, 667–68

1st, 35th Infantry, 4th Infantry 

Division: 226, 229, 233, 319–20, 

481

1st, 46th Infantry, 198th Infantry 

Brigade: 485–86, 543–44

1st, 50th Infantry (Mechanized): 

197, 200–203, 294, 473, 547–48, 

550–52, 554–55, 559, 617, 624

Hills–Continued
717

Index

1st, 52d Infantry, 198th Infantry 

Brigade: 241–42, 486, 611

1st, 61st Infantry (Mechanized), 

5th Infantry Division 

(Mechanized): 600–601

2d, 1st Infantry, 196th Infantry 

Brigade: 232, 237–38, 318, 320, 

543–45, 611, 658

2d, 2d Infantry (Mechanized), 

1st Infantry Division: 67

2d, 3d Infantry, 199th Infantry 

Brigade: 99, 561, 567, 574

2d, 8th Infantry (Mechanized), 

4th Infantry Division: 151, 302

2d, 12th Infantry, 4th Infantry 

Division: 60–61, 77, 427

2d, 14th Infantry, 25th Infantry 

Division: 74, 462

2d, 16th Infantry, 1st Infantry 

Division: 354, 668

2d, 18th Infantry, 1st Infantry 

Division: 561

2d, 22d Infantry (Mechanized), 

25th Infantry Division: 77, 466

2d, 27th Infantry, 25th Infantry 

Division: 91, 94, 339, 561, 646, 

651, 653–54

2d, 28th Infantry, 1st Infantry 

Division: 50, 54, 56, 61, 65, 

571

2d, 35th Infantry, 4th Infantry 

Division: 659

2d, 39th Infantry, 9th Infantry 

Division: 351, 370–71, 373, 

376, 633

2d, 47th Infantry (Mechanized), 

9th Infantry Division: 106, 

109, 351, 370, 577, 579–80, 582

2d, 60th Infantry (Mechanized), 

9th Infantry Division: 113, 

117, 131–32, 371

3d, 7th Infantry, 199th Infantry 

Brigade: 99, 101, 104–05, 344, 

346, 567, 571–72

3d, 8th Infantry, 4th Infantry 

Division: 151–52, 154–55, 158, 

160–62, 170, 480–81, 556

3d, 12th Infantry, 4th Infantry 

Division: 151, 152, 154, 158, 

160, 168, 170, 557–58

3d, 21st Infantry, 198th Infantry 

Brigade: 232, 237–38, 533, 

535–36

3d, 22d Infantry, 25th Infantry 

Division: 75, 77, 92, 94, 466, 

648, 653–54, 663–64, 668–70

3d, 39th Infantry, 9th Infantry 

Division: 113, 131, 370–71, 577, 

579–80, 582

3d, 47th Infantry, 9th Infantry 

Division: 125, 130–31, 136, 

140, 359, 368, 371–72, 377–78, 

470–71, 636

3d, 60th Infantry (Mechanized), 

9th Infantry Division: 125, 130, 

136, 359, 368, 371–72, 377–78, 

469–70, 636

4th, 3d Infantry, 11th Infantry 

Brigade: 487, 490, 492, 495, 610

4th, 9th Infantry, 25th Infantry 

Division: 74–76, 562, 571, 574, 

585

4th, 12th Infantry, 199th Infantry 

Brigade: 99, 102–06, 347, 

567–68, 571–72, 574

4th, 21st Infantry, 11th Infantry 

Brigade: 232, 483, 610, 658

4th, 23d Infantry (Mechanized), 

25th Infantry Division: 92–93, 

462, 573, 586, 648–49, 652–54, 

663–65, 670

4th, 31st Infantry, 196th Infantry 

Brigade: 230–32, 236–38, 610

4th, 39th Infantry, 9th Infantry 

Division: 109, 561

4th, 47th Infantry, 9th Infantry 

Division: 125, 130, 135–36, 359, 

469–71

4th, 49th Infantry, 9th Infantry 

Division: 370

5th, 46th Infantry, 199th Infantry 

Brigade: 483, 611

5th, 60th Infantry (Mechanized), 

9th Infantry Division: 113, 
Staying the Course

718

115–16, 131–32, 134, 346, 

372–74, 575–78, 581

6th, 31st Infantry, 9th Infantry 

Division: 561, 577–82, 633

Infantry Brigades

1st, 1st Infantry Division: 46, 

50–51, 62, 70, 72, 467, 629

1st, 4th Infantry Division: 147, 

177, 479, 559

1st, 5th Infantry Division 

(Mechanized): 456, 600 

1st, 9th Infantry Division: 100–

101, 106, 108–09, 110, 324, 369, 

373, 469, 471, 656

1st, 25th Infantry Division: 74–75, 

81, 92, 323–24, 461, 463, 629

2d, 1st Infantry Division: 84–87, 89, 

324, 338–39, 461, 561, 565, 567

2d, 4th Infantry Division: 147, 

149, 163, 166, 170, 301, 479, 

615, 625, 659

2d, 9th Infantry Division: 125, 

127, 128, 130, 131, 139, 359–60, 

367–68, 370–72, 377, 379, 469, 

471, 632, 634–35, 636

2d, 25th Infantry Division: 81, 

84, 89, 90–92, 94, 323–24, 339, 

460–61, 626, 629, 643, 654

3d, 1st Infantry Division: 46, 

50–51, 60, 72, 461, 629

3d, 4th Infantry Division: 73, 223, 

226, 240–42, 250, 319, 473–74, 

481, 483–85, 616, 625

3d, 9th Infantry Division: 45, 111, 

112, 114, 118, 130–32, 135, 324, 

346, 369, 460, 602, 632, 634

3d, 23d Infantry Division: 242

3d, 25th Division: 60, 73–77, 81, 

94, 466, 468, 561, 629, 634, 644, 

652

11th (Light): 223, 240, 483–84, 

487–88, 492–93, 495, 600, 

610–12

196th (Light): 223, 230, 236, 238, 

240, 318, 483–84, 486–87, 521, 

533, 536, 540, 542–43, 609–10

198th (Light): 223, 230, 610

199th (Light): 45, 96, 98, 100–101, 

104–06, 118, 324, 344, 347, 

460–61, 463–64, 561, 567, 571, 

574, 584, 626, 628, 644

Infantry Divisions

1st (“Big Red One”): 45–46, 50, 

52, 54, 56, 58, 60, 62, 66, 70, 

72, 84–87, 89, 99, 324, 338–39, 

353–54, 393, 399, 414, 420, 428, 

442, 460–61, 467, 561, 565, 567, 

571, 584, 628–29, 642–43, 651, 

655, 667–68

4th (“Ivy”): 145, 147–48, 163, 166, 

170, 177, 181–84, 182–84, 223–

24, 226, 240–42, 250, 266, 298, 

301, 304–06, 320, 473–74, 476, 

479–83, 485, 556–59, 614–17, 

621, 625

5th (Mechanized): 452–53, 456, 

600

9th (“Octofoil”): 45, 71, 99, 100–

102, 106–11, 114, 125, 128, 131, 

136–37, 139–41, 143, 188–89, 

204, 257, 324, 346–47, 351, 359, 

367, 369, 371–73, 376, 418, 425, 

460–61, 464, 468–69, 471–72, 

500, 561–62, 567, 571, 574–75, 

577, 579, 583–85, 602, 632, 634, 

636–37, 644, 656

23d (“Americal”): 189, 223–25, 

228, 230, 232, 234, 239, 241–42, 

247–50, 295, 318, 320, 483, 487, 

493, 495, 502, 542–43, 545, 

609–12, 623, 643, 657

25th (“Tropic Lightning”): 45, 

47, 60, 62, 69, 72–73, 75–77, 81, 

83–84, 89, 91–94, 96, 99, 120, 

266, 324, 336, 339, 353, 422, 

460–63, 466, 468, 561–62, 569–

71, 573, 584–85, 626, 629–31, 

642–45, 648, 665, 668–69

Infantry Platoon, 49th (Scout Dog): 97

Infiltration

I Corps and: 219, 252, 599

II Field Force and approaches to 

Saigon: 629, 642

Infantry Battalions–Continued
719

Index

anti-infiltration efforts: 15, 29, 46, 

125, 195, 267, 324, 462–63, 599, 

666, 676

assessment of: 675–76

battles north and west of Saigon 

and: 46–47, 71, 81

battles in Saigon area and: 324

Central Coast defenses and: 195, 

203

in Central Highlands: 162

counteroffensive and: 462–63, 

481

in Mekong Delta: 125, 132

Mini-Tet and: 561–62, 583–84

planning for 1968 and: 9, 15, 22, 

29, 31, 36

reinforcement debate and: 458

renewed general offensive and: 

540, 559

Tet offensive and: 267

third general offensive and: 666

Irzyk, Brig. Gen. Albin F.: 325

Jackson, Lt. Col. Joe M.: 547

Jacobson, Col. George D.: 328

Jarvis, Lt. Col. Robert C.: 254

Johnson, Sp4c. Carl T.: 408

Johnson, General Harold K.: 11, 

411, 412, 454, 456

Johnson, Lt. Col. James H.: 155

Johnson, Lyndon B.

I Corps and: 225, 597, 602

A Shau Valley campaign and: 520

American reactions to general 

offensive and: 446–47

analysis of actions of: 674, 675, 

677–78

chain of command and: 18, 19, 

21

counteroffensive and: 459, 496

limitations placed on war by: 3–6

in reinforcement debate: 447–58

Tet offensive and: 267, 271

Westmoreland’s strategy for 1968 

and: 9

Johnson, Col. Richard H.

in Dak To Central Highlands: 

151, 152, 155, 156–57, 158, 160, 

164, 166, 174, 176, 180

Tet offensive and: 288, 290

Johnson, Sp4c. Steven M.: 405

Johnson, Capt. Willard C.: 546

Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS): 6–7, 

21, 182, 259, 268, 272, 276, 

342, 448–50, 453, 455, 597, 

643, 678

Joint General Reserve: 160, 170, 260

Joint General Staff: 15, 26–27, 130, 

274, 324, 332, 339, 341–42, 354, 

442, 444, 459, 561, 570

Joint United States Public Affairs 

Office (JUSPAO): 17

Jones Creek: 535

Junk, Lt. Col. William P.: 305, 306, 307

Kaufman, Capt. Harold J.: 172, 173, 

174

Keeley, Lt. Col. John B.: 371

Kennedy, John F.: 20, 446

Kerwin, Maj. Gen. Walter T. Jr.: 

643–44, 653, 667

Kham, Lt. Col. Vo: 623

Kham Duc: 539–47

Khang, Lt. Gen. Le Nguyen: 23, 

46, 83, 101, 119, 323, 347, 442, 

460–61, 561, 562, 563–64, 567, 

570, 572, 645

Khanh, Lt. Col. Le: 282, 285, 287

Khanh Hoa Province: 23, 187–88, 

190, 204, 206–07, 216, 281–82, 

477, 625

Khanh Hoa Sector Command: 

284–85

Khe Sanh: 499–502

I Corps and: 252, 602

A Shau Valley campaign: 520

assessment of: 677

in counteroffensive: 482

northern provinces, fighting in: 

381, 392, 405, 416, 418, 424, 

430

Operation Carentan: 502, 506

Operation Pegasus: 506–08, 

510–19
Staying the Course

720

reinforcement debate and: 447–49, 

451

renewed general offensive and: 

531, 536, 545–46, 556

under siege: 269–74

in Tet offensive: 260–61, 264–65, 

267–69, 271–72, 275

Khe Sanh combat base: 269, 448, 514

Khien Quong Pineapple Plantation: 

584

Khmer people: 29

Kien Giang Province: 124, 366

Kien Hoa Province: 116, 128, 135, 

361, 369, 471–72

Kien Phong Province: 367

Kien Tuong Province: 124, 142, 367

Kiley, Capt. Michael J.: 173

Kimmel, Lt. Col. Robert G.: 229–30

Kit Carson Scouts. See Defectors.

Klein, Lt. Col. William E.: 669

Komer, Robert W.

I Corps and: 245, 255

Abrams and: 598

assessment of: 678, 679

counteroffensive and: 459, 496–97, 

498

Mekong Delta and: 136

Mini-Tet and: 591, 594–95

National Priority Zone and: 115

planning for 1968 and: 18, 19

Tet offensive and: 258, 439, 444, 445

third general offensive and: 638

Kontum City: 160, 166, 261, 295, 

302–03, 305–07, 479–80, 482, 

556, 615

Kontum Province

II Corps operations in: 614–15, 

625

Central Coast defenses and: 197, 

205

Central Highlands and Dak To: 

145, 148, 150, 182, 184

in counteroffensive: 474, 479–80, 

482

in renewed general offensive: 555, 

558–59

in Tet offensive: 302

in third general offensive: 642, 658

Koster, Maj. Gen. Samuel W.

I Corps and: 223, 224, 226, 

229–30, 233, 234, 235, 239–40, 

248, 249, 250, 251, 609

in counteroffensive: 483–84, 

492–93, 494, 495

renewed general offensive and: 

534, 542, 544, 545

in Tet offensive: 318–19

Ky, Nguyen Cao: 9, 110, 258, 418, 

442, 444, 587

Ky Lo Valley: 206

La Vang: 382, 384, 387

Lac Son: 489

Ladd, Lt. Col. James V.: 74

Ladd, Col. Jonathan F.: 282, 284, 

285

LaHue, Brig. Gen. Foster C.: 394, 

396, 398, 400, 414, 418, 420

Lai Khe: 47, 50, 52, 66, 70

Lai Thieu: 85, 88

Lam, Lt. Gen. Hoang Xuan: 23, 220, 

265, 271, 313, 314, 399, 401, 

418, 423, 600

Lan, Lt. Gen. Lu Mong: 442, 473, 

617, 618, 623, 624

Landing Zones

Baldy: 226, 233, 235

Bastogne: 523

Betty: 273, 382, 384, 386, 517, 

539, 624

Bowman: 657

Cates: 511

Cecile: 524

Center: 542–43

Crystal: 617

El Paso: 268, 272–73, 390–91, 

420

English: 198, 474, 551, 617

Gator: 240

Goodman: 523

Hardcore: 319–20

Jane: 273, 505

Leslie: 233, 235–36, 238–39

Khe Sanh–Continued
721

Index

Litts: 473

Lucy: 525

Mike: 510–11

Ollie: 548

Pedro: 510

Pepper: 523

Ross: 228–30, 232–33, 235–36, 

238–39, 249, 546

Salem: 548, 550

Sally: 409, 419

Sharon: 273, 382, 384, 386, 517, 

539

Snake: 515

Snapper: 514

Stallion: 524, 538

Stud: 507, 509–11

Thor: 511–12, 514

Tiger: 203, 523–24, 526

Tom: 198, 512, 617–18

Uplift: 197, 548, 550, 552, 554

Vicki: 523

West: 236–38

Wharton: 512

Lang Vei: 447–48, 508, 512, 515, 517

Lao Dong Party: 30–31, 36–37, 39, 

435

Central Committee: 30, 41, 259, 641

Fourteenth Plenum: 259, 673

Reunification Department: 31, 36

Saigon Party Committee: 642

Laos

I Corps and: 219, 221, 225, 597,

602, 607–08, 614

assessment of: 676–77

Central Highlands and: 149–50

counteroffensive and: 479

Khe Sanh and A Shau campaigns:

508, 514–15, 517, 519–20, 526

planning for 1968 and: 4–5, 12, 

15–16, 23, 29, 31, 36–37, 39–41

reactions to war and: 452, 457

renewed general offensive and: 

540, 545, 558–59

Lee, 1st Lt. James H.: 554

Lipscomb, Brig. Gen. Andrew A.: 240

Little Rubber (Thanh Duc) 

Plantation: 662, 665, 669

Lo Giang: 319–20

Loan, Brig. Gen. Nguyen: 324, 

345–46, 562, 563

Loc, Lt. Gen. Vinh: 23, 152, 160, 166, 

168, 187, 297, 298, 299, 442, 617

Loc Ninh

assessment of: 676

battles to north and west of 

Saigon and: 48–52, 50–63, 

71–72, 74, 79, 81

battles outside of Saigon and: 354

in counteroffensive: 467

in Tet offensive: 257–58, 275

in third general offensive: 642, 644, 

655, 666–68

Lodge, Lt. Col. Thomas C.: 570

Long An

II Field Force and approaches to 

Saigon: 632, 634, 637

battles to north and west of 

Saigon: 43, 83, 98, 111–14, 

116–18

battles in Saigon area: 324, 346

in counteroffensive: 460–61

Mekong Delta and: 128, 135, 372

Mini-Tet and: 577

National Priority Area and: 

111–18

reactions to war and: 441

in third general offensive: 644, 656

Long Binh 

battles north and west of Saigon: 

72

battles in Saigon area: 324, 341, 

350, 352–53

in counteroffensive: 463

Mini-Tet and: 561, 564, 567, 584

Mobile Riverine Force and: 370

National Priority Zone and: 101, 

103–04, 106–07, 109, 113, 116, 

119

planning for 1968 and: 23

third general offensive and: 662

See also Bases, U.S.

Long Khanh Province: 71, 83, 

100–101, 106–07, 110, 370, 442, 

461, 464–65
Staying the Course

722

Long Thanh District: 101

Long Xuyen: 367

Lownds, Col. David E.: 267, 268, 

269, 271, 448, 512, 515

Luat, Col. Nguyen Trong: 302, 303

Luc, Lt. Col. Huynh Thao: 366

Lung, Col. Hoang Ngoc: 274

Ly Ly River: 225

M42 “Duster” antiaircraft vehicle: 

77, 80, 116, 201, 287, 354, 382, 

419, 425, 552, 583, 631

M113 armored personnel carrier: 

24, 67, 70, 77, 80, 105, 107, 115, 

118, 201–02, 231, 233, 303, 306, 

337, 344, 374, 382, 393, 398, 

414, 509, 550, 583, 619, 631, 

649, 654

MacFarlane, Col. Jack: 70, 71, 462

Machine guns

M2 heavy machine gun: 24

M60 general-purpose machine 

gun: 24, 26, 28, 70, 80, 133, 333, 

349, 550, 552, 576, 676

RPD light machine gun: 34, 56, 

157

MacKinnon, Col. Robert M.: 602

Maisey, Capt. Reginald V. Jr.: 349

Man, Lt. Gen. Chu Huy

I Corps and: 235, 236

Central Coast defenses and: 190

in renewed general offensive: 540, 

547–48, 555

in Tet offensive: 281, 282, 287, 

290, 294, 308, 315, 321

in third general offensive: 641

Mang Ca compound: 389, 392–93, 

396, 399, 420, 423, 425

Mang Thit Canal: 359, 368–69

Mang Yang Pass: 301, 476–77

Manh, Lt. Gen. Nguyen Van: 23, 

124–25, 130, 359, 360, 361, 362, 

377, 442, 469

Marine Corps, U.S.

I Corps and: 219, 221–26, 240, 

246, 255, 260, 264, 267–69, 

271–73, 614

approaches to Saigon and: 636

bases: 260, 271, 401, 411, 430,

501, 511, 602

in battles around Saigon: 324, 

329–30, 339, 343

at Khe Sanh and A Shau: 499, 

501–02, 507, 509–10, 512–18

in Mekong Delta: 127, 130, 136, 

141

in Mini-Tet: 562–63, 575, 579, 

585, 587

northern provinces, fighting in: 

396, 398, 400–401, 412–14, 420, 

422–23, 428–29

planning for 1968 and: 16, 21, 

27–28

reinforcement debate and: 451

in renewed general offensive: 

531–33, 535–37, 542–43

in Tet offensive: 313–18, 320

in third general offensive: 645, 

657, 669

Marine Corps units

III Marine Amphibious Force: 

22, 219, 221, 245, 264, 267–68, 

273, 313–15, 318, 391, 394, 398, 

412, 429–30, 502, 542–45, 547, 

599, 609

1st Marine Division: 219, 267, 

313, 318, 390, 483, 540, 609, 

642

3d Marine Division: 219, 221, 

225, 267–68, 391, 396, 401, 499, 

502, 517, 531–33, 601–02

1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine 

Division: 272–73, 390, 400, 

412–13, 420, 507, 510, 532, 536

3d Marine Regiment, 3d Marine 

Division: 268, 272–73, 315, 317, 

320, 510, 532–33, 535–36

4th Marine Regiment, 3d Marine 

Division: 509, 532–33, 536–37

5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine 

Division: 226, 315–16, 318, 390, 

400, 420, 422–23

7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine 

Division: 315
723

Index

9th Marine Regiment, 3d Marine 

Division: 501, 507, 513, 515, 

517, 531–33, 535

11th Marine Engineer Regiment: 

507

11th Marine Regiment, 1st 

Marine Division: 313

26th Marine Regiment, 5th 

Marine Division: 267, 271, 499, 

507, 512, 515–17

27th Marine Regiment, 5th 

Marine Division: 657

1st Battalion, 1st Marine 

Regiment, 1st Marine Division: 

400

1st Battalion, 3d Marine 

Regiment, 3d Marine Division: 

533, 535–36

1st Battalion, 5th Marine 

Regiment, 1st Marine Division: 

420, 422–23

1st Battalion, 7th Marine 

Regiment: 315

1st Battalion, 9th Marine 

Regiment, 3d Marine Division: 

507, 515–17

1st Battalion, 26th Marine 

Regiment: 267, 515

1st Battalion, 27th Marine 

Regiment: 657

1st Marine Amtrac Battalion: 533

1st Marine Military Police 

Battalion: 313

1st Marine Tank Battalion: 315

2d Battalion, 1st Marine 

Regiment, 1st Marine Division: 

507, 510

2d Battalion, 3d Marine 

Regiment, 3d Marine Division: 

315, 320, 510

2d Battalion, 4th Marine 

Regiment: 509, 533, 536–37

2d Battalion, 5th Marine 

Regiment, 1st Marine Division: 

400

2d Battalion, 13th Marine 

Regiment: 542

2d Battalion, 26th Marine 

Regiment: 267

3d Battalion, 5th Marine 

Regiment, 1st Marine Division: 

315–16, 318

3d Battalion, 7th Marine 

Regiment: 315

3d Battalion, 9th Marine 

Regiment: 533, 535

3d Battalion, 26th Marine 

Regiment: 267, 517

3d Marine Amphibious Battalion: 

315

1st Marine Aircraft Wing: 222, 

265, 313, 500, 507, 521

Martin, Maj. Roy D.: 669

Mastoris, Lt. Col. William Jr.: 

567–68

Mat Rang Mountain: 226

Matheson, Brig. Gen. Salve H.: 226, 

229, 230

May offensive. See Mini-Tet (in 

Saigon).

McBride, Brig. Gen. George H.: 291

McChrystal, Col. Herbert J.: 659

McDonough, Col. Joseph C.: 512, 

514

McElwain, Capt. Thomas: 164, 165

McKenna, Col. James O.: 273

McKinnon, Col. Robert H.: 536

McLean, Lt. Col. Charles P.: 668

McNamara, Robert S.: 3, 6, 15, 20, 

221, 243, 244, 255, 450–51, 456

Mearns, Maj. Gen. Fillmore K.

approaches to Saigon and: 627, 

629

in battles north and west of 

Saigon: 73–74, 75, 80, 81

in battles around Saigon area: 

336, 337

in Mini-Tet: 561, 562, 573, 574, 

584

National Priority Area and: 84, 

91, 92, 93–94

Medal of Honor recipients: 61, 134, 

174, 366, 547, 653, 663

Medical Brigade, 44th: 22
Staying the Course

724

Medical Civic Action Program 

(MEDCAP): 120, 140, 248, 631, 

633. See also Civic action.

Medina, Capt. Ernest L.: 489, 490, 

492, 494

Mekong Delta: 123–44

IV Corps Post-Tet: 379–80

Abrams on: 599

approaches to Saigon and: 636–37

battles north and west of Saigon 

and: 43, 45

battles in Saigon area and: 323, 

342

counteroffensive in northern 

Mekong: 468–73

at end of 1967: 141–44

Firebase Cudgel: 132–35

Firebase Jaeger: 372–74, 376–77

Mobile Riverine Force in: 125, 

127–28, 130, 135–36, 140–41, 

143, 360, 367–73, 377–79

National Priority Area and: 100, 

112, 115

Operation Coronado IX: 130, 

135–36, 141

Operation Coronado XI: 377–79

planning for 1968 and: 14–15, 

22–23

Saigon perspective on Tet and: 

442

supporting Government of 

Vietnam and: 123, 136–41, 143, 

379

taking the offensive in: 127–32

Tet offensive and: 274, 323, 342, 

359–80, 442

in third general offensive: 672

Mekong River: 123, 128, 136, 364, 

368

Michelin Rubber Plantation: 73, 466

Mieu Mountains: 197, 203, 473

Military Assistance Command, 

Vietnam (MACV)

I Corps: 222, 234, 244–45, 255

under Abrams: 597–98, 602, 616, 

620–21, 626

assessment of: 675–79

battles north and west of Saigon: 

45, 47, 52, 73

battles in Saigon area: 323, 325, 

332, 336, 357

Central Coast defenses: 187, 195, 

217

Central Highlands: 181

counteroffensive: 468, 478, 493, 

497

Khe Sanh and A Shau: 499–502,

512, 520, 526

MACV Advisory Team 4: 382

MACV Advisory Team 35: 

284–85

MACV Forward: 273, 412, 416, 

418, 431, 499, 501

Mekong Delta: 123, 136, 139–40, 

142, 357, 361, 365, 367, 369, 

371

Mini-Tet and: 562, 589, 591–95

National Priority Area: 96, 98, 

107

northern provinces, fighting in: 

382, 393–94, 396, 412, 416, 418, 

430–31

planning for 1968 and: 4–7, 9, 12, 

14, 16–18, 20–23, 26, 32, 35–36

reactions to war and: 436, 439, 

442–46, 448–52, 455–56

Tet offensive and: 257–58, 

265–68, 271–73, 276, 284–85, 

295, 302, 305

third general offensive and: 643, 

645, 657, 666, 672

Military Police, U.S.: 86, 94, 115, 

117, 188, 291, 324–25, 328–30, 

340–41, 343–44, 346–47, 352, 

662–63

Military Police Battalions

93d: 291

716th: 325, 328, 340–41, 343, 346

720th: 324, 341, 347, 352

Military Region 5

I Corps and: 224, 612

B1 Front: 37, 190, 204, 234–35, 

294–95, 308, 313, 315, 321, 531, 

625
725

Index

B3 Front: 37, 148, 152, 168, 178, 

191, 265, 294, 325, 479–81, 

555–56, 614, 625, 642

Central Coast defenses and: 190

command of Eastern Nam Bo 

Theater, B2 Front: 641

Communist perspective on war 

and: 437

Mini-Tet and: 589

planning for 1968 and: 37

renewed general offensive and: 

540, 547

Tet offensive and: 281

third general offensive and: 641

Miller, Col. Raymond O.: 654

Mines and minefields

I Corps and: 221, 235, 241, 247, 

608, 611, 614

II Corps and: 614, 619

in battles north and west of 

Saigon: 59, 66, 70, 80

in Central Highlands: 172, 184, 

303

counteroffensive and: 476–77, 489

in Mekong Delta: 123, 133

in National Priority Area: 92, 105, 

115, 117

in northern provinces: 402

renewed general offensive and: 

555

Minh, Ho Chi: 30, 32, 40

Mini-Tet (in Saigon)

A Shau Valley and: 524

assessment of: 589–96

interlude and second phase: 

583–89

opening clashes (east and north of

city): 561–96

renewed general offensive and: 

539, 554–55, 558–59

south Saigon, battle for: 575–83

third general offensive and: 666, 671

western outskirts, fight on: 567–75

Mo Duc: 239

Mobile Riverine Force

approaches to Saigon and: 632, 

634, 636

in counteroffensive: 468–69, 471

in Mekong Delta: 125, 127–28, 

130, 135–36, 140–41, 143, 360, 

367–73, 377–79

planning for 1868 and: 22

Mobile Strike Force (MSF): 29–30, 

285–86, 610, 623, 657–61

11th, 540

Momyer, General William W.: 22, 

167, 265

Mont Ong: 310

Montagnards

I Corps and: 610

in battles north and west of 

Saigon: 48, 51, 54–56, 63, 66, 72

Central Coast defenses and: 191

in counteroffensive: 467, 479, 482

in Dak To and Central Highlands: 

155–56, 171, 177, 183–84

planning for 1968 and: 23, 29

reinforcement debate and: 448

renewed general offensive and: 

556, 558

Tet offensive and: 285–87, 295–96, 

298–99, 302–05

third general offensive and: 

658–61

Morale (of populace, enemy, and 

others)

I Corps and: 251

under Abrams: 627, 629, 634, 638

assessment of: 675–76

Central Coast defenses and: 217

Central Highlands and: 150–51, 

162, 182–83

counteroffensive and: 489

Mini-Tet and: 589

National Priority Area and: 110, 

118

northern provinces, fighting in: 

415

planning for 1968 and: 8

reactions to progress of war and: 

435, 442, 445, 453, 455

Tet offensive and: 257, 275, 321, 

379

Morse, Lt. Col. Gerald E.: 504
Staying the Course

726

Mortars

4.2-inch: 48, 65, 265, 420, 557

60-mm.: 28, 34, 524, 554, 654

81-mm.: 24, 28, 48, 157, 176, 517, 

557, 583

82-mm.: 34, 59, 69, 172, 236, 282, 

333, 347, 392, 405, 406, 513, 

574, 581

120-mm.: 34, 48, 52, 69, 128, 148, 

160, 180, 236, 558

allied: 52, 66, 117, 415, 423, 427, 

544

enemy: 56, 63, 64, 66, 74, 75, 76, 

79, 80, 89, 90, 95, 104, 116, 132, 

134, 154, 167, 170, 173, 177, 212, 

236, 269, 288, 301, 310–12, 316, 

317, 319, 338, 349, 363, 364, 378, 

384, 386, 409, 420, 425, 426, 463, 

466, 467, 469, 481, 486, 512, 515, 

517, 523, 542, 544, 546, 547, 551, 

557, 562, 563, 570, 557, 581, 592, 

617, 655, 658, 663, 667, 668, 669, 

670

Mowery, Col. Lawrence L.: 606

Mueller, Lt. Col. Harold P.: 370, 371

Murray, Pfc. William H.: 134

Muscle Shoals barrier system. See

Barrier systems.

My, Lt. Col. Ly Trong: 442

My An: 201–02

My Hanh: 630

My Khe: 492

My Lai massacre: 488–95, 620

My Tho

battles in Saigon area: 323

counteroffensive and: 469

Mekong Delta: 125, 127, 135, 359, 

361, 367–69, 372, 379–80

National Priority Area: 115–16, 

118

Tet offensive and: 264, 274

My Tho Province: 655

My Tho River: 130, 469

Napalm: 56, 63, 80, 87, 161, 

176, 290, 580, 637. See also

Defoliants.

National Guard: 6, 21, 450, 452, 457

National Liberation Front (NLF): 

36–37, 39, 590

National Priority Area

I Corps and: 219–20, 225–26, 

239–40, 253

Binh Duong Province: 83–96, 102

Central Coast defenses and: 187

counteroffensive and: 483

east of Saigon: 100–106

Gia Dinh Province: 83, 93, 

96–101, 103, 106, 114, 118

Hau Nghia Province: 83–96, 100, 

114

Highway 1 and: 89–90, 93, 101, 

106–11, 120

Long An Province: 111–18

provinces included in: 45

National Security Action 

Memorandum 288: 4

National Security Council: 4, 18

Naval units and organizations

Seventh Fleet, U.S.: 5

Seabees: 221, 500

Task Force 115: 22

Task Force 116: 22, 125

Task Force 117: 22, 125, 127, 130, 

135, 143

Navy, U.S. 

I Corps and: 221, 226, 605

battles in Saigon area and: 331

in Binh Dinh: 291

Khe Sanh and: 500, 517

in Mekong Delta: 125, 127, 130, 

361, 365, 370

Mini-Tet and: 591

northern provinces, fighting in: 

396, 399, 414, 423

planning for 1968 and: 14, 16, 

20–22, 27

reinforcement debate and: 457

renewed general offensive and: 

533

See also Mobile Riverine Force; 

Naval units and organizations.

Neilson, Lt. Col. Clifford C.: 663, 

664
727

Index

Nelson, Lt. Col. Robert B.: 544, 

545–46

New Pleiku airfield: 298

New York Times: 455

New Yorker magazine: 243

New Zealand: 3, 16, 21–22

Newman, Col. George E.: 56, 59, 60, 

61

Newport Bridge: 563, 567, 575

Nghi, Lt. Col. Ngo Xuan: 367

Nghia Hanh District: 242

Ngoc An: 620

Ngok Dorlang: 152, 154–55, 158, 

160, 163, 167, 170, 180

Ngok Kom Leat: 155–57

Ngok Kring: 164–65

Ngok Tavak: 540–44

Ngot, Col. Le Van: 589–90

Nguyen Hoang Bridge: 389, 414

Nha, Lt. Col. Bui Kim: 442

Nha Be District: 96, 99

Nha Nhan Hill: 407–08, 410, 415, 424

Nha Trang: 23, 145, 188–89, 207–08, 

213, 281–82, 284, 286–87, 292

Nha Trang Special Zone: 282

Nhi Ha: 533, 535–36

Nhi The River: 331

Night-vision equipment: 70, 116, 

195, 212, 374, 415

Ninh Hoa: 188, 282, 285, 295

Ninh Thuan Province: 187, 189, 208, 

216, 477, 623–24

Nitze, Paul: 243, 455

Nixon, Richard M.: 494

Norris, Lt. Col. Awbrey G.: 77

North Korea: 450

North Vietnamese Air Force: 5

North Vietnamese Army: 30–37, 136, 

147, 176, 203, 255, 275, 482

North Vietnamese Army units and 

military organizations

1st PAVN Division: 52, 63, 148–49, 

151–52, 155, 158, 160, 162–63, 

166–67, 170–71, 173–74, 

177–81, 295, 307–08, 479–82, 

508, 512–13, 518, 531, 614, 625, 

642, 653, 658, 661–62, 670

2d PAVN Division: 226, 233, 236, 

261, 315–17, 319–20, 483, 540, 

542, 544, 547, 558, 609–11, 

642–43, 657

3d (“Yellow Star”) PAVN Division: 

191, 197–98, 200–204, 214, 

235–36, 239, 240–41, 261, 282, 

292, 294, 316–18, 320, 473–74, 

547–48, 550, 552–55, 559, 

610–12, 614, 617–18, 624, 643, 

657–58

5th PAVN Division: 204, 206, 669

7th PAVN Division: 47–48, 55, 59, 

66–67, 69, 81, 92, 334, 354, 460, 

566–67, 586, 642, 644, 655, 666

304th PAVN Division: 252, 260, 

264, 269, 416, 447, 499–500, 

508, 512–13, 515, 519, 531, 602

308th PAVN Division: 602

320th PAVN Division: 252, 499, 

509, 531, 533, 535–36, 584–85, 

643

324B PAVN Division: 416, 418, 

424, 499

325th PAVN Division: 447

325C PAVN Division: 260–61, 

264, 392, 405, 414, 416, 482, 

499–500, 504, 508, 511–12, 517, 

538, 556–59, 614, 642, 658

3d PAVN Regiment: 226, 228, 

230–33, 236, 399, 414, 427–28, 

484, 520, 525, 538

4th PAVN Regiment: 392, 394, 

414, 416

5th PAVN Regiment: 382–84, 

386–87, 392, 394, 405, 413, 424, 

604–05

6th PAVN Regiment: 391–93, 

398–99, 426, 430, 499, 604

9th PAVN Regiment: 512, 514

18B PAVN Regiment: 204, 206–07, 

282, 284–87, 625

24th PAVN Regiment: 148–49, 

152, 158, 166, 168, 170, 178, 

303, 305–07, 416, 479–80, 508, 

512, 515, 642, 658

27th PAVN Regiment: 531
Staying the Course

728

32d PAVN Regiment: 148–49, 152, 

158, 163, 168, 170, 180, 301–02, 

479–80, 556, 614

33d PAVN Regiment: 148–49, 261, 

295–96, 479–80, 614, 649–50, 

652–54

36th PAVN Regiment: 610

38th PAVN Regiment: 610, 642, 

657

40th PAVN Artillery Regiment: 

148, 152, 158, 180, 299, 480

45th PAVN Artillery Regiment:

513

68th PAVN Artillery Regiment: 

228

84A PAVN Artillery Regiment: 

347

88th PAVN Regiment: 48, 51, 56, 

62–63, 66, 354, 571, 662–63, 

665, 669

90th PAVN Regiment: 424, 499, 

504–05, 526, 532, 538, 606

95th PAVN Regiment: 205–06, 

282, 288, 290, 625

95B PAVN Regiment: 301, 473, 

476–77, 479

101st PAVN Regiment: 47–48, 77, 

92–94, 334, 336, 339, 460, 567, 

572

141st PAVN Regiment: 48, 55–56, 

67, 75–76, 354, 583–84, 586

208th PAVN Artillery Regiment: 

573–74

241st PAVN Anti-Aircraft Artillery 

Regiment: 508

270th PAVN Regiment: 535–36

280th PAVN Anti-Aircraft 

Artillery Regiment: 519

320th PAVN Regiment: 480–81, 

655, 658, 667–68

368B PAVN Artillery Regiment:

642

675th PAVN Artillery Regiment: 

508, 513

803d PAVN Regiment: 418

812th PAVN Regiment: 303, 

382–84, 386–87, 499, 526, 531, 

538, 585, 590, 604

Dong Nai PAVN Regiment: 48, 70, 

102, 104–06, 353–55, 460, 563, 

565, 571, 584–85, 590

6th PAVN Binh Tan Battalion: 

112, 343–46, 586–88

107th PAVN Anti-Aircraft 

Battalion: 311

208th PAVN Anti-Aircraft 

Battalion: 58

D16 PAVN Battalion: 336

D24 PAVN Anti-Aircraft 

Battalion: 649

K31 PAVN Anti-Aircraft 

Battalion: 299, 542

K32 PAVN Artillery Battalion: 538

275th PAVN Infiltration Group: 

583

PAVN Group 44: 531, 540, 642

PAVN Group 559: 524–25

North Vietnamese Ministry of 

Defense: 150, 235, 281

North Vietnamese Politburo: 30–31, 

36–37, 39–41, 47, 259, 264, 321, 

529, 531, 599, 641–43, 657, 674

Northern provinces, fighting in: 

381–434

assessment of: 428–34

cavalry operations: 401–12

Citadel and Triangle, attacks on: 

412–15, 419–23

final push in: 423–28

Hue: 381, 387–423, 425, 427–31

Quang Tri City: 381–87, 390, 411, 

414, 419, 430, 431

siege of Hue: 393–401

west of Hue: 415–18

Nui Ba Den: 645–46, 648

Nui Mieu Mountains: 203, 294

Nung tribal people: 29

O’Connor, Maj. Gen. George C.

battles in Saigon periphery and: 

347

North Vietnamese Army 

units and military 

organizations–Continued
729

Index

in Mekong Delta: 130, 135, 136, 

137–38, 139, 140, 142, 143, 369, 

370, 372, 373

Mini-Tet and: 577

National Priority Area and: 101, 

104, 106, 107, 108, 110

O’Connor, Lt. Col. Mortimer: 65

Office of the Assistant Secretary of 

Defense for Systems Analysis: 

436n3, 445

“Oil stain”/“oil spot” counterinsurgency practice: 10–11, 96, 254, 

467

O’Leary, 1st Lt. Bartholomew: 174, 

176

Ong Lon Canal: 579

Operations, U.S.

Adairsville: 461

Atlanta: 92

Banjo Royce: 623

Binh Tay: 616

Bolling: 205–06, 287, 473, 477, 

622–23

Burlington Trail: 485–86, 

610–11

Byrd: 208, 212, 622

Camden: 76–77, 93–94

Carentan: 502, 523, 531, 537

Carentan I: 502

Carentan II: 523, 531, 537

Chattahoochee Swamp: 611–12

Cochise: 474, 548, 617–18, 

621–23

Concordia Square: 536

Coronado I through V: 128

Coronado IX: 130, 135–36, 141

Coronado X: 359

Coronado XI: 377–79

Crazy Horse: 192

Dan Sinh 22-6: 620–21

Delaware: 487, 517, 520–21, 523, 

527, 531, 538–39, 609, 676

Dodge City: 460

Dong Tam (“United Hearts And 

Minds”): 591

Dragnet: 192, 194–95

Eagle Thrust: 69–71

Enterprise: 111–12, 114, 321, 461

Fairfax: 96, 98–100, 460

Fargo: 71

Golden Fleece: 612

Golden Valley: 542–43, 547

Greeley: 205

Harmon Green: 623–24

Haystack: 249

Homestead: 636

Hop Tac I: 373, 377

Irving: 192

Jeb Stuart: 272, 382, 502, 510, 

602, 604

Junction City: 43, 73, 81

Kansas: 107

Kentucky: 532–33

Kien Giang 9-1: 130–32, 141

Kittyhawk: 71, 107, 110, 461

Lam Son 67: 85

Lam Son 260: 606

Lancaster II: 532

Le Loi: 160, 166

Macarthur: 479, 559, 614, 616

Maeng Ho (“Fierce Tiger”): 203, 

474

Manchester: 102, 105–06

Masher/White Wing: 192

Mclain: 478, 622–24

Muscatine: 240–41, 487, 495, 611

Napoleon/Saline: 532–33

Nevada Eagle: 604

Niagara: 265, 271, 500

Niagara II: 265, 271, 500

Norfolk Victory: 495

Patrick: 473–74

Pegasus: 506–07, 509–10, 514, 

517–18

People’s Road: 469

Pershing: 192, 195, 197, 203, 272

Pocahontas Forest: 610–11

Quicksilver: 70–71

Quyet Chien (“Determined to 

Fight”): 634, 637

Quyet Thang (“Resolved to 

Win”): 460–63, 466, 585

Rice Grain: 192

Riley: 106–07, 111, 370
Staying the Course

730

Rolling Thunder: 5–6, 20

San Angelo: 267

Santa Fe: 108–10

Saratoga: 92–93, 461

Scotland: 510, 517, 531–32

Scotland II: 517, 531–32

Shenandoah II: 50–51

Somerset Plain: 607–09

Thayer I: 192

Toan Thang (“Complete 

Victory”): 464–66, 626, 629, 643

Truong Cong Dinh: 469–71, 

634, 638

Uniontown: 101, 103, 105–06

Valley Forge: 461, 463

Vi Thanh: 366–67, 636

Walker: 474–75, 622

Wallowa: 226, 230, 239, 483–84, 

486, 536, 609

Wheeler: 226, 230, 239–40, 

483–84, 486, 536, 609

Wilderness: 463

Yellowstone: 74–75, 77, 85, 

93–94, 96, 105

York: 224, 252, 267, 499–500

Otis, Lt. Col. Glenn K.: 337, 338, 

569, 570

Owen, Capt. William J.: 581

Pacification 

I Corps and: 220, 225, 240, 242, 

248, 252–54, 603, 605, 611–12

II Corps and: 614–18, 620–21, 626

II Field Force and approaches to 

Saigon: 626, 628, 630, 633–35, 

637–39

Abrams and: 598

assessment of: 676–80

battles north and west of Saigon 

and: 44–46

battles in Saigon area and: 357

Central Coast defenses and: 190, 

192, 196–97, 211, 216

in Central Highlands: 182, 184

counteroffensive and: 467–68, 

472–74, 477, 482–83, 496–98

in Khe Sanh and A Shau: 500

in Mekong Delta: 128, 138, 140, 

142–43, 380

Mini-Tet and: 590, 594–95

in National Priority Area: 83–84, 

88–89, 91, 95–96, 98–100, 111, 

114, 117, 119–20

in planning for 1968: 8, 10–12, 

14–16, 18–20, 27

reconstruction and: 472, 475, 

496–97

reinforcement debate and: 453

renewed general offensive and: 

555, 559

Saigon perspective on: 440–41

Tet offensive and: 257–58

third general offensive and: 671

See also Ap Doi Moi; Hamlet 

Evaluation System (HES); 

Revolutionary Development 

(RD) efforts.

Palmer, Lt. Gen. Bruce M. Jr.: 21, 

22, 324, 411–12

Parallels

17th: 5

20th: 457–58

Parrot’s Beak. See Cambodia.

Patterson, Sp4c. George J. Jr.: 427

Peers, Maj. Gen. William R.

II Corps operations and: 614–15, 

616, 617, 618, 621, 623, 624, 625

in counteroffensive: 473, 474, 479, 

493–94

in Dak To and Central Highlands: 

145, 147, 148, 149, 151, 152, 

155, 158, 161–64, 166–68, 170, 

174, 177–81, 183–84

Operation Carentan: 502

in Tet offensive: 307

third general offensive and: 659, 

662

People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) 

I Corps and: 226, 228, 230–32, 

235, 239, 252, 605, 609–10, 614

II Corps and: 614, 618

in battles north and west of 

Saigon: 47–49, 55, 66, 75, 77, 81

Operations, U.S.–Continued
731

Index

in battles in Saigon area: 334, 

336, 347, 354

Central Coast defenses and: 191, 

197, 203–04, 206, 214

in Central Highlands: 148–49, 

155, 166, 178

counteroffensive and: 473, 

479–81, 483–84

in Mini-Tet: 566–67, 571, 584, 592

National Priority Area and: 92–93

northern provinces, fighting in: 

391–92, 405, 413, 416, 418

planning for 1968 and: 32

in renewed general offensive: 

530–31, 533, 538, 540, 542, 544, 

547, 558–59

in Tet offensive: 260–61, 285, 288, 

294–96, 303, 307

in third general offensive: 641–44, 

649, 655, 657, 662, 666–67, 

669

See also North Vietnamese 

Army units and military 

organizations.

People’s Liberation Armed Forces

(PLAF) 

in battles north and west of 

Saigon: 47–48, 56, 62, 66, 73, 81

in battles in Saigon area: 333, 

336, 349–50, 352

Central Coast defenses and: 191, 

197, 203

counteroffensive and: 459–60, 

495

in Mini-Tet: 561, 565

in National Priority Area: 101, 

107–08

planning for 1968 and: 32

in renewed general offensive: 542, 

544

in Tet offensive: 261, 294

in third general offensive: 642, 

644, 648–49, 657, 662, 666

See also Viet Cong organizations 

and units.

People’s Revolutionary Party: 36

People’s Self-Defense Force: 443, 675

Perfume (Hoang) River: 388–89, 

392, 399–400, 414, 416, 420, 

423–25, 430, 502

Phan Rang: 189, 211, 214, 230, 623, 

658

Phan Than Gian Bridge: 563

Phan Thiet: 208, 210–11, 213–14, 

264, 478, 622, 624, 658

Phat Lac stream: 389

Philippines: 3, 16, 21, 457

Phoenix (Phuong Hoang) program: 119, 142, 194–95, 

216, 258, 443, 555, 594, 

613, 673, 677–78. See also

Counterinfrastructure 

campaigns.

Phong Dinh Province: 23, 361, 377, 

636

Phu Bai: 267–68, 272–73, 390, 394, 

396, 400–401, 412–14, 416, 418, 

420, 425, 430, 499–501, 520, 531

Phu Bon Province: 148

Phu Cam Canal: 389, 414

Phu Cat airfield: 152, 188, 555

Phu Cuong: 47, 84, 353–55

Phu Dong Armored Training Center: 

334, 339

Phu Giao: 85

Phu Hiep: 204

Phu Hoa: 85

Phu Lam: 343–44, 564, 567, 571–72, 

574, 586–87

Phu Loi: 84, 353, 565–66

Phu My: 282, 294, 473, 548

Phu My District: 196, 548

Phu My Plain: 192, 197–98, 203, 474, 

617

Phu Nhieu: 242

Phu Tho: 325, 343, 564, 572, 574–75, 

577

Phu Yen Province: 151–52, 155, 

187–88, 190, 204–06, 216, 287, 

441, 473–74, 477, 548, 625, 659

Phung Hiep: 377

Phuoc Long Province: 48, 51, 56, 

62–63, 69, 72, 267, 350, 465

Phuoc Tuy: 83–84, 100, 107, 111, 355
Staying the Course

732

Phuoc Vinh: 69, 463, 584

PK–17 outpost: 389, 398–99, 401–02, 

404, 406–10, 416, 419, 502, 538

Plain of Reeds: 123, 468

Plei Mrong: 480

Plei Thi The: 184

Pleiku (city): 23, 147, 149, 152, 188, 

295, 298, 299, 301, 302, 437, 

442, 476, 556, 622, 625, 642

Pleiku Province: 31, 145, 148, 158, 

184, 266, 298, 479, 615, 658

Popular Forces

I Corps and: 226, 242, 250, 

253–55, 605

II Corps and: 616, 621

II Field Force and approaches to 

Saigon: 627–28, 630, 633–34, 

636–37

assessment of: 675–76

in battles north and west of 

Saigon: 46, 63

in battles around Saigon: 324

Central Coast defenses and: 187, 

196, 204, 207, 215

in Central Highlands: 182

counteroffensive and: 467–68, 471, 

475, 497

different perspectives on: 442, 444

in Mekong Delta: 125, 136–37, 

142, 360, 379

in Mini-Tet: 581, 595

in National Priority Area: 83, 

87–88, 91, 95, 106, 114, 116, 119

northern provinces, fighting in: 

382, 392

planning for 1968 and: 27–29

in renewed general offensive: 555

in Tet offensive: 258, 261, 291, 

294, 310–11, 313

in third general offensive: 645–46, 

649, 668

Post-Tet: 379, 480, 627, 645, 678, 680

Prisoners of war

in I Corps: 235, 242

in II Corps operations: 620, 626

II Field Force and approaches to 

Saigon: 626, 633, 636

in battles north and west of 

Saigon: 60, 64, 81, 87

in battles around Saigon: 325, 341

in Central Highlands: 166, 179

in counteroffensive: 470

at Khe Sanh and A Shau: 500, 505

in Mekong Delta: 128, 139, 141

in Mini-Tet: 570, 581, 587, 589

in renewed general offensive: 558

in Tet offensive: 287–88, 291, 310, 

312, 318, 321

in third general offensive: 656, 

665, 670

Propaganda, enemy: 35, 150, 179, 

252, 267, 276, 291, 331, 628

Propaganda, U.S.: 17, 66, 91, 120, 

134, 140, 183, 194, 196, 246–47, 

604, 605, 621

Providence, USS: 419

Provincial Reconnaissance Unit: 95, 

250, 605, 630

Provisional Corps, Vietnam: 273, 

499, 502, 514, 517, 520, 532–33, 

537, 539, 599. See also Corps, 

XXIV.

Public opinion polls: 4, 446, 494n71, 

591, 674

Pueblo, USS: 450

“Punchbowl.” See A Shau Valley.

Quan Loi: 51, 56, 61, 64

Quang, Brig. Gen. Doan Van: 282, 

285, 286, 292, 293

Quang Dien District: 606

Quang Duc Province: 642, 658

Quang Nam Province: 23, 219, 

225–26, 236, 240, 308, 313, 315, 

483, 487, 609

Quang Ngai Province

I Corps and: 226, 235, 240–41, 

252, 610–12, 614

Central Coast defenses and: 191, 

197

in counteroffensive: 483–84, 487, 

493, 495

in renewed general offensive: 555

in Tet offensive: 267, 310
733

Index

Quang Tin

I Corps and: 219, 223, 225–26, 

235, 239–40, 242–43, 248, 250, 

254, 610, 612–14

in counteroffensive: 483–84, 495

in renewed general offensive: 530, 

539, 541

Saigon perspective on: 440

in Tet offensive: 274, 308–09, 312

Quang Tri City

I Corps and: 220, 224, 602–04, 

607

Khe Sanh and A Shau: 499, 500, 

505, 510, 517, 527

northern provinces, fighting in: 

381–87, 390, 411, 414, 419, 430, 

431

in renewed general offensive: 531, 

538, 539

in Tet offensive: 267, 271–73

in third general offensive: 643

Quang Tri Province: 221–22, 250, 

265, 271, 324, 416, 482, 499, 531

Quang Trung Infantry Center: 324, 

572

Que Son Valley

I Corps and: 225–26, 228–29, 

233–36, 239–40, 249, 609–11

A Shau Valley and: 521

in counteroffensive: 483–87

fighting in northern provinces 

and: 390

in renewed general offensive: 536, 

540, 542, 558–59

in Tet offensive: 257, 267–68, 

272–73, 320

in third general offensive: 657

Qui Nhon: 152, 168, 188–89, 197, 

261, 268, 282, 290–94, 474–76, 

622

Rach Gia: 366–67

Rach Kien: 113

Radio Hanoi: 81, 179

Rattan, Col. Donald V.: 166, 198, 

200, 201, 202, 203, 267–68, 273, 

382, 386–87

Red Catcher Training Teams: 98

Refugees

I Corps and: 240, 242, 244–48, 

250–54, 612–13

II Corps and: 620

II Field Force and approaches to 

Saigon: 628

battles north and west of Saigon 

and: 66, 72

Central Coast defenses and: 

194–96

Central Highlands and: 183

counteroffensive and: 496

different perspectives on: 439–40, 

443–44

Mini-Tet and: 591

National Priority Area and: 88

northern provinces, fighting in: 386

planning for 1968 and: 19

reinforcement debate and: 453

Tet offensive and: 299, 312

in third general offensive: 671

Regional Communications Group, 

Vietnam: 22

Regional Forces

I Corps and: 253

II Corps and: 616, 621, 623–24

approaches to Saigon and: 

627–28, 630, 633, 636–37

assessment of: 675–76

in battles north and west of 

Saigon: 48, 54, 63

battles in Saigon area and: 324, 

332, 334, 347, 349–50, 355

Central Coast defenses and: 187, 

196, 201, 203–04, 207, 212, 215

Central Highlands and: 182

in counteroffensive: 460, 462, 467, 

471, 475, 478

different perspectives on: 442, 444

Mekong Delta and: 125, 142, 360, 

366–67, 379

Mini-Tet and: 563, 567, 585

National Priority Area and: 83, 89, 

91, 98–99, 106–07, 110, 114, 119

northern provinces, fighting in: 

381, 383, 392
Staying the Course

734

planning for 1968 and: 27–28

renewed general offensive and: 538

Tet offensive and: 258, 261, 271, 

284, 291–92, 296, 298, 304, 308, 

310–11, 313, 315

third general offensive and: 

645–46, 649, 657–58, 670

Reinforcement debate: 447–58

Renewed general offensive: 529–60

Ben Het and Dak Pek: 555–60

Binh Dinh Province, ambush in: 

547–55

Demilitarized Zone fighting: 

531–37

Hue: 531–32, 537–39

Kham Duc, fall of: 539–47

Republic of Korea. See South Korea.

Reserves: 6, 21, 450–52, 454, 457

Resor, Stanley R.: 493

Revolutionary Development (RD) 

efforts 

I Corps and: 220, 226, 239, 248, 

250–54, 602–04, 612

II Field Force and approaches to 

Saigon: 628, 630, 634–35

Abrams and: 598

assessment of: 678

battles north and west of Saigon 

and: 46, 72

battles outside Saigon and: 357

Central Coast defenses and: 190, 

204, 206, 211, 216

in Central Highlands: 182

counteroffensive and: 466–67, 469, 

472, 474, 483, 496–97

different perspectives on: 440–42, 

445

Khe Sanh and A Shau: 500

in Mekong Delta: 125, 127, 138, 

142–43, 361, 379

Mini-Tet and: 590

in National Priority Area: 84–89, 

95, 98, 100, 106, 109, 112, 114, 

117–19

northern provinces, fighting in: 

382, 387, 399

planning for 1968 and: 15, 18–20

renewed general offensive and: 

555

Tet offensive and: 258

See also Counter-infrastructure 

campaigns; Pacification.

Rew, Lt. Col. Leland C.: 667, 668

Rice

I Corps and: 222, 225, 229, 233, 

235, 240, 247, 251, 603–05, 612

II Corps and: 622, 626

II Field Force and approaches to 

Saigon: 629, 631

battles north and west of Saigon 

and: 43, 50, 75

battles in Saigon area and: 329

on Central Coast: 187, 191–92, 

194–95, 200, 202–04, 208, 

210–11, 214, 216

in Central Highlands: 155, 185

counteroffensive and: 463, 475, 

483, 487, 489

fighting in northern provinces 

and: 396, 410

in Mekong Delta: 130, 132, 141, 

373–74

Mini-Tet and: 576–77, 582

in National Priority Area: 90, 92, 

94–95, 100, 112, 114–15, 118–19

Operation Carentan and: 505

planning for 1968 and: 14

renewed general offensive and: 

550–51, 554

Tet offensive and: 257, 288

Ridenhour, Ronald: 493

Ridgway, General Matthew B.: 455

Rifles

AK47 assault rifle: 34, 56, 96, 157, 

164, 259, 326, 328–29, 340, 576

Chinese Type 56 assault rifle: 34

M1 carbine: 34

M2 carbine: 28, 34

M16 assault rifle: 28, 34, 80, 131, 

133–34, 212, 325, 333, 349, 363, 

445, 492, 563, 627, 676

M16A1 assault rifle: 24

Roadrunner missions: 115

Regional Forces–Continued
735

Index

Roberts Compound: 188, 285–86

Robertson, Maj. Gen. Donn J.: 318, 

320

Robinson, Lt. Col. Roscoe Jr.: 516

Rocket Ridge. See Dak To, battle of.

Rockets and rocket launchers 

M72 light antitank rockets: 54, 

176, 413, 524, 557, 676

See also Grenade launchers.

Rome plows: 71, 90, 92, 93, 476, 621, 

629

Ross, Lt. Col. Marion C.: 230

Rosson, Lt. Gen. William B.

I Corps and: 599–600, 610

Central Coast defenses and: 

187–88, 190, 197, 205, 208, 214, 

215–17

in Dak To and Central Highlands: 

145, 148, 149–50, 151, 152, 155, 

163, 166

at Khe Sanh and A Shau: 501, 

502, 509, 517, 520–21, 526

planning for 1968 and: 23

renewed general offensive and: 

533, 536, 537, 538, 539, 556, 

559

Rostow, Walt W.: 451, 452

Routes

4: 74–75, 77, 316, 645

5A: 575, 581

10: 564, 567–68, 571, 574

13: 645–46

26: 645, 649, 652–54, 662, 670

232: 575

234: 574

239: 645, 649–50, 654, 669–70

244: 77

246: 75, 77

441: 290

506: 552–54

512: 150–51, 158, 177, 480

533: 485–86

535: 225, 249

547: 501–02, 504–06, 519, 523, 

526, 538–39, 604

547A: 520

548: 519, 521

555: 382, 384

560: 382, 384

Rowe, Lt. Col. Gordon D.: 325, 329, 

341, 343–44, 346

Royal Thai Army Volunteer 

Regiment: 45, 100, 109–10, 

120, 464, 632, 644. See also

Thailand.

Rung Sat swamp: 128, 130

Rusk, Dean: 451

Russell, Capt. Thomas A.: 134

Saigon 

II Field Force and approaches to: 

626–40

assessment of: 676

assessment of attacks on: 356–58

battles outside of: 353–56

battles on periphery of: 346–53

Capital Military Region on alert: 

323–25

Central Coast defenses and: 189

Central Highlands and: 160, 170, 

179

Cholon and Phu Tho Racetrack: 

343–46

in counteroffensive: 459–60, 462, 

464, 466, 473

downtown, attacks on: 324–32

eastern regions in National 

Priority Area: 100–106

fighting in northern provinces 

and: 420, 428, 430

Independence Palace: 325–26, 

328–29, 561

Joint General Staff compound: 

339–43

Khe Sanh and A Shau operations: 502, 510, 527

Mekong Delta and: 127, 141, 143, 

361

National Priority Area and: 

83, 96–97, 108, 110–14, 116, 

118–20

perspective of: 438–45

planning for 1968 and: 12, 14–17, 

21, 23, 29
Staying the Course

736

renewed general offensive and: 

529–31, 559

Tan Son Nhut Air Base, battle 

for: 332–39

Tet offensive and: 258, 261, 266, 

271, 298, 321

third general offensive and: 641–

42, 644–45, 652–53, 655–56, 

662, 665, 669, 671

See also Mini-Tet (in Saigon).

Saigon, battles north and west of: 

43–82

assessment of campaign: 71–72, 

81–82

dry season offensive planning: 

45–50

Loc Ninh, battle for: 50–62

Operation Eagle Thrust: 

69–71

Song Be and Bo Duc: 62–66

Thunder Road: 66–69

War Zone C: 72–81

Saigon River: 47, 73–74, 77, 81, 

84, 89, 92–94, 112–13, 119–20, 

128, 331, 462, 561–63, 643, 676

Salzer, Capt. Robert S.: 136

Sam, Maj. Bui Van: 623

Sappers 

in I Corps: 235–36

in battles north and west of 

Saigon: 52, 67, 69, 75, 80

in battles around Saigon: 326, 

328–33, 340–41

in counteroffensive: 466, 532, 

557–58, 573

fighting in northern provinces: 

383, 393, 401, 414

in Mekong Delta: 361–63, 374

in National Priority Area: 100, 

115–16

planning for 1968 and: 34

in Tet offensive: 261, 269, 285, 

287, 291–92, 299–300, 304, 

313, 316

in third general offensive: 648, 

656–57

See also under Viet Cong organizations and units.

Scarborough, Capt. Edmund B.: 575, 

576, 577

Schell, Jonathan: 243–44, 246

Schmalhorst, Lt. Col. Joseph H.: 

579, 581, 582

Schroeder, Lt. Col. William S.: 103, 

104, 105

Schueren, Capt. Daniel R.: 374

Schumacher, Lt. Col. David J.: 155, 

164, 170–71

Schweiter, Brig. Gen. Leo H.

Central Coast defenses and: 205, 

206

in counteroffensive: 474

in Dak To and Central Highlands: 

155, 156, 158, 162, 163, 164, 

165, 170, 174, 176–77, 181

Tet offensive and: 288

Search, Locate, Annihilate, and 

Monitor (SLAM) concept: 265

Search-and-destroy missions

in I Corps: 242, 247, 254

II Corps operations: 615, 622, 626

II Field Force and approaches to 

Saigon: 626, 629, 632, 636

Abrams on: 597

Central Coast defenses and: 192

Khe Sanh and: 273

in Mekong Delta: 127

in National Priority Area: 94, 114

planning for 1968 and: 11–12, 40

reinforcement debate and: 454

War Zone C: 73

Seay, Sgt. William W.: 663

Security operations: 12, 45, 87, 117, 

197, 225

Selective Snatch mission: 194–95

Self-propelled howitzers. See

Artillery weapons and 

howitzers.

Sharp, Adm. Ulysses S. Grant Jr.: 20, 

221, 258, 259, 267, 411–12, 443, 

449, 452

Silva, Capt. Christopher J.: 543

Smith, Lt. Col. John A.: 148

Saigon–Continued
737

Index

Snyder, Lt. Col. William P.: 533, 535, 

536

So Bay Canal: 130–32

Soc Trang: 359, 366–67, 379

Son My: 488–89, 492. See also My 

Lai massacre.

Son Tra: 612

Song Be: 46, 51–52, 56, 61–63, 66, 

72, 74, 76, 79, 81, 110, 257–58

Song Cau District: 204

South China Sea: 5, 14, 123, 187, 

204, 221, 225, 282, 290, 388

South Korea: 3, 216, 450, 645

South Korean units

1st (“Capital”) Division: 188, 203, 

293, 474, 616

9th Infantry Division: 188–89, 

204, 207

2d Marine Brigade: 240, 267, 308, 

313, 483, 488

1st Regiment, Capital Division: 

203, 236, 316, 317, 320, 382, 

414, 415, 525, 610, 611, 657, 658

28th Infantry Regiment: 288

29th Infantry Regiment: 285

Republic of Korea Expeditionary 

Force: 187, 188, 285, 659

South Vietnamese Army

in I Corps: 253

II Corps and: 616, 622–23

approaches to Saigon and: 635

assessment of: 676

battles north and west of Saigon: 

46, 63

in Central Highlands: 145, 179

in counteroffensive: 460, 464, 472

Khe Sanh and A Shau campaigns: 

500

in Mekong Delta: 137, 361

Mini-Tet and: 584

in National Priority Area: 89, 91, 

94, 101, 107, 119

northern provinces, fighting in: 

428

perspective of: 444

planning for 1968 and: 15, 27–30

reinforcement debate and: 449

Tan Son Nhut Air Base, battle for: 

331

Tet offensive and: 265, 271, 291

in third general offensive: 663

South Vietnamese commands and 

units: 7, 26–28, 104, 130, 258, 

291, 357, 428, 455, 498, 621

I Corps: 15–16, 22, 37, 147, 150, 

197, 203–04, 219–20, 223–25, 

239–40, 244–45, 247–55, 

257–58, 265, 267–68, 271–75, 

277, 281, 308, 312–13, 315–16, 

321, 323, 325, 333, 381, 387, 

391–92, 399, 411–12, 416, 418, 

423, 425, 429–30, 440, 447–49, 

451, 483–84, 499–500, 502, 506, 

527, 530, 539, 547, 558, 584, 

599–600, 602, 609, 611–14, 

642–43, 656, 672, 676–77

II Corps: 15–16, 23, 37, 108, 110,

145, 147–48, 150, 168, 185, 187–

90, 203, 205, 208, 211, 214–17, 

222–24, 230, 257–58, 261, 264, 

274, 277, 281, 298, 321, 323, 325, 

339, 392, 412, 441–42, 477–79, 

502, 547, 558, 584, 612, 614–15, 

617, 621–24, 643, 658, 676

III Corps: 15–16, 23, 43–48, 51,

62, 70–71, 83–85, 100–101, 108, 

110, 112, 118–20, 182, 185, 205, 

208, 211, 257–58, 261, 266, 268, 

272, 274, 323, 347, 354, 356–57, 

367, 370, 414, 418, 420, 425, 

441–42, 444, 459–60, 463–66, 

468, 530, 559, 561–62, 585, 

589, 615, 625–26, 628, 636, 638, 

641–42, 644–45, 666, 676

IV Corps: 15, 23, 31–32, 47, 113,

123–25, 137, 141–42, 147, 185, 

257, 261, 274, 277, 339, 359–62, 

368, 372, 379–80, 440, 442–44, 

461, 468–71, 632, 636, 638, 643, 

655

24th Special Tactical Zone: 160, 302

44th Special Tactical Zone: 632

Special Forces Command: 282, 

292
Staying the Course

738

Airborne Division: 333, 442, 444, 

460, 501, 572, 669

1st Infantry Division: 28, 220, 

253, 389, 399, 428, 442, 499–

500, 520, 538, 593, 602, 604, 608

2d Infantry Division: 220, 239, 

241, 253, 310, 442, 483–85, 488, 

609–12, 657

5th Infantry Division: 46, 51, 54, 

62–64, 72, 84, 86, 92, 324, 353, 

355, 442, 461, 628, 642

7th Infantry Division: 125, 127, 

130, 137, 142, 353, 361, 368, 

379, 442, 469–70, 634

9th Infantry Division: 125, 

130–31, 361, 364, 470

18th Infantry Division: 46, 100, 

107–08, 111, 324, 355, 442, 464, 632

21st Infantry Division: 125, 361, 

442, 470, 593

22d Infantry Division: 187–88, 

192, 196, 204, 268, 292–94, 473, 

616–17

23d Infantry Division: 189, 295, 

442, 623

25th Infantry Division: 46, 89–90, 

113, 324, 366, 442, 460–62, 465, 

632

3d Airborne Brigade: 669

Marine Brigade: 442, 460

1st Infantry Regiment, 1st 

Infantry Division: 381–82, 387, 

414, 602, 604

2d Infantry Regiment, 1st 

Infantry Division: 400, 414–15, 

509, 532

3d Infantry Regiment, 1st 

Infantry Division: 414, 520, 525, 

538

3d Armored Cavalry Regiment: 

298–300, 556

4th Cavalry Regiment, 2d Infantry 

Division: 314

4th Infantry Regiment, 2d 

Infantry Division: 310–11

6th Infantry Regiment, 2d Infantry 

Division: 312

7th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry 

Division: 461

8th Cavalry Regiment, 23d Infantry 

Division: 204

8th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry 

Division: 461

10th Infantry Regiment, 7th 

Infantry Division: 361, 371

11th Infantry Regiment, 7th 

Infantry Division: 131, 143

14th Infantry Regiment, 9th 

Infantry Division: 364

15th Infantry Regiment, 9th 

Infantry Division: 366, 377

40th Infantry Regiment, 22d 

Infantry Division: 618

41st Infantry Regiment, 22d 

Infantry Division: 203

42d Infantry Regiment, 24th 

Special Tactical Zone: 151, 160, 

302, 307–08

43d Infantry Regiment, 18th 

Infantry Division: 355

44th Infantry Regiment, 23d 

Infantry Division: 210–12

45th Infantry Regiment, 23d 

Infantry Division: 295–96, 625, 

659, 661

46th Infantry Regiment, 25th 

Infantry Division: 114

47th Infantry Regiment, 22d 

Infantry Division: 204, 287–88

48th Infantry Regiment, 18th 

Infantry Division: 101–02, 355

49th Infantry Regiment, 25th 

Infantry Division: 74–75, 94, 460

50th Infantry Regiment, 25th 

Infantry Division: 114, 460

51st Infantry Regiment: 220, 226, 

308, 313, 315–17

1st Battalion, 3d Infantry Regiment, 

1st Infantry Division: 399

1st Battalion, 11th Infantry 

Regiment, 7th Infantry 

Division: 143

South Vietnamese commands and 

units–Continued
739

Index

1st Battalion, 16th Infantry 

Regiment, 9th Infantry 

Division: 377

1st Battalion, 40th Infantry 

Regiment, 22d Infantry 

Division: 201

1st Battalion, 42d Regiment, 24th 

Special Tactical Zone: 160

1st Battalion, 45th Infantry 

Regiment, 23d Infantry 

Division: 661–62

1st Airborne Battalion: 572, 585

1st Marine Battalion: 339, 579, 

670

1st Service Battalion: 324

2d Battalion, 1st Infantry 

Regiment, 1st Infantry Division: 

525

2d Battalion, 3d Infantry 

Regiment, 1st Infantry Division: 

399, 414

2d Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment, 

2d Infantry Division: 311

2d Battalion, 8th Infantry 

Regiment, 5th Infantry 

Division: 354

2d Battalion, 11th Infantry 

Regiment, 7th Infantry 

Division: 131

2d Battalion, 42d Infantry 

Regiment, 24th Special Tactical 

Zone: 302

2d Battalion, 45th Infantry 

Regiment, 23d Infantry 

Division: 296, 660–62

2d Battalion, 48th Infantry 

Regiment, 18th Infantry 

Division: 102

2d Airborne Battalion: 178, 399, 

669–70

2d Marine Battalion: 339, 342, 

354, 669

2d Railway Security Battalion: 291

2d Service Battalion: 324, 332, 336

3d Battalion, 1st Infantry 

Regiment, 1st Infantry Division: 

608

3d Battalion: 3d Infantry 

Regiment, 1st Infantry Division: 

399, 414

3d Battalion, 4th Infantry 

Regiment, 2d Infantry Division: 

310

3d Battalion, 15th Infantry 

Regiment, 9th Infantry 

Division: 371

3d Battalion, 40th Infantry 

Regiment, 22d Infantry 

Division: 618

3d Battalion, 42d Infantry 

Regiment, 24th Special Tactical 

Zone: 168, 355

3d Battalion, 44th Infantry 

Regiment, 23d Infantry 

Division: 211, 624

3d Battalion, 45th Infantry 

Regiment, 23d Infantry 

Division: 296

3d Battalion, 52d Infantry 

Regiment, 18th Infantry 

Division: 355

3d Airborne Battalion: 178, 523

3d Marine Battalion: 339, 669

4th Battalion, 2d Infantry 

Regiment, 1st Infantry Division: 

399–400, 414

4th Battalion, 3d Infantry Regiment, 

1st Infantry Division: 414

4th Battalion, 4th Infantry 

Regiment, 2d Infantry Division: 

311 

4th Battalion, 5th Infantry 

Regiment, 2d Infantry Division: 

610

4th Battalion, 44th Infantry 

Regiment, 23d Infantry 

Division: 624

4th Marine Battalion: 339, 669

5th Airborne Battalion: 572, 585

5th Marine Battalion: 130, 135, 

563, 636

5th Military Police Battalion: 324

6th Airborne Battalion: 339, 342, 

523, 669
Staying the Course

740

6th Marine Battalion: 563, 585

6th Military Police Battalion: 

324

7th Airborne Battalion: 398–99, 

426, 570, 572

8th Airborne Battalion: 324, 333, 

336, 342, 670

9th Airborne Battalion: 160, 168, 

381–82, 386, 414, 669

11th Airborne Battalion: 355, 385, 

585

11th Ranger Battalion: 212, 

298–99

21st Ranger Battalion: 423, 427

22d Artillery Battalion: 312

22d Ranger Battalion: 299

23d Ranger Battalion: 297

30th Ranger Battalion: 331, 346, 

564, 569–70, 572, 587

32d Ranger Battalion: 368

33d Ranger Battalion: 344, 564, 

575

35th Ranger Battalion: 587

36th Ranger Battalion: 347

37th Ranger Battalion: 265, 507, 

515, 517

38th Ranger Battalion: 344, 346, 

564, 575, 587

39th Ranger Battalion: 423, 427

43d Ranger Battalion: 364, 462

52d Ranger Battalion: 355

53d Regional Forces Battalion: 

332, 334

57th Regional Forces Battalion: 

347, 350

91st Ranger Battalion: 285

2d Cavalry Squadron: 364

3d Squadron, 5th Armored 

Cavalry Regiment: 355

8th Armored Cavalry Squadron: 

295–96

1st Ranger Group: 226, 313

2d Ranger Group: 298–99, 623

5th Ranger Group: 96, 98–99, 

460, 587

Hac Bao (“Black Panther”) 

Company, 1st Infantry Division: 

389, 392–94, 399, 415, 426, 428, 

538, 602, 608

1st Airborne Task Force: 420, 428

3d Airborne Task Force: 507, 510, 

515, 518, 520, 525

3d Ranger Task Force: 347

Marine Task Force Alpha: 420

33d Air Wing: 570

See also Popular Forces; Regional 

Forces.

South Vietnamese government. See

Government of Vietnam.

South Vietnamese police forces

Military Police: 86

National Police: 86, 91, 192, 216, 

249, 258, 292, 295, 324, 328, 

346, 382, 460, 562–63, 576, 585, 

587, 605, 616, 621, 634

National Police Field Force: 258, 

382, 460, 605

South Vietnamese–U.S. relations: 98, 

140

Soviet Union: 4–5, 34, 40, 450

Special Forces, U.S. Army 

in A Shau Valley: 519

in battles north and west of 

Saigon: 48, 51, 62

Central Coast defenses and: 188

in Central Highlands: 151–52, 155

in counteroffensive: 479

Kham Duc, fall of: 540

in Mekong Delta: 125, 363, 365, 

366

Mini-Tet and: 561, 584

planning for 1967 and: 23, 30

reinforcement debate and: 448

in renewed general offensive: 543, 

547

in Tet offensive: 265, 267, 282, 

285–86, 298

in third general offensive: 657

Special Forces camps

I Corps and: 219, 610–11

battles north and west of Saigon 

and: 49, 52, 54, 56, 58, 63, 74, 76

South Vietnamese commands and 

units–Continued
741

Index

Ben Het: 151

Bu Dop: 63–66, 72

in Central Highlands: 158, 166

counteroffensive and: 483, 485

Dak Pek: 610

Dak Sak: 658–61

Dak Seang: 658

Duc Co: 158

Duc Lap: 642

Ha Thanh: 611

Kham Duc: 539, 610

Khe Sanh and A Shau operations: 

512, 515, 517

Lang Vei: 447, 515, 517

planning for 1968 and: 29

reinforcement debate and: 447

renewed general offensive and: 

539, 542, 544, 558

third general offensive and: 642, 

655, 658, 661, 667

Tra Bong: 611

Special Forces Company

D, 5th Special Forces Group: 363

Special Forces Detachments

A–105: 540, 543

A–502: 286

A–503: 85

B–56: 584

Special Forces Group, 5th: 23, 30, 

155, 188, 282, 363, 540, 561

Spider holes: 413, 550, 574, 577

Spohn, Capt. David: 232

Stannard, Col. John E.: 524, 602

Steele, Lt. Col. William B.: 116, 

131–32, 134

Steverson, Maj. James R.: 155, 

165–66, 171–72, 173

Stigall, Lt. Col. Arthur D.: 60, 61

Stilwell, Maj. Gen. Richard G.: 544, 

545, 599–600, 602, 607

Stone, Maj. Gen. Charles P.: 181, 

479, 482, 558, 615–16, 625, 659

Strong Point Obstacle System: 221, 

257, 381, 559

Stryker, Sgt. Robert F.: 61

Studies and Observations Group: 23, 

657

Surveillance Airplane Companies

225th: 149

244th: 363

Sweet, Lt. Col. Richard S.: 402, 404, 

405, 406, 407, 408, 410, 415, 

424, 427

Talbott, Brig. Gen. Orwin C.: 668

Tallman, Lt. Col. Richard J.: 504

Tam Ky: 226, 240, 249, 312, 483–85, 

610–11, 643

Tam Quan: 202, 214, 294, 617–18

Tan An: 112–14, 370

Tan Canh: 151, 158, 160, 166, 168, 

178, 295, 307–08

Tan Hiep: 565

Tan My: 500

Tan Phuoc Khanh: 88–89

Tan Son Nhut: 16, 22, 43, 333–34, 

337, 339, 342–43, 353, 462, 564, 

567, 569–72, 574 

Tan Son Nhut Sensitive Area: 

324, 332, 340

Tan Son Nhut Special Zone: 570

See also Bases, U.S.

Tan Thuan Bridge: 575–76, 579

Tan Tru: 113

Tan Uyen: 101–06, 355, 583

Tanks

M41 Walker Bulldog light tank: 

28, 299, 326, 332, 336, 389, 393

M48 tank: 69, 94, 231–32, 303, 

305, 337, 396, 422, 551, 617, 

648, 657

M48A3 Patton tank: 26, 67, 70

PT76 light tank: 447, 514, 517, 

519, 524

Task Forces

2-34: 648

Barker: 487, 489, 492–94

Black: 164–65

Blue: 164

Byrd: 208, 210–12

Clearwater: 502

Cooksey: 610–11

Delta: 304–06

Dorland: 230–31
Staying the Course

742

Forsyth: 106

Gibler: 344–46

Hay: 584

Kilo: 509–10

Lance: 659, 661

Matthews: 556, 559

Meyer: 354

Miracle: 318, 320

Mitchell: 477

Oregon: 223, 240, 248–49, 251, 

254–55, 502

Robbie: 532

South: 623–24

Spoiler: 659

Thebaud: 339

Ware: 338

X-Ray: 390, 394, 396, 398, 400, 

412, 416, 418–19, 429–30

Tay Loc airfield: 393, 399, 414, 420

Tay Ninh: 81, 105, 575, 644, 646–55, 

662–66

Tay Ninh Province

II Field Force and approaches to 

Saigon: 629–30

battles north and west of Saigon: 

43, 47, 73–74, 76

in counteroffensive: 461–63

Mini-Tet and: 561

National Priority Area and: 84, 

89, 92–94, 114

planning for 1968 and: 14

Saigon perspective on: 441

Tet offensive and: 274

third general offensive and: 

642–43, 645, 653, 662–66, 

667

Taylor, General Maxwell D.: 455

Taylor, Lt. Col. William W.: 481

Tet offensive: 257–322

I Corps and: 235, 606, 614

II Corps and: 614, 623

II Field Force and approaches to 

Saigon: 626–27, 634, 638

allied expectations regarding: 

274–80

assessment of: 321–22, 674–80

battles north and west of Saigon 

and: 71

battles in Saigon area: 323, 328, 

346, 352

Binh Dinh: 290–94

Central Coast, strikes on: 281–90

Communist perspective on: 435–38

counteroffensive and: 460, 464, 

466–73, 475, 477–80, 483–84, 

487–89, 493, 495–96, 498

Da Nang: 261, 265, 267, 290–91, 

314–15, 317–21, 390, 394, 401, 

411–12, 429–30

different perspectives on: 435–47

enemy preparations for: 259–64

Khe Sanh and A Shau: 269–74, 

499, 508, 520

in Mekong Delta: 359, 379–80

Mini-Tet and: 561, 564, 577, 

589–92

northern provinces, fighting in: 

381–82, 387, 389–90, 428–30

reinforcement debate and: 447–58, 

449–50, 452–53, 455–58

renewed general offensive and: 

529–30, 537–38

Saigon’s view of: 438–45

Southern I Corps: 308–13

third general offensive and: 645, 

671

U.S. reaction to: 435–47

warning signs of: 264–69

Thach Han River: 382, 401

Thai, Lt. Gen. Hoang Van: 47, 

48–49, 55, 77, 353, 529, 572, 

641, 662, 666, 670, 671

Thai My: 90

Thailand

II Field Force and approach to 

Saigon: 632

battles north and west of Saigon: 

45, 47–49, 55, 77

battles outside of Saigon and: 353

counteroffensive and: 464

Mini-Tet and: 572

National Priority Area and: 90, 

100, 109–10, 120

Task Forces–Continued
743

Index

planning for 1968 and: 3, 5, 16, 

21–22

renewed general offensive and: 

529

third general offensive and: 641, 

644, 662, 666, 670–71

Than, Maj. Le: 298

Thang, Lt. Gen. Nguyen Duc: 19, 

442–43

Thang Binh: 226, 613

Thanh, Senior General Nguyen Chi: 

39, 40–41

Thanh, Brig. Gen. Nguyen Viet: 127, 

131, 361, 469–70

Thanh An: 301–02

Thanh Duc (Little Rubber) 

Plantation: 662, 665, 669

Thanh Quit: 316

Thao, General Hoang Minh: 148, 

150, 294–95, 298, 301, 479–80

Thebaud, Col. Charles C.: 84, 85, 86, 

87, 339, 565, 566

Thi, Brig. Gen. Lam Quang: 131, 

364, 377

Thi Nghe: 563

Thieu, Nguyen Van

assessment of: 677, 679

battles north and west of Saigon 

and: 48

battles around Saigon and: 323

Central Coast defenses and: 216

in counteroffensive: 459, 498

different perspectives on war and: 

435, 438, 441–44

Mekong Delta and: 361

Mini-Tet and: 585, 587, 590–91, 

593

National Priority Area and: 120

northern provinces, fighting in: 

428

planning for 1968 and: 19, 27

in Tet offensive: 257–58, 265, 268, 

271, 274, 277

Thinh, Lt. Col. Nguyen Ba: 618, 624

Third general offensive (August): 

641–72

allied preparations for: 643–46

assessment of: 666–72

September phase: 666–71

Tay Ninh, battle for: 644, 646–55, 

662–66

widening of offensive: 655–62

Tho, Lt. Col. Hoang Dinh: 216, 312

Tho, Lt. Col. Phan Minh: 194, 291, 

292, 293, 617

Thompson, Lt. Col. Bernard Davis 

Jr.: 364

Thompson, Warrant Officer (WO1) 

Hugh Jr.: 490–92

Thompson, Maj. Robert H.: 420, 

422–23

Thon Bon Tri: 410, 415–16, 419, 424

Thon La Chu: 402, 405, 408, 410, 

412, 414–16, 418–19, 423–24, 

427, 538

Thon Lieu Coc Thuong: 402, 

408–10, 415, 419

Thon Que Chu: 402, 404–10, 415–16, 

418–19, 423–24

Thon Trung: 409, 416, 419

Thu, Col. Vo: 191

Thu Duc: 87, 96, 99, 353–54, 460, 

563, 575

Thua Thien

I Corps and: 219, 225, 252, 602, 

604, 606, 614

Khe Sanh and A Shau campaigns: 

499, 519

northern provinces, fighting in: 

381, 388, 392, 400, 411, 418, 

428, 430

reinforcement debate and: 448

renewed general offensive and: 

537, 543

Saigon’s perspective on: 440

Tet offensive and: 267

Thuan, Brig. Gen. Pham Quoc: 85

Thuan Yen: 489

Thunder Road. See Highways; 

Saigon, battles north and west 

of.

Tice, Lt. Col. Ralph D.: 60, 77

Tien Ngon: 76

Tien Phuoc: 485–86
Staying the Course

744

Tin, Lt. Col. Le Tri: 308, 442

Toan, Col. Nguyen Van: 310, 442

Toi Son Island: 634

Tolson, Maj. Gen. John J.

I Corps and: 223, 602–03

Central Coast defenses and: 187, 

188, 192, 195–96, 197–98, 200, 

203, 214

Khe Sanh and A Shau: 500, 507, 

510, 512, 514, 515, 517, 520, 

521, 522, 526

northern provinces, fighting in: 

386, 389, 391, 401, 404, 406, 

411, 416, 418, 419

in Tet offensive: 268, 272, 273

Tompkins, Maj. Gen. Rathvon M.: 

532, 533, 535, 536

Ton Duc Loc Canal: 130–31, 359, 368

Tower, Lt. Col. John B.: 579–80

Tra Khuc River: 310–11, 495

Tra Vinh: 364–65, 367

Trails, enemy: 49, 52, 59, 62, 77, 81, 

194–95, 479, 524, 561, 583

Adams Trail: 46–47, 72, 107

Ho Chi Minh Trail: 31, 148, 150, 

225, 239, 252, 259, 264, 480, 

520, 559

Saigon River Trail: 47

Serges Trail (Jungle Highway): 

46–47

Trang Bang: 89, 337, 462–63, 662

Transportation Battalions

6th: 662

7th: 662

Trapezoid, The. See Base areas, 

enemy; Binh Duong Province.

Tri, Lt. Gen. Do Cao: 645, 653, 667, 

670

Tri Buu: 382, 384, 386

Triangle, The. See Hue; Northern 

provinces, fighting in.

Trieu Phong: 382, 384

Trinh Van: 553–55

Tru, Senior Col. Le Huu: 226, 233

Truong, Maj. Gen. Ngo Quang: 389, 

391, 392, 393, 396, 398, 399, 

414, 415, 420, 428, 442, 602

Truong Chinh: 30

Truong Lam: 202

Truong Xuan: 203

Tuan, Lt. Col. Nguyen Khac: 

208–10, 611, 612

Tunnels: 46, 47–48, 92, 95, 172, 239, 

489, 621

Tutwiler, Lt. Col. Guy I.: 131, 132

Tuy An: 204

Tuy Hoa: 151, 188, 204, 205, 206, 

257, 282, 290, 477, 622, 659

Tuy Hoa North airfield: 287–88

Tuy Hoa South airfield: 205, 287

Tuy Loan River: 315, 316, 317

Tuy Phuoc District: 474

Tuyen Duc Province: 208, 441, 623

U Minh Forest: 124

U.S. Agency for International 

Development (USAID): 17, 444

U.S. Army, Vietnam (USARV): 21, 

23–27, 101, 324, 347, 411

U.S. Army Headquarters Area 

Command: 325

U.S. Army Support Command: 291, 

609

U.S. Embassy, Saigon: 17, 328–31

U.S. Mission to South Vietnam: 

17–18, 20, 257, 323, 359

U.S. reaction to Tet offensive: 445–47

U.S.–South Vietnamese relations: 98, 

140

Vam Co Dong River: 89, 95, 112, 

113, 117, 346, 644

Vam Co Tay River: 112, 123

Van Kiep National Training Center: 

355

Vaught, Lt. Col. James B.: 409–10, 

415, 425

Ve River: 310

Ven Ven: 669

Veth, R. Adm. Kenneth L.: 22

Vien, General Cao Van: 27, 442

battles in Saigon area and: 323, 

324, 331, 332, 333, 339–40, 342, 

344, 346
745

Index

counteroffensive and: 459, 497

Mini-Tet and: 570, 594

renewed general offensive and: 530

Tet offensive and: 265, 271, 442

Viet Cong

I Corps and: 221, 233, 235–36, 

240–42, 244–51, 253, 255, 599, 

604–06, 610–14

II Corps and: 618–21, 623–26

II Field Force and approaches to 

Saigon: 626–28, 630, 633–37, 

639

A Shau Valley and: 527

assessment of: 677, 679

battles north and west of Saigon: 

44, 52, 54, 58–61, 63–66, 69, 71, 

73, 75, 79–80

in battles in Saigon area: 324–26, 

329, 331, 333–34, 336–43, 

345–46, 349–56

Central Coast defenses and: 190, 

192, 194–96, 204, 208, 211–14, 

216–17

in Central Highlands: 147, 183–85

counteroffensive and: 459–60, 462, 

466–73, 477, 483–90, 492–93, 

495, 498

different perspectives on war: 439, 

441, 445

infrastructure: 19, 35, 95, 98, 118, 

143, 192, 498, 613, 627, 630, 637

in Mekong Delta: 123, 128, 

130–31, 133–34, 136, 140–43, 

359–61, 363–64, 366–71, 

373–74, 376–80

in Mini-Tet: 563–65, 568–72, 

574–77, 579, 581–83, 585, 587, 589

in National Priority Area: 83, 

85–92, 94–98, 100–102, 104, 

106, 108, 110–12, 114–20

northern provinces, fighting in: 

381, 384, 392–93, 399, 401, 413, 

423, 426, 428

planning for 1968 and: 3, 19, 21, 

29, 31–32, 35, 37, 40

in renewed general offensive: 

529–30, 532, 555

Secret Self-Defense units: 35–36

Self-Defense units: 35–36, 204, 

639, 677

taxation: 19, 35, 128, 141

in Tet offensive: 258–61, 264, 268, 

281–82, 284, 286, 288, 291–93, 

299–301, 304, 308, 310–15, 321

third general offensive and: 642, 

646, 649, 651, 653, 655–57, 670

Viet Cong organizations and units

20/7 Heartland Zone: 470

5th PLAF Division: 47–48, 56, 

62–63, 101, 107–08, 110, 261, 

349–50, 352, 460, 563, 565, 642, 

648–50, 652–54, 662, 669–70

9th PLAF Division: 47–48, 50–52, 

54–56, 58–65, 73, 80–81, 

353–54, 459, 462, 466, 561–62, 

570–72, 574, 586–87, 642, 

648–49, 668–70

1st Quyet Thang Regiment: 584–85

84A PLAF Artillery Regiment: 48, 

73

401st PLAF Main Force Regiment: 

495

Cuu Long II Regiment: 567, 

569–70, 572, 578

Dong Thap I Regiment: 469

1st Long An Battalion/506th 

Battalion: 576–78, 580, 656

1st Quyet Thang Battalion: 92, 94

1st Sapper Battalion: 392, 414

2d Go Mon Battalion: 341, 354

2d Long An Battalion/508th 

Battalion: 117, 345, 576, 579, 

581–82, 589, 656

2d Sapper Battalion: 392–93, 414

3d Di An Battalion: 87, 331–32

4th Thu Duc Battalion: 87, 354, 

563, 575

5th Nha Be Battalion: 117, 345, 

576, 579–80, 589

7th Cu Chi Battalion: 463

10th Sapper Battalion: 315, 

383–84

12th Sapper Battalion: 391–93

20th Montagnard Battalion: 311
Staying the Course

746

20th Sapper Battalion: 658

28th Sapper Battalion: 299

30th Main Force Battalion: 204

38th Local Force Battalion: 242

48th Local Force Battalion: 311, 

488–89, 495

50th PLAF Battalion: 191

52d PLAF Artillery Battalion: 48

58th PLAF Artillery Battalion: 48

70th Main Force Battalion: 233, 

312, 484

72d Local Force Battalion: 484

72d Main Force Battalion: 312, 

485–86

74th Local Force Battalion: 485

74th Main Force Battalion: 312

80A Replacement and Training 

Regiment: 64

81st PLAF Local Force Battalion: 

310, 495

83d Local Force Battalion: 488

85th Local Force Battalion: 204, 

288, 290, 477

105th Local Force Battalion: 312

120th Sapper Battalion: 557

145th Main Force Battalion: 623

186th Local Force Battalion: 212, 

623

216A Main Force Battalion: 368

261st Main Force Battalion: 141, 

469

261A Main Force Battalion: 373, 

469

261B Main Force Battalion: 373, 469

263d Main Force Battalion: 128, 

130, 132, 134–35, 374, 469, 655

263A Main Force Battalion: 373

263B Main Force Battalion: 373

265th Main Force Battalion: 

372–73, 656

267th Main Force Battalion: 92, 

112, 333, 336, 459, 462

269th Main Force Battalion: 90, 

92, 112, 336, 459, 462

301st Local Force Battalion: 295

303d Local Force Battalion: 363, 

377

304th Local Force Battalion: 303, 

307

306th Local Force Battalion: 364, 

372, 377

307th Local Force Battalion: 206, 

361, 363, 377

308th Local Force Battalion: 364, 

372, 531, 586, 588–89

309th Local Force Battalion: 377

312th Local Force Battalion: 377

402d PLAF Sapper Battalion: 657

406th Sapper Battalion: 242, 303, 

307, 310, 488

407th Sapper Battalion: 299, 311

408th Sapper Battalion: 299

409th Sapper Battalion: 310

482d Local Force Battalion: 

211–12, 478, 624

501st Local Force Battalion: 365

502d Local Force Battalion: 

135–36

509th Local Force Battalion: 365

510th Local Force Battalion: 365

511th Local Force Battalion: 365

512th Local Force Battalion: 365

514th Local Force Battalion/514A 

Battalion: 135, 368, 373, 655

516th Local Force Battalion: 128, 

369, 637, 655

550th Local Force Battalion: 637, 

655

587th Local Force Battalion: 372

810th Local Force Battalion: 414

816th Main Force Battalion: 608

840th Main Force Battalion: 211, 

478, 624

C14 Local Force Battalion: 463

D16 Main Force Battalion: 459

D14 Local Force Battalion: 648–49

D440 Local Force Battalion: 355

D445 Local Force Battalion: 355

Dong Phu Local Force Battalion: 

656

E2B Local Force Battalion: 191, 

203, 291, 293

Viet Cong organizations and 

units–Continued
747

Index

H15 Local Force Battalion: 

299–300

Phu Loi I Battalion: 354, 576, 578, 

580–81

Phu Loi II Battalion: 656

R20 Local Force Battalion: 313, 

315, 657

Tay Do Local Force Battalion: 

361, 377

U Minh 2 Local Force Battalion: 

367

U Minh 3 Local Force Battalion: 

367

U Minh 10 Local Force Battalion: 

366

V25 PLAF Local Force Battalion: 

308, 313, 315, 657

50th Rear Service Group: 73

69th Artillery Group: 48

82d Rear Service Group: 73

84th Rear Service Group: 355

86th Rear Service Group: 47

F100 Special Action Group: 261, 

326, 330–31

Hue City Sapper Unit: 387, 393

Vinatexco textile factory: 333–34, 

337, 353

Vinh Binh: 364, 440

Vinh Dien River: 320

Vinh Dinh River: 382, 386

Vinh Loc District: 380, 606

Vinh Long: 264, 359, 364, 367–68, 

371–73, 377, 440, 470, 632, 635

Vollmer, Lt. Col. John P.: 151, 152, 

154, 160, 168

Volunteer Informant Program (VIP): 

613–14

Vung Ro Bay: 204

Vung Tau: 43, 425

Waldie, Col. J. R.: 610, 611

Walters, Lt. Col. Vernon J.: 288

War Zone C: 43, 72–81, 89, 92, 462, 

466, 562, 630. See also Base 

areas, enemy.

War Zone D: 43, 45–48, 62, 72, 

84–85, 101–02, 104–07, 110, 

460, 463–64, 561, 583–84. See 

also Base areas, enemy.

Ware, Maj. Gen. Keith L.: 336–37, 

338, 339, 346, 354, 561, 564, 

628–29, 643, 655, 667–68

Watke, Maj. Frederic: 492, 493

Watters, Maj. Charles J.: 174

Weapons. See Artillery weapons 

and howitzers; Bombs; 

Flamethrowers; Grenade 

launchers; Machine guns; 

Rifles; Rockets and rocket 

launchers.

Wear, Col. George E.: 240

Wells, Navy Capt. Wade C.: 130, 143

Westmoreland, General William C.

I Corps and: 219, 221, 222–23, 

224, 225, 240, 245, 252, 255, 

602, 604

Abrams replacing: 597, 598, 599

assessment of: 677, 678, 679

battles north and west of Saigon 

and: 43–44, 46–47, 50, 73

battles in Saigon area and: 323, 

325, 330, 336, 356–57, 626, 638

Central Coast defenses and: 188, 

190, 192, 197, 203, 205, 208, 

211, 215, 217

Central Highlands and: 145, 147, 

150–51, 181–82

correspondence with Wheeler: 

181–82, 258, 267–68, 325, 357, 

411, 412, 447, 500–501, 526

counteroffensive and: 459–60, 

463–64, 468, 473, 483, 493, 

495–96, 497, 498

Khe Sanh and A Shau campaigns: 

499, 500–501, 502, 512, 517, 

520, 526

Mekong Delta and: 125, 136, 

138–39, 142, 367

Mini-Tet and: 591–92, 593–94, 595

National Priority Area and: 

83–84, 88, 96, 98

northern provinces, fighting in: 

381, 391, 401, 411–12, 416, 418, 

420, 429–30n
Staying the Course

748

planning for 1968: 4–16, 17–18, 

20, 21, 22, 23–24, 26–27, 36

reinforcement debate and: 447, 

448–49, 450, 451, 452, 453, 454, 

456–57

renewed general offensive and: 

530, 537, 545

Saigon and American perspectives 

and: 443, 445–46

Tet offensive and: 257–59, 264–65, 

266, 267–68, 271–72, 273, 274, 

275–76, 277, 318–19

Weyand, Lt. Gen. Frederick C.: 23, 

45–46

in battles north and west of 

Saigon: 46, 50, 51, 60, 62, 66, 

69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 80

in battles around Saigon area: 

323–24, 336, 338, 339, 344, 347, 

626

in counteroffensive: 460–61, 463–64

in Mekong Delta: 367, 372

Mekong Delta and: 130, 136

in Mini-Tet: 561, 563–65, 567, 

569, 570, 571, 572, 584, 592

National Priority Area and: 83, 

84, 99, 100, 101, 108, 118–20

in Tet offensive: 266–68

third general offensive and: 643

Wheeler, General Earle “Bus” G.

as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 

Staff: 21, 271

correspondence with Abrams: 

592, 680, 592

correspondence with Sharp: 258, 

259, 267

correspondence with 

Westmoreland: 181–82, 258, 

267–68, 325, 357, 411, 412, 447, 

500–501, 526

on Khe Sanh and A Shau:

271–72

and Mini-Tet: 592

on reinforcement debate: 21, 447, 

448–49, 450, 451–52, 453–57, 

493

Tet offensive and: 258, 267–68, 

271, 357, 411–12

visit to Saigon: 452

White, Capt. John: 540

Widows’ Village: 351–52

Williams, Col. Harry O.: 106, 370, 

373–74, 377

Williamson, Maj. Gen. Ellis W.: 643–

44, 650, 652, 653, 654, 663, 665

Willoughby, Maj. Neill J.: 254

Wolf, Lt. Col. Duquesne A.: 645, 

646, 648–49, 652, 653, 654, 663, 

664, 665

Wunder Beach: 500, 603

Xa Cat Rubber Plantation: 67

Xa No Canal: 636

Xom Dap: 206

Xom Ong Doi: 579, 580, 582

Xom Tan Liem: 581

Xuan Loc: 107–08, 211, 355

Y Bridge: 575–82

Yen River: 315

Yerkes, Lt. Col. Robert C.: 504

Young, Brig. Gen. George H. Jr.: 

492–93, 609

Young, S. Sgt. Marvin R.: 652–53

Zais, Maj. Gen. Melvin: 604

Zastrow, Lt. Col. Richard E.: 131, 132

Zorthian, Barry: 9n12, 17

Westmoreland, General William C.–

Continued
PIN : 202298–000

he United States Army in Vietnam is a multivolume history of the Army’s involvement 

in the Vietnam War. The series treats a full range of topics, from combat operations and 

advisory efforts to logistics, communications, and engineer endeavors, to relations with the 

press and activities at the theater command level. Four combat volumes, of which Staying the 

Course is chronologically the third, describe the evolution of the Army’s operational strategy 

and its execution during a long and difficult conflict.