The U.S. Army Campaigns of the Vietnam War

TURNING

POINT

1967–1968
CMH Pub 76–5

Cover: An M113 armored personnel carrier (APC) and its crew lead the way down a street in Saigon, 

providing security for ground troops of Company B, 2d Battalion, 47th Infantry, and the 3d Brigade, 9th 

Infantry Division. (National Archives)
by

Adrian G. Traas

Center of Military History

United States Army

Washington, D.C., 2017

TURNING

POINT

1967–1968

5

Introduction

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

a divisive issue. But fifty years after the beginning 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 nonCommunist 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 reimposition 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 
6 

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 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 United States Army. They 

served their country when called, many at great personal cost, 

against a backdrop of growing uncertainty and unrest at home. 

These commemorative pamphlets are dedicated to them.

JON T. HOFFMAN

Chief Historian
7

Turning Point, 1967–1968

During October 1967, the United States appeared to be 

making slow but steady gains against the Viet Cong insurgents 

and their North Vietnamese allies who were attempting to destroy 

the South Vietnamese government. Army General William C. 

Westmoreland, the chief of the U.S. Military Assistance Command, 

Vietnam (MACV), expected to get even better results in the coming 

year as more U.S. combat units joined his command, raising its 

maximum authorized strength to 525,000 personnel. MACV 

advisers continued to modernize the South Vietnamese armed 

forces and the effort to expand government authority in the countryside appeared to be gaining traction. The enemy was suffering 

enormous casualties and many of his troops were afflicted by 

malnutrition and disease. Hammered from the air by B–52 bombers 

and disrupted by allied ground sweeps, the Viet Cong base areas 

in South Vietnam were no longer the safe havens they once had 

been. Despite these gains, however, MACV’s mission was far from 

complete. The enemy was disciplined and resourceful, sustained 

by a constant flow of arms and men from North Vietnam down the 

Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos and guided by a party that was 

ruthlessly committed to national reunification on its own terms 

(see Map 1). Knowing that the American people were unwilling 

to support a costly and protracted war, which already had cost the 

lives of more than 15,000 Americans, Westmoreland keenly felt 

the need to accelerate his progress in 1968 “on all fronts—political, 

military, economic, and psychological.”

North Vietnamese leaders also were eager to intensify the 

war, believing that the time had come “to create a new turning 

point that [would] enable us to make a great leap forward.” In the 
Map 1

Ho C h i M i n h Tr a i l

Tonle Sap

GULF

O F

TONKIN

GULF

O F

SIAM

SOUTH

CHINA

SEA

Red R

Black R

Mekong R

Mekong R

DEMARCATION LINE

HAINAN

Con Son

Phu Quoc

Haiphong

Dien Bien Phu

Vinh

Dong Hoi

Hue

Da Nang

Pleiku

Qui Nhon

Quang

Ngai

Quang Tri

Kontum

Da Lat

Nha Trang

Cam Ranh

Tay Ninh

Bien Hoa

Vung Tau

Sihanoukville

Can Tho

Loc Ninh

HANOI

VIENTIANE

BANGKOK

PHNOM PENH

SAIGON

BURMA

NORTH

VIETNAM

CHINA

CHINA

THAILAND

LAOS

CAMBODIA SOUTH

VIETNAM

INDOCHINA

1967–1968

0 150

Miles
9

autumn of 1967, Ho Chi Minh and his senior officials agreed that 

the political and military situation in South Vietnam favored the 

commencement of the long-awaited tong cong kich/tong khoi nghia

(general offensive-general uprising). North Vietnamese leaders 

resolved to attack South Vietnam’s administrative infrastructure, which meant expanding the war into the big cities for the 

first time in the conflict. The goal of the general offensive 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 “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 American 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 (People’s Worker) 

Party. Between Westmoreland’s ambitious goals and the enemy’s 

planned general offensive, 1968 looked to become the most violent 

year of the war to date, and possibly a decisive turning point by the 

time it had ended (see Map 2).

Strategic Setting

President Lyndon B. Johnson faced a political and strategic 

dilemma in late 1967, needing to see faster progress in Vietnam 

but unwilling to expand the war beyond certain limits. He 

remained committed to the goal of preserving “an independent 

non-Communist South Vietnam” as stated in his National Security 

Action Memorandum 288 from March 1964, but agonized about 

the growing human and monetary costs. Public support for the 

war was steadily eroding, and some leading Democrats were 

privately predicting a Republican victory in the next presidential election unless the United States achieved a breakthrough. 

North Vietnam showed no interest in anything short of victory, 

and seemed unfazed by the U.S. bombing campaign known as 

Rolling Thunder that had already destroyed much of its industrial base. The president could not send another large package of 

troops to Vietnam without first calling up the reserve components, 

a politically dangerous step he was unwilling to take. Johnson was 

also determined to prevent the ground war from spilling across 
 Map 2

SR 10

SR 1

SR 2

SR 3

SR 4

SR 5

SR 6 SR 8

SR 9

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

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 AN

GIANG

TRA CAN THO VINH

SOC TRANG

CA MAU

RACH GIA

PHU

 QUOC

November 1967

COMMUNIST POLITICAL BOUNDARIES

SOUTH VIETNAM

Viet Cong Military Boundary

Viet Cong Military Subregion

Viet Cong Administrative Boundary
11

the border into Cambodia, Laos, or North Vietnam, and placed 

geographical limits on the strategic bombing campaign to avoid 

hitting ground targets in Communist China or Soviet ships in 

Haiphong harbor. Nevertheless, the president held out hope that 

Westmoreland’s strategy would eventually prevail in Vietnam as 

long as the United States stayed the course.

The strategy that MACV had pursued since the start of U.S. 

combat operations in mid-1965 had three main components. 

The first goal was to wear down the Viet Cong (or PLAF [People’s 

Liberation Armed Forces]) and North Vietnamese (or PAVN [People’s 

Army of Vietnam]) conventional main force units through combat 

operations, anti-infiltration programs, and the destruction of the 

enemy’s logistical network. The second and related goal was to help 

the South Vietnamese government regain control over the territory 

and people dominated by the enemy’s shadow government, a process 

known as pacification. MACV’s third essential mission was to train 

and modernize the South Vietnamese armed forces so they could 

eventually handle the threat of internal insurgency and external 

invasion without the need for significant U.S. combat forces. 

In October 1967, General Westmoreland commanded some 

480,000 uniformed personnel, including 314,000 soldiers. His 

ground forces were organized around 77 U.S. Army maneuver 

battalions and 21 U.S. Marine Corps maneuver battalions, backed 

by 49 field artillery battalions, a sizable engineer component, and a 

powerful aviation fleet that included 3,400 helicopters. Westmoreland 

also exercised operational control over some 52,000 military 

personnel from the Free World Military Assistance Forces, which 

included 45,000 South Korean troops organized around twenty-two 

maneuver battalions, approximately 6,300 Australian and 500 New 

Zealand troops who operated as a combined two-battalion task 

force, about 2,200 soldiers from Thailand, and 2,000 noncombat 

troops from the Philippines. The MACV commander coordinated 

his actions with but did not control the South Vietnamese armed 

forces, which consisted of around 615,000 troops, most of them 

belonging to the Army of the Republic of South Vietnam. A MACV 

component command, the U.S. Seventh Air Force, supported ground 

operations in South Vietnam with fifty-two tactical squadrons as 

well as a host of reconnaissance and transport aircraft. Another 

component command, the U.S. Naval Forces, Vietnam, conducted 

an anti-seaborne infiltration program called Market Time and a 

river security operation in the Mekong Delta called Game Warden
12 

with several hundred U.S. Navy and Coast Guard patrol vessels and 

a small fleet of reconnaissance aircraft. 

Westmoreland relied on three major subcommands to direct 

the ground war in South Vietnam. The first of those, the III 

Marine Amphibious Force (III MAF), controlled U.S. operations 

in I Corps, the tactical zone that incorporated the five northernmost provinces and the Demilitarized Zone between North and 

South Vietnam. The U.S. 1st and 3d Marine Divisions guarded 

the northern and central provinces alongside a South Vietnamese 

infantry division and a South Korean marine brigade, while the 

U.S. Army’s 23d Infantry Division, better known as the Americal 

Division, operated in the central and southern zones in partnership with a second South Vietnamese division. In addition to its 

organic air and artillery, the III Marine Amphibious Force was 

aided by two helicopter battalions from the 16th Aviation Group 

and five artillery battalions from the 108th Artillery Group. The 

commander of III Marine Amphibious Force located his headquarters in the coastal city of Da Nang, which also served as the 

main port and airfield in I Corps (Map 3).

Soldiers of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) search a well for enemy supplies. National Archives
13

A second corps-level headquarters, I Field Force, controlled 

American forces across the broad expanse of II Corps in the 

middle part of South Vietnam. Two brigades from the 4th Infantry 

Division screened the remote and sparsely populated western 

highlands, while two brigades from the 1st Cavalry Division 

(Airmobile) and the independent 173d Airborne Brigade protected 

the northeastern lowlands. Two South Vietnamese infantry divisions divided their forces between the highlands and the lowlands, 

while two South Korean infantry divisions defended the central 

and southern coast. I Field Force supported those allied units with 

ARVN

XXX

I

1

X X

III MAF

XXX

3

X X

2 ROK

X

1 ARVN

X X

2 ARVN

X X

Americal

X X

196

X

1 101

X

3 25

X

DA NANG

HUE

CHU LAI

QUANG

NGAI

BA TO

KHE SANH

DUC PHO

SOUTH CHINA SEA 610

611

612

607

114

112

117

121

609

613

614

101

511

II CTZ

1

9

1

1

14

14

DEMARCATION LINE

Quang Tri

Con Thien

A Shau

Dong Ha

Hoi An

Tam Ky

QUANG

TRI

THUA THIEN

QUANG NAM

QUANG TIN

QUANG NGAI

KONTUM

BINH DINH

NORTH VIETNAM

LAOS

CAMBODIA

Corps Tactical Zone Boundary

Enemy Base Area

November 1967

I CORPS TACTICAL ZONE

0 50 Miles

0 50 Kilometers

Map 3
14 

four helicopter battalions from the 17th Aviation Group, seven 

combat engineer battalions (one battalion was under the operational control of the Americal Division in southern I Corps) from 

the 18th Engineer Brigade, and twelve artillery battalions mainly 

from the 41st and 52d Artillery Groups. The commander of I Field 

Force maintained his headquarters in the coastal city of Nha Trang; 

two other coastal cities, Qui Nhon and Cam Ranh Bay, acted as the 

main supply hubs for the U.S. forces in II Corps (Map 4). 

Another Army-led headquarters, II Field Force, controlled 

American units in the III Corps region that surrounded Saigon, as 

well as the U.S. forces in the IV Corps zone of the Mekong Delta 

(see Maps 5 and 6). The command’s major maneuver units formed 

a defensive ring around the capital, with the 25th Infantry Division 

guarding the west and northwest approaches, the 1st Infantry 

Division to the north and northeast, one brigade from the 9th 

Infantry Division and the 11th Armored Cavalry to the east, two 

brigades from the 9th Infantry Division to the south (with one 

operating in upper IV Corps alongside a U.S. Navy river fleet), 

and the 199th Infantry Brigade (Light) patrolling the immediate 

UH–1D helicopter gunships arrive at a landing zone in Phu Yen Province held by soldiers 

from the 173d Airborne Brigade. National Archives
15

22 ARVN

X X

CAP ROK

X X

23 ARVN

X X

ARVN

XXX

II

4(-)

X X 1 173

X

9 ROK

X X

XXX

I FF

FWD

XXX

ROK

1

X X

NHA TRANG

NINH HOA

TUY HOA

BAN ME THUOT

DUC LAP

CAMP ENARI

AN KHE

QUI NHON

PLEIKU

DAK TO I

DAK SEANG

DAK TO II

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

Tam Quan

QUANG TIN

QUANG NGAI

KONTUM

BINH DINH

PLEIKU

PHU BON

PHU YEN

DARLAC

KHANH HOA

QUANG DUC

TUYEN DUC

BINH THUAN

PHUOC

LONG

LAM DONG

BINH TUY

LONG

KHANH

PHUOC TUY

NINH

THUAN

CAMBODIA

LAOS

Corps Tactical Zone Boundary

Enemy Base Area

November 1967

II CORPS TACTICAL ZONE

0 50 Miles

0 50 Kilometers

Map 4
16 

outskirts of Saigon. Three South Vietnamese infantry divisions 

and two brigade-size units—the 1st Australian Task Force and 

the Royal Thai Volunteer Regiment (the “Queen’s Cobras”)—

rounded out the major maneuver units in III Corps. II Field Force 

supported those allied combat units with nine helicopter battal25 ARVN

X X

3 9

X

3 25

X

2 25

X

1 25

X

1 1

X

3 1

X

2 9

X

1 9

X

199

X

RTAVR

III

1 ATF

X

18 ARVN

X X

5 ARVN

X X

XXX

II FF

ARVN

XXX

III

1(-)

X X

11 ACR

III

5 ARVN

III

R

TRI TAM

DONG TAM

TAN AN

BLACKHORSE

NUI DAT

TAY NINH CITY

KATUM

LAI KHE

BO DUC

BU DOP

SONG BE

AN LOC

LOC NINH

PHUOC

VINH

LONG BINH BEARCAT

XUAN LOC

BIEN

HOA

DUC HOA

CU CHI PHU LOI

WAR ZONE C

FISHHOOK

WAR ZONE D

IRON TRIANGLE

IV CTZ

II CTZ

SOUTH CHINA SEA

14

20

15

13

1

1

4

4

4

4

22

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

SAIGON

CAMBODIA

Corps Tactical Zone Boundary

November 1967

III CORPS TACTICAL ZONE

0 50 Miles

0 50 Kilometers

Map 5
17

ions from the 12th Aviation Group, four combat engineer battalions from the 20th Engineer Brigade, and nine artillery battalions 

belonging to the 23d and 54th Artillery Groups. South Vietnamese 

infantry divisions bore the main burden of defending IV Corps in 

the Mekong Delta. The commander of II Field Force located his 

headquarters in a camp called Plantation at Long Binh, a massive 

logistical complex some twenty kilometers northeast of Saigon 

that served as the main distribution and storage facility for the 

ARVN

XXX

IV

2 9

X

9 ARVN

X X

21 ARVN

X X

7 ARVN

X X

DONG TAM MY THO

CAN THO

VINH LOI

SA DEC

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

Enemy Base Area

November 1967

IV CORPS TACTICAL ZONE

0 50 Miles

0 50 Kilometers

Map 6
18 

supplies that came into the port of Saigon and through the nearby 

airfields at Tan Son Nhut and Bien Hoa.

Westmoreland supported South Vietnam’s pacification program, MACV’s second key mission, through the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) 

directorate. Established in May 1967, CORDS gathered all of 

the previously existing pacification programs run by various 

U.S. civilian and military agencies into a single MACV agency 

headed by a civilian manager, Robert W. Komer, who held a 

State Department rank equivalent to that of a four-star general. 

The CORDS chief managed the flow of money and resources 

for the roughly 7,000 U.S. military advisers who assisted South 

Vietnamese officials at the province and district level. 

Pacification was a multistage process that employed a mixture 

of conventional forces, security and police units, and government 

social welfare agencies. The allies first identified a populated area 

to reclaim from the enemy and then conducted military operations in and around that sector to drive off enemy main force 

combat units. Once that had been accomplished, military forces 

would conduct further operations on the territory’s periphery to 

prevent Communist combat units from reentering it while South 

Vietnamese paramilitary, intelligence, and police forces established local security, rooted out the enemy’s clandestine political 

infrastructure, and hunted down Viet Cong guerrillas. As the area 

became more secure, the allies introduced a civil government 

and other organizations to mobilize support for the government, 

replacing Communist control with their own. Finally, the allies 

would introduce programs—educational, medical, agricultural, 

political, developmental, and humanitarian—that stole the insurgents’ thunder by redressing social ills, won public support, and 

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.

The allied campaign plan for 1968 concentrated national 

pacification resources on twenty-six of South Vietnam’s forty-four 

provinces. The plan omitted areas where the enemy’s military 

forces were strongest, such as the northernmost and southernmost reaches of the country, or areas that were remote and sparsely 

populated, such as the mountainous central highlands and provinces bordering Laos and Cambodia. The MACV and Vietnamese 
19

staffs decided that for 1968 they would focus the pacification effort 

on solidifying control over areas in which the South Vietnamese 

government already held some sway, and on those areas where a 

significant number of people could be added to the rolls of those 

living under government authority without expanding control 

over a large physical area. This approach reflected criticism that 

earlier pacification campaigns had tried to secure too many areas 

at once, often beyond the allies’ ability to protect and organize them 

properly. Consequently, new pacification initiatives for 1968 were 

very limited geographically, even within the twenty-six priority 

provinces. Most of the effort would take place in four National 

Priority Areas, one in each corps zone (see Map 7). The South 

Vietnamese Ministry of Revolutionary Development, the agency 

that spearheaded the pacification program, intended to support 

up to 2,000 hamlets (out of the national total of around 16,000) 

with its growing force of 59-man rural development teams, hoping 

to turn at least 800 of those hamlets into prosperous and secure 

settlements by the end of the year.

Another 7,000 or so U.S. troops, mostly soldiers, trained and 

equipped the South Vietnamese armed forces, MACV’s third key 

mission. Advisers worked at every level of Vietnamese military 

command, from the Joint General Staff down to battalions. Those 

attached to South Vietnamese combat units helped with their 

training, provided tactical advice, and ensured that government 

troops received timely air and artillery support. Still other advisers 

served at Vietnamese military schools, training centers, and logistical installations. 

Operations

Pushing Out to the Cambodian Border

Between late October 1967 and early May 1968, the relatively good weather conditions that prevailed over most of 

South Vietnam made it easier for U.S. forces to operate in the 

triple-canopy rainforests that lined the Cambodian border. 

Taking advantage of the logistical network he had built up over 

the previous two years, General Westmoreland directed his 

II Field Force commander, Lt. Gen. Frederick C. Weyand, to 

mount division-size operations in the northern wilderness of III 

Corps, which would continue until the monsoon rains returned 

that spring. It would be the largest U.S. offensive of the war to 
20 

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

AN

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

Map 7
21

date, involving eight maneuver brigades at its peak. Weyand 

intended to cut the three main infiltration routes that entered 

the northern part of III Corps: the Saigon River Trail, which 

descended through the western provinces of Tay Ninh and Hau 

Nghia; the Serges Trail, which passed through the central provinces of Binh Long and Binh Duong; and the Adams Trail, which 

passed through the eastern provinces of Phuoc Long and Bien 

Hoa Provinces. The II Field Force commander expected that 

the U.S. dry season offensive would draw in most of the enemy’s 

main force regiments, keeping them well away from the National 

Priority Area in the southwestern part of III Corps, where South 

Vietnamese forces were trying to pacify the heavily populated 

and food-rich districts surrounding Saigon. If all went according 

to plan, General Weyand’s brigades would sharply reduce the 

amount of supplies reaching Viet Cong base areas in III Corps 

while also grinding down the most dangerous units belonging to 

the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), the main enemy 

headquarters in this zone.

Westmoreland and Weyand had to remain flexible in their 

plans, however, because this was the time of year when North 

Vietnamese and Viet Cong regiments emerged from hiding to 

launch dry season campaigns of their own. The enemy’s usual 

approach was to attack an isolated town or garrison somewhere 

along the border to draw allied forces into a prepared battleground 

of his choosing. With most of the South Vietnamese forces tied 

down to garrison, area security, and pacification work, the task of 

defeating them usually fell to the Americans.

General Weyand kicked off the II Field Force dry season 

campaign on 29 September 1967 with Operation Shenandoah

II. Weyand directed the 1st Infantry Division to destroy the 7th

PAVN and 9th PLAF Divisions, which operated in Binh Duong and 

Binh Long Provinces to the north of Saigon. While the 1st Infantry 

Division kept those units busy, U.S. engineers would repair and 

upgrade Highway 13, which ran due north of Saigon through 

Binh Duong and Binh Long Provinces almost to the Cambodian 

border. General Weyand needed to open the road by December 

so he could execute the second phase of his dry season campaign, 

placing and then sustaining six U.S. brigades along the Cambodian 

border, where they could reach enemy base areas that had previously been inaccessible.
22 

The enemy offered little resistance when the first U.S. units 

moved out from Lai Khe, a 1st Infantry Division base camp 

situated on Highway 13 approximately 45 kilometers north of 

Saigon. A mechanized infantry battalion from the division’s 

1st Brigade pushed north along the road, followed by the division’s engineer battalion. Equipped with Rome plows, powerful 

bulldozers that rip through vegetation with special tree-cutting 

blades, the engineers cleared away a hundred meters of vegetation on either side of Highway 13 to deny the enemy concealment, and then began upgrading the rutted dirt road to become 

an all-weather two-lane highway.

Seeing Weyand’s intention to open Highway 13 through 

the heart of Binh Duong and Binh Long Provinces, the enemy 

began to challenge Shenandoah in early October. On the 

fourth day of the month, a Communist regiment attacked the 

mechanized infantry battalion that was pushing north along 

the road from Lai Khe. Two days later, the enemy clashed with 

another battalion from the 1st Infantry Division in about the 

same area. On the seventeenth, a Viet Cong regiment from the 

9th PLAF Division ambushed another U.S. infantry battalion 

in a densely wooded area southwest of Chon Thanh. Friendly 

artillery and air strikes helped to beat back the attackers, 

but not before dozens of U.S. troops, including the battalion 

commander, had perished in the three-sided ambush.

On 27 October, the primary theater of combat shifted 

north when COSVN launched its own offensive in the northern 

Binh Long and Phuoc Long Provinces. COSVN leaders hoped 

to wipe out several of the Special Forces camps that kept tabs 

on enemy supply lines in northern III Corps. The enemy also 

intended to overrun one or more district capitals in the area to 

embarrass President Nguyen Van Thieu, recently elected head 

of state in South Vietnam’s first national election. COSVN’s 

winter-spring offensive of 1967–1968 was also the first time it 

tried to fight a battle with three divisions in a region spanning 

several provinces, a step toward its goal of conducting even 

larger operations in the future.

The initial enemy strike took place near Song Be, the capital 

of Phuoc Long Province, where North Vietnamese forces assaulted 

the encampment of a South Vietnamese infantry battalion. Assisted 

by U.S. air strikes, the defenders repulsed the attackers with heavy 

losses. Two days later on the twenty-ninth, a Viet Cong regiment 
23

attacked the district seat of Loc Ninh in neighboring Binh Long 

Province, briefly seizing control of the town but failing to overrun 

the nearby Special Forces camp. Modifying Shenandoah to deal 

with the new threat, General Weyand ordered the 1st Infantry 

Division to deploy several infantry battalions and supporting artillery to Loc Ninh in order to search for the 9th PLAF Division in the 

rubber plantations that surrounded the town. 

Those 1st Infantry Division battalions clashed repeatedly with 

Viet Cong units in the days that followed. The 9th PLAF Division 

withdrew from the area on 8 November, having sustained around 

1,000 soldiers killed in action. The threat safely past, Weyand 

withdrew the 1st Division units from Loc Ninh on 19 November 

so they could resume road-clearing operations on Highway 13.

COSVN resumed its offensive toward the end of the month, 

this time attacking two South Vietnamese outposts in Phuoc Long 

Province not far from the Cambodian border. Just after midnight 

on 29 November 1967, a reinforced battalion from the 7th PAVN 

Division attacked the district headquarters compound at Bo Duc. 

Mortar rounds also struck the Bu Dop Civilian Irregular Defense 

Group (CIDG) Special Forces camp a little more than a kilometer to 

the north. Friendly air and artillery strikes helped to oust the enemy 

from the district compound, and South Vietnamese and U.S. reinforcements moved by helicopters to the area. The enemy savagely 

attacked a battalion from the 1st Division that night, prompting 

Weyand to send several more infantry battalions to the Bo Duc–Bu 

Dop area. Several light encounters followed, and on the night of 8 

December, a U.S. battalion beat back another attack by the 7th PAVN 

Division. For the rest of the month, one U.S. infantry battalion 

remained around Bu Dop while another moved to Song Be, where it 

carried out reconnaissance-in-force operations.

While the 1st Division screened the district capitals in 

northern III Corps, it continued to repair and upgrade Highway 

13, which the division called Thunder Road. Military convoys 

began to travel its length by late November, and civilian traffic 

and economic activity also increased. The Viet Cong and North 

Vietnamese, who once moved men and supplies along the road and 

crossed it at will, launched a series of night assaults in December 

aimed at the U.S. firebases that protected the road. During one 

attack on 10 December, elements of a North Vietnamese regiment 

struck a battalion-size task force eight kilometers southwest of An 

Loc. U.S. ground fire and tactical air support drove the attackers 
24 

back with heavy losses. Other enemy attacks proved to be no more 

successful, and Highway 13 remained open as a key allied line of 

communications in northern III Corps.

General Weyand received the additional reinforcements he 

needed to cut the Adams Trail in Phuoc Long Province, one of 

the goals of the current II Field Force dry season campaign, when 

the 2d and 3d Brigades of the 101st Airborne Division flew into 

III Corps from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, during November and 

December 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 4,611 metric tons of 

equipment. An additional 3,729 metric tons of equipment made 

the journey by sea.

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. 

The unit that escorted the 3d Brigade to its new home at 

Phuoc 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 II Field Force dry season campaign. Those 

pair of squadrons brought with them over a hundred M113 ACAVs 

(armored cavalry assault vehicles), a modified version of the M113 

troop carrier equipped with a shielded and swivel-mounted M60 

machine gun on either side of the rear deck behind the commander’s .50-caliber machine gun, as well as several dozen M48A3 tanks. 

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 necessary surface 

improvements and cleared mines. 
25

On 4 December, the commander of the 11th Armored 

Cavalry, Col. Jack MacFarlane, began Operation Quicksilver

with his 1st and 2d Squadrons to open parts of Highway 13 in 

Binh Duong Province for the movement of the 3d Brigade, 101st 

Airborne Division, from Cu Chi to Phuoc Vinh. Engineers attached 

to the 11th Armored Cavalry disarmed a number of buried mines, 

including a 750-pound bomb and a 155-mm. artillery round that 

Viet Cong 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 assisted forces on the 

ground. Between sunset and sunrise their Starlight night-vision 

scopes (optical instruments that magnified the ambient light from 

stars and the moon to provide a green-hued view of the world) 

proved especially valuable. Under that protective shield, the 3d 

Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, made its way to Phuoc Vinh 

without loss. With the mission complete, Quicksilver ended on 

21 December.

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, Colonel MacFarlane then had orders to 

open Highway 14A between Loc Ninh and Bo Duc to permit 

military and commercial vehicles to travel once again between 

the northernmost district capitals in Binh Long and Phuoc Long 

Provinces. Opening Highway 14A would also allow Colonel 

MacFarlane to interdict the Serges Trail during the middle and 

late dry season (January to April) when Communist infiltration 

efforts typically reached their peak. As for the Adams Trail in 

northeastern Phuoc Long Province, General Weyand intended 

to block that route with a massive air assault operation known as 

San Angelo conducted by the newly arrived 2d and 3d Brigades 

of the 101st Airborne Division.

That left the 25th Infantry Division to cut the Saigon River 

corridor, the largest of the three Communist infiltration routes 

in northern III Corps. The trail began in the Fishhook region of 

Cambodia, passed south through the triple-canopy rainforest of 

War Zone C in northern Tay Ninh Province, and then followed 

the course of the Saigon River through a series of forested base 
26 

areas that lined the border between Hau Nghia and Binh Duong 

Provinces before terminating on the outskirts of Saigon. Despite 

being subjected to heavy B–52 bombing raids, an extensive defoliation program, and some of the largest search-and-destroy operations of the war, the Saigon River infiltration network continued 

to support the 9th PLAF Division and around a dozen Viet Cong 

infantry battalions. For the dry season campaign that began in 

November 1967, General Weyand ordered the commander of the 

25th Infantry Division, Maj. Gen. Fillmore K. Mearns, to interdict that supply channel by putting two brigades across its path in 

northern Tay Ninh Province while keeping a third brigade in Hau 

Nghia Province to handle the enemy forces that operated along the 

Saigon River.

Before General Mearns initiated his dry season offensive in 

the wilderness of northern Tay Ninh Province, he used elements 

from all three of his brigades to sweep the jungles and disused 

rubber plantations near the division’s base at Cu Chi, located on 

Highway 1 in western Hau Nghia Province some twenty kilometers 

northwest of Saigon, to ensure that his rear area would be as safe as 

possible. Operation Atlanta got under way on 18 November when 

General Mearns air-assaulted several regular infantry battalions in 

and around the western part of the Iron Triangle, a heavily forested 

enemy base wedged between the Saigon River and Highway 13 

in neighboring Binh Duong Province. Once those troops had 

secured the sector between Cu Chi and the Iron Triangle, Mearns 

sent a mechanized infantry battalion and 25th Division engineers 

equipped with Rome plows through the corridor and across the 

river by barge to begin the jungle-clearing phase of Operation 

Atlanta. Over the next three weeks, the 2d Brigade task force 

cleared nearly 4,452 hectares of jungle and destroyed approximately 7,000 meters of tunnels, further reducing the size of the 

Viet Cong sanctuary though not eliminating it completely. The 

Americans also seized nearly 181 metric tons of rice and killed 

143 enemy soldiers. U.S. losses came to 18 dead and 74 wounded, 

many of those casualties coming from mines and booby traps that 

the enemy used to protect his supply caches.

In the first week of December, General Mearns recalled his 

forces from the Iron Triangle so the 25th Infantry Division could 

prepare for the next phase of the dry season campaign. His 2d 

Brigade under Col. Edwin W. Emerson commenced Operation 

Saratoga on 8 December, a security-oriented operation that 
27

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 destroy the Viet Cong battalions that 

maintained base camps in the Filhol Plantation and the Ho Bo 

Woods to the 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 security on Highway 1 

between Gia Dinh Province and Tay Ninh Province, the main line 

of supply for the 25th Infantry Division.

The same day that his 2d Brigade began Operation 

Saratoga, General Mearns’ 1st and 3d Brigades, reinforced 

by a tank battalion and an air cavalry squadron, commenced 

a search-and-destroy mission in northern Tay Ninh Province 

called Operation Yellowstone. The sparsely inhabited, triplecanopy rainforest of War Zone C, the largest Communist base 

area in III Corps, offered ideal concealment for the elaborate 

network of camps and trails that linked bases on the Cambodian 

border to the Saigon River corridor. For nearly half of the year, 

the vast territory was an opaque and nearly impenetrable 

stronghold. Only a handful of provincial roads penetrated War 

Zone C and they turned to mud during the wet season. While 

dry weather prevailed, the two brigades from the 25th Infantry 

Division would take advantage of the firm soil and good flying 

conditions to operate close to the Cambodian border. The 

division would also help build two new Special Forces camps 

deep in War Zone C so the allies could more easily monitor the 

border after Operation Yellowstone ended sometime in April 

or May. 

General Mearns set Yellowstone in motion on 8 December, 

air-assaulting two infantry battalions to the small hamlet of 

Katum, located at the northern terminus of Highway 4 in the 

north-central part of the War Zone C. They met no resistance. 

When the two battalions finished securing the area a few days later, 

General Mearns ordered a task force consisting of tanks, artillery, 

and engineers to head north from Tay Ninh West, the 1st Brigade’s 

base camp located on the outskirts of Tay Ninh City. Arriving via 

Route 4 without incident, the task force began building Firebase 

Custer, which would serve as the 1st Brigade’s forward base for 

the duration of Yellowstone. The engineers in the task force also 

helped one of the infantry battalions construct a second firebase 
28 

known as Beauregard some five kilometers to the southeast near 

the village of Bo Tuc. The firebase was positioned 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, General Mearns sent his 3d Brigade under Col. Leonard 

R. Daem based at Dau Tieng, thirty kilometers east of Tay Ninh 

City, into the southeastern edge of War Zone C. Joined by two 

South Vietnamese infantry battalions, the 3d Brigade units located 

numerous supply caches but few enemy soldiers. 

Communist resistance stiffened during the second week 

of Yellowstone. Around two hours after midnight on 15 

December, North Vietnamese mortar crews from the 7th PAVN 

Division opened fire on Firebase Beauregard, manned by the 

25th Division’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 six hundred 105-mm. shells 

before U.S. soldiers forced them to retreat. The North Vietnamese 

left behind forty bodies, while the defenders lost six killed and 

twelve wounded. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

A modified D7E bulldozer equipped with a Rome plow and an armored cab
29

In anticipation of a showdown, both sides moved extra forces 

into the region during the second half of December. COSVN

placed two regiments from the 9th PLAF Division along the 

border between the Fishhook region and War Zone C, where they 

could block a possible allied incursion into Cambodia as well as 

defend the upper portion of the Saigon River supply trail. On 

the American side, General Mearns moved the 3d Brigade, 25th 

Division, from Dau Tieng into the northeastern part of War Zone 

C, extending eastward the position already established by his 1st 

Brigade at Firebases Custer and Beauregard along Route 244. 

By the evening of 29 December, the 3d Brigade had moved into 

its new forward base camp, Firebase Burt, on a south-running 

branch of Route 246 some twelve kilometers southeast of Firebase 

Beauregard.

Firebase Burt measured a kilometer from east to west and 

half that distance from north to south, with the road running 

vertically through the middle of the outpost. Unable to fit all 900 

men and their equipment on open ground, Colonel Daem’s task 

force had extended the eastern tip of Burt a few dozen meters 

into trees. The brigade commander located his command post and 

supply area at the center of the base. The 3d Battalion, 22d Infantry, 

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 

Dusters from Battery B of the 5th Battalion, 2d Artillery, and a 

pair of M55 truck-mounted quad .50-caliber machine guns from 

Battery D, 71st Artillery, gave the defenders additional protection.

COSVN reacted quickly to the presence of Firebase Burt, 

located only a few kilometers west of the Saigon River infiltration 

route. On the evening of 31 December, the 271st and the 272d 

Regiments from the 9th PLAF Division moved into attack position, 

while a 24-hour truce for the New Year went into effect.

The enemy attack got under way shortly before midnight on 

1 January, just as the truce was expiring. Supported by a fierce 

mortar barrage, several hundred enemy soldiers streamed out of 

the trees to attack the northern and southern ends of the firebase 
30 

simultaneously. 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 that knocked out an M113 armored personnel carrier 

and an M42 Duster, the enemy troops clawed their way toward 

the razor wire that surrounded Burt. At 0230, a squad of sappers 

breached the wire along the southern face of Burt. U.S. artillerymen lowered their 105-mm. howitzers and fired directly into 

the advancing Communists with beehive rounds, special warheads 

packed with metal darts. Unable to withstand the murderous fire, 

the Viet Cong withdrew, finally ending their assault just before 

daybreak. 

The failed attack on Firebase Burt had cost the enemy at 

least 379 men killed and another 8 wounded men who became 

prisoners. Radio Hanoi claimed that the Communist forces 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 in early 1967. COSVN clearly viewed Operation 

Yellowstone as a significant threat, forcing the enemy to commit 

large portions of his 7th PAVN and 9th PLAF Divisions to defend 

War Zone C and thus drawing those units away from the National 

Priority Area of central III Corps. As the 1st and 3d Brigades of the 

25th Infantry Division settled into their forward positions along 

Route 246 at the beginning of 1968, it remained to be seen whether 

COSVN would fight for its still-concealed supply dumps in War 

Zone C or forfeit them in order to pursue other, more pressing 

missions. 

East of Saigon

As the U.S. 1st and 25th Infantry Divisions pushed into the 

enemy-held wilderness in northern III Corps, General Weyand’s 

third major combat force, the U.S. 9th Infantry Division, continued 

its long-standing mission to protect the provinces east and south 

of Saigon. Eager though he was to interdict the Viet Cong supply 

channels near the Cambodian border, Weyand also needed to 

maintain sufficient combat power near the capital to assist the 

three South Vietnamese infantry divisions and one Ranger group 

that defended the National Priority Area around Saigon—a zone 
31

averaging fifty kilometers deep that included all of Gia Dinh and 

Bien Hoa Provinces and certain segments of Binh Duong, Hau 

Nghia, Long An, Phuoc Tuy, and Long Khanh Provinces. The II 

Field Force commander was also responsible for protecting the 

massive Bien Hoa–Long Binh military complex in northwestern 

Bien Hoa Province that acted as the central logistical hub for II 

Field Force and as a primary command and control center for 

both U.S. and South Vietnamese forces. Over the next six months, 

Weyand planned to carry out a series of limited, security-oriented 

missions in eastern and southern III Corps to keep the enemy 

main force threat under control, while the rest of II Field Force 

conducted offensive missions far to the north of Saigon.

General Weyand retained seven combat brigades near the 

pacification priority area of central III Corps during the 1967–

1968 dry season. The 1st and the 25th Infantry Divisions each kept 

one brigade in the districts north of Saigon to support the South 

Vietnamese forces in Binh Duong and Hau Nghia Provinces. 

East of the capital, the U.S. 9th Infantry Division maintained a 

brigade in Bien Hoa Province to work alongside the 199th Infantry 

Brigade (Separate) and the Thai “Queen’s Cobra” Regiment. The 

1st Australian Task Force was to continue security operations in 

its traditional sector of Phuoc Tuy Province, southeast of Saigon. 

The 11th Armored Cavalry, normally stationed in southern Long 

Khanh Province, would spend November conducting roadclearing missions until departing for northern III Corps for the 

rest of the dry season. South of Saigon, a second brigade from the 

9th Infantry Division would continue to shield pacification areas in 

Long An Province and to protect lines of communications, lending 

assistance when needed to the division’s third brigade, which 

was operating with an amphibious task force in upper IV Corps. 

General Weyand believed that these formations—supported by 

a major portion of the 12th Aviation Group, the 23d and 54th 

Artillery Groups, and almost a dozen fixed-wing attack squadrons, not to mention significant South Vietnamese forces—would 

be able to shield pacification activities around Saigon for the next 

six months, while his remaining forces conducted the offensive 

portion of his dry season campaign in northern III Corps.

One of Weyand’s first priorities in eastern III Corps at the 

start of the dry season was to move the 199th Infantry Brigade 

from Gia Dinh Province, where it had spent the last year partnering with the South Vietnamese 5th Ranger Group on a local 
32 

security mission known as Operation Fairfax/Rang Dong, 

to northern Bien Hoa Province so it could screen the Dong 

Nai River corridor that lay between the Communist sanctuary 

known as War Zone D and the allies’ Bien Hoa–Long Binh 

logistical complex. That move would free up elements of the 

9th Infantry Division so that they could operate in Long Khanh 

Province to cover the temporary absence of the 11th Armored 

Cavalry. Eventually, the II Field Force commander planned to 

transfer the entire 9th Infantry Division down into the Mekong 

Delta, a move that compelled him to scale back the division’s 

responsibilities in eastern III Corps.

The 199th Brigade’s new mission, Operation Uniontown/

Manchester, had two objectives. The first, Uniontown, was 

to prevent enemy forces in War Zone D from attacking the Bien 

Hoa–Long Binh complex, especially those equipped with 122-mm. 

rockets that had a maximum range of almost 9,000 meters. The goal 

of Manchester was to interdict the Communist supply channel 

that led from War Zone D toward Saigon following a network of 

foot and ox trails that ran parallel to the Dong Nai River in Binh 

Duong Province. 

The enemy reacted strongly when the 199th Infantry 

Brigade began operating north of the Dong Nai River astride 

the War Zone D supply line. On the night of 4 December, enemy 

mortars pounded the forward base of the 4th Battalion, 12th 

Infantry, known as Firebase Nashua, killing or wounding several 

Americans. The battalion commander sent out patrols to locate the 

enemy gunners. On the morning of the sixth, Company A discovered a nest of enemy-held bunkers several kilometers southeast 

of Nashua. When the U.S. soldiers assaulted the complex, they 

discovered that it was far larger than first presumed and defended 

by an entire battalion from the Dong Nai Regiment. The 199th 

Brigade committed reinforcements from the 3d Battalion, 7th 

Infantry, and a group of armored personnel carriers from Troop 

D of the 17th Cavalry, eventually seizing the bunkers. When the 

fighting ended that evening, a total of twenty-five U.S. soldiers 

had been killed and another eighty-two wounded. The enemy left 

behind sixty-seven of his dead. COSVN was clearly unwilling to let 

the 199th Brigade operate so close to War Zone D without a fight.

In the remaining weeks of December, the 199th Brigade 

clashed with the Dong Nai Regiment several more times, resulting 

in total U.S. casualty figures of 35 killed and 126 wounded in its 
33

first month of Uniontown/Manchester. 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 had steered clear of 

the pacification areas in northern Bien Hoa Province.

East of Saigon, the 1st Brigade of the 9th Infantry Division 

continued its long-standing security mission in southern 

Bien Hoa, western Long Khanh, and northwestern Phuoc Tuy 

Provinces known as Operation Riley. Chief among its goals was 

protecting the major roads in eastern III Corps, particularly 

Highway 1, which ran in a northeastern direction from Saigon 

to Bien Hoa City, and then headed due east some 120 kilometers to the II Corps boundary. Halfway along that stretch of road 

was Xuan Loc, the rubber plantation town that served as the 

main base of the South Vietnamese 18th Infantry Division and 

the capital of Long Khanh Province. The 54th Artillery Group 

also maintained its headquarters next to the South Vietnamese 

division compound on the eastern side of town. A second important road was Highway 15, which originated in Bien Hoa City, 

heading south and east past Long Binh to Camp Martin Cox, the 

main base camp for the 9th Infantry Division, and then another 

forty-five kilometers to the capital of Phuoc Tuy Province, a town 

known as Phuoc Le or Ba Ria. Nui Dat, the main base camp of 

the 1st Australian Task Force, lay seven kilometers northeast of 

Ba Ria. From Ba Ria, Highway 15 traveled southwest another 

twenty kilometers to Vung Tau, a small port and fishing town 

built at the end of a peninsula that jutted out into the South 

China Sea. The third and final major road in eastern III Corps 

was provincial Highway 2, which ran due south from Xuan Loc 

past Camp Blackhorse, the home of the 11th Armored Cavalry, 

before terminating at Ba Ria, a total distance of around fifty 

kilometers.

At the start of the dry season in late 1967, General Weyand 

instructed the commander of the 9th Infantry Division, Maj. Gen. 

George G. O’Connor, to secure and then upgrade Highway 1 from 

Xuan Loc to the II Corps boundary, a stretch of road that had 

been closed for several years. Elements of the 1st Australian Task 

Force, the 11th Armored Cavalry, and the South Vietnamese 18th 

Infantry Division also joined the two-month operation known as 

Santa Fe. The road-opening mission was part of a larger campaign 

to restore an unbroken highway connection from the Cambodian 
34 

border near Saigon to the Demilitarized Zone. Operation Santa 

Fe would also give Weyand a chance to attack several camps used 

by the 5th PLAF Division, the main threat in eastern III Corps.

The allies encountered only minimal resistance during Santa 

Fe. As it turned out, the headquarters of the 5th PLAF Division

and its 275th Regiment had already gone north to participate in 

the fighting around Song Be, while the 274th Regiment chose to 

remain hidden in a base area north of Xuan Loc. Only some rear 

service troops and security elements were on hand to defend the 

ground. Protected by the 1st Brigade, 9th Infantry Division, U.S. 

engineers swept Highway 1 for mines and repaired its surface, 

while the South Vietnamese Army posted troops at regular intervals along its length as far as the II Corps boundary. With those 

forces in place at the beginning of January 1968, a military convoy 

accompanied by 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. 

Fighting in the Mekong Delta

Much like the territorial security and road protection 

mission that General O’Connor’s 1st Brigade performed in 

eastern III Corps, the 3d Brigade of the 9th Infantry Division 

had spent the last year conducting a similar operation in Long 

An Province, south of Saigon, known as Enterprise. Despite 

the presence of two regiments from the South Vietnamese 25th 

Infantry Division, Long An Province remained one of the least 

secure in all of III Corps. That was of particular concern to 

the South Vietnamese government because Long An served 

as Saigon’s gateway to the Mekong Delta. The capital relied on 

food purchased in the delta and then shipped north on roads 

and canals that passed through Long An. The province also 

produced around 254,000 metric tons of rice each year, representing over one-third of the total harvest in III Corps. The 

South Vietnamese government needed to maintain a strong 

foothold in Long An Province to guarantee an adequate food 

supply for Saigon. 

In late October 1967, the commander of the 3d Brigade, 9th 

Infantry Division, Col. George W. Everett, controlled two infantry 

battalions and one mechanized battalion in the Enterprise

sector. He maintained his primary base near Tan An, the provin-
35

cial 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 Colonel Everett kept several U.S. Huey helicopter companies for airmobile operations. 

As the dry season started, the Viet Cong forces in Long An 

Province initiated an offensive to cut Highway 4, timed to coincide 

with the 9th PLAF Division’s offensive in northern III Corps. In the 

week that followed, sapper companies destroyed several bridges on 

Highway 4 and cratered the road with explosives. Viet Cong cadre 

mobilized the population to dig up secondary roads. Guerrilla 

units attacked Regional and Popular Forces outposts, and Viet 

Cong mortar crews shelled the district towns.

The offensive against Highway 4 and its subsidiary routes 

not only threatened the pacification program in Long An 

Province by reducing government access to rural areas, but 

it also posed a risk to the 9th Infantry Division’s main supply 

corridor south of Saigon. To protect the U.S. supply convoys that 

traveled each night between Long Binh and Dong Tam, General 

O’Connor gave the 3d Brigade extra equipment, which Colonel 

Everett passed on to the mechanized 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry. 

Included in the reinforcement were a pair of M42 Duster selfpropelled vehicles, each mounting a pair of rapid-fire 40-mm. 

cannon, additional jeeps equipped with powerful searchlights, 

and extra Starlight scopes.

By day, helicopters loaded with infantry teams prowled the 

skies, landing frequently here and there in a tactic known as 

“jitterbugging,” so the scouts on board could investigate potential 

Viet Cong hiding spots such as tree lines and densely vegetated 

riverbanks. At night, “roadrunner” teams consisting of an infantry 

platoon and five M113 armored personnel carriers traveled up 

and down Highway 4 looking for enemy sappers. The vehicles 

sometimes raced along at top speed in order to catch Viet Cong 

mine layers before they could hide. At other times, an infantry 

squad would hop off the moving vehicles and then set an ambush 

for sappers who might appear when the sound of the armored 

personnel carriers had died away. 

The enhanced security measures soon took effect. The 3d 

Brigade eliminated several elite Viet Cong mine-laying teams and 

neutralized favorite ambush spots with stay-behind patrols and 

intermittent artillery strikes. The guerrillas who carried out most 
36 

of the sniping missions soon faded away, as did the civilian labor 

gangs who dug up roads. By the middle of December, the flow of 

traffic in Long An Province had returned to normal.

To the south in Dinh Tuong Province, part of the IV Corps 

Tactical Zone that covered sixteen provinces in the Mekong Delta, 

a joint U.S. Army-Navy task force called the Mobile Riverine 

Force operated from an amphibious base at Dong Tam, situated 

on the northern bank of the Mekong River some six kilometers 

west of the provincial capital My Tho. The army component of the 

Mobile Riverine Force was built around the 2d Brigade of the 9th 

Infantry Division, consisting of three standard infantry battalions. 

Helicopter companies from the 164th Aviation Group stationed 

near the cities of Can Tho and Vinh Long, southwest of Dong Tam, 

provided airmobile support to the 2d Brigade whenever it was 

needed. The naval component of the Mobile Riverine Force, Task 

Force 117, consisted of a river support squadron, built around 

three converted World War II–era LCTs (Landing Craft, Tank) 

that could house a full infantry battalion and an artillery battery, 

and two river assault squadrons, each composed of around one 

hundred small vessels designed to provide troop lift and gunfire 

support to the river support squadron. 

When the Viet Cong launched their dry season offensive 

against Highway 4, General O’Connor directed the Mobile 

Riverine Force (with two battalions afloat) to locate and destroy 

the enemy in Dinh Tuong Province. On 2 November, the Mobile 

Riverine Force commenced Operation Coronado IX, steaming 

up the Mekong River and then turning north into the maze 

of canals and streams that crisscrossed western Dinh Tuong 

Province. The amphibious task force established several firebases 

in the heart of Base Area 470, the main Viet Cong supply and 

staging area in the province, and then began searching for hidden 

caches and enemy units. 

In the early hours of 18 November, two Viet Cong battalions 

attacked one of those 9th Division outposts, Firebase Cudgel,

a soggy piece of farmland measuring some 300 meters by 250 

meters defended by a reinforced infantry company and two 

artillery batteries. The battle was fought at close range, with Viet 

Cong soldiers intermingled with U.S. troops in the darkness. 

The artillerymen fired their howitzers straight into the attacking 

Communists, and armed helicopters raked the enemy-infested 

trees and bushes around Cudgel using a flashing strobe light 
37

inside the perimeter to orient their attack runs. When the fighting 

ended the next morning, the U.S. troops located only five enemy 

corpses, though it was likely that up to 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.

In the remaining six weeks of 1967, the Mobile Riverine Force 

inflicted more sharp losses on the enemy in northeastern IV Corps, 

putting several Viet Cong main force battalions out of action for 

the time being. Highway 4 remained open to traffic as did the 

commercial waterways that lead to and from Saigon. Nevertheless, 

the Viet Cong dry season offensive, which hit the upper delta in 

late October 1967, combined with smaller attacks elsewhere in IV 

Corps, produced setbacks for the pacification program in nine out 

of the sixteen provinces, including Dinh Tuong, Kien Tuong, and 

Go Cong Provinces in the upper delta where the Mobile Riverine 

Force operated. Unless the allies improved the security situation in 

the Mekong Delta, the enemy would continue to draw on the vast 

reservoir of food and manpower it contained.

Into the Western Highlands

A few days after the battles at Loc Ninh and Song Be got 

started in III Corps, another border battle erupted in the western 

highlands of II Corps. Just a few kilometers from the international border in northwest II Corps, Dak To lay astride a natural 

infiltration route into Kontum and Pleiku Provinces. Dak To 

consisted of the town and district headquarters on Highway 14, 

the short Dak To 1 airstrip a few kilometers to the southwest 

along Route 512, the larger Dak To 2 airfield and brigade base 

camp farther west, and beyond that the Ben Het Special Forces 

camp, where construction had begun on an airstrip and a future 

artillery site for 175-mm. guns that could reach the enemy’s base 

camps inside Cambodia and southern Laos. The trio of allied 

bases lined the north end of a valley that was surrounded on all 

sides by peaks and ridges varying between 792 to 1,311 meters 

high. Tall trees that formed double and triple canopies covered 

the steep slopes.

When the 4th Infantry Division began Operation MacArthur

in mid-October 1967, the sweeps throughout the western highlands 

region produced only sporadic contact with the enemy. This soon 
38 

changed. Near the end of the month, allied intelligence detected 

signs that the 1st PAVN Division had crossed the Cambodian 

border into Kontum Province, with Dak To being its most likely 

target. At the beginning of November, an enemy soldier from the 

1st Division confirmed that information when he defected to the 

allies. The commander of I Field Force, Lt. Gen. William B. Rosson, 

ordered the 4th Infantry Division to deploy its 1st Brigade headquarters and two infantry battalions to Dak To. He also instructed 

the 173d Airborne Brigade currently operating on the central coast 

to send one of its four battalions and to put two more on standby.

The coming fight around Dak To was destined to become one 

of the largest and bloodiest battles of the entire war. The enemy’s 

plan was simple: lure allied units into the hills around Dak To, 

where the rugged, forest-covered terrain would negate some of 

the U.S. advantages in firepower and helicopter mobility. In June, 

the Communists had nearly overrun a company from the 173d 

Airborne Brigade in the hills south of Dak To. This time they 

hoped to isolate and annihilate several U.S. companies at once, 

something they had never yet managed to do. From the allied 

perspective, U.S. commanders were more than willing to fight 

the enemy in the hills around Dak To if that gave them a chance 

to hammer the main force units with sustained artillery and air 

strikes, including the devastating B–52 Arc Light raids so feared 

by Communist soldiers. 

Initially, the 4th Division’s 1st Brigade sent one infantry 

battalion to occupy the ridgeline immediately south of Dak To 1 

known as Rocket Ridge, the best vantage point for enemy artillery crews. A second battalion deployed to a smaller ridgeline 

immediately south of Dak To 2, and the airborne battalion moved 

into Ben Het to the west of Dak To 2. During the first week of 

November, the 4th Division encountered enemy units moving 

to preselected and sometimes previously prepared positions. 

These fierce encounters prompted General Creighton B. Abrams, 

Westmoreland’s deputy (Westmoreland was in Washington at the 

time) to let General Rosson deploy the 173d Airborne Brigade 

with two more battalions to the Ben Het area. In a series of helicopter assault landings, the paratroopers and infantrymen moved 

from ridge to ridge, where they faced strong resistance from the 

entrenched enemy. Meanwhile, South Vietnamese troops took 

up blocking positions east of Dak To. They were joined by additional infantry and airborne troops to the north and northeast 
39

initially to block and then to attack a North Vietnamese regiment 

moving down a valley from the northeast. To complete the ring 

around Dak To, the 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, deployed 

south and southeast to block possible attacks and intercept any 

withdrawing enemy. 

With enemy casualties mounting, the North Vietnamese 1st 

Division pulled out two of its regiments from the hills south of 

Dak To, leaving a third regiment to cover their withdrawal. This 

resulted in a violent five-day struggle beginning on 17 November 

for Hill 875, which involved three battalions of the 173d Airborne 

Brigade and a battalion from the 4th Infantry Division. After a 

battalion of the 173d Brigade suffered heavy casualties trying to 

seize the hill from a North Vietnamese force entrenched near the 

summit, the brigade commander sent in a second battalion. The 

enemy then launched a surprise attack, coming up a hidden trail 

on the side of Hill 875 and surrounding the Americans on the 

slope. A third battalion from the 173d Airborne Brigade helped 

break the encirclement, and the paratroopers finally took the hill 

with assistance from the heaviest concentration of tactical air and 

artillery on any single terrain feature in the II Corps area up to this 

point in the war. The victory had come at a punishing cost: the 

173d Airborne Brigade had lost 115 killed and over 250 wounded 

during the five-day battle for Hill 875.

Among the American dead was the 173d Airborne Brigade’s 

chaplain, Maj. Charles J. Watters. He had accompanied the 

advancing troops, providing encouragement, attending the 

wounded, and administering last rites to the dying. Ignoring advice 

to the contrary, he had repeatedly left U.S. lines and braved enemy 

fire to rescue wounded paratroopers. Back inside the perimeter 

he was assisting the medics and ministering to the dying when a 

bomb dropped by a U.S. A–4 Skyhawk fighter-bomber struck his 

location. The errant weapon killed him and forty-one other paratroopers and wounded forty-five. Chaplain Watters later received 

a posthumous Medal of Honor for his actions that day. 

The last elements of the North Vietnamese 1st Division

withdrew across the border into Laos in early December, having 

sustained around 1,600 troops killed in action and perhaps twice 

that number seriously wounded. General Westmoreland described 

the Dak To fight as “an engagement exceeding in numbers, enemy 

losses, and ferocity even the Ia Drang Valley Campaign of 1965.” 

The large fleet of helicopters and fixed-wing transport aircraft in 
40 

the U.S. arsenal had allowed the MACV commander to rapidly 

reinforce the remote Dak To bases with extra troops from other 

parts of the country, proving once again the superior operational 

mobility of the allied forces. B–52 bombing strikes had shown 

their value as tactical weapons, accounting for at least a third of 

the enemy’s casualties and decimating a pair of North Vietnamese 

field headquarters. On the other hand, the Communists had 

demonstrated their ability to draw American units onto carefully 

prepared battlefields of the enemy’s choosing. All told, nearly 300 

U.S. troops had been killed and over 1,000 wounded in the month 

of fighting at Dak To. 

During the fight for Dak To, enemy units in other parts of 

Kontum and Pleiku Provinces had begun a coordinated campaign 

to impede the convoys that traveled between the coastal port of 

Qui Nhon and the regional capitals in the western highlands. 

One of the first major incidents took place on Highway 14 just 

north of Kontum City on 11 November. A U.S. engineer platoon 

was on its way to repair a bridge that the Viet Cong had damaged 

when it came under fire from several platoons of enemy soldiers 

hidden on either side of the road. Sfc. John K. McDermott was in 

the lead vehicle when a recoilless rifle round exploded against his 

truck, but he managed to keep control of the vehicle and drove it National Archives

Members of the 4th Battalion, 503d Infantry, 173d Airborne Brigade, load wounded aboard a 

UH–1D helicopter following the battle for Hill 875 at Dak To.
41

off the road to allow the rest of the convoy to get by. McDermott 

then jumped from the truck and directed his men to safety. He 

killed two Viet Cong attackers before two more leaped at him, 

bringing him to the ground. After struggling free, he wounded 

the attackers and then proceeded to drive several trucks out of the 

ambush site while under heavy fire. Despite intensive enemy rifle 

fire and exploding grenades, he rallied his men in a counterattack. 

Meanwhile, S. Sgt. Frank J. Walker, a squad leader who was riding 

behind McDermott when the ambush occurred, leaped from his 

truck and charged into enemy machine-gun fire, knocking out 

several Viet Cong positions. These heroic actions allowed the 

convoy to move out of danger. Within a half hour, reinforcements 

arrived and drove off the enemy. Six Americans died and four were 

wounded in the encounter. Nine Viet Cong were confirmed dead. 

General Westmoreland later awarded the Distinguished Service 

Cross for valor to both sergeants in a ceremony at Pleiku.

As the enemy began targeting supply convoys in II Corps, 

U.S. units developed countermeasures. Military police units 

were equipped with V–100 armored cars but they were too few 

in number to accompany all convoys. The same was true for 

armed helicopters. Forced to improvise, the soldiers of the 8th 

Transportation Group resorted to fitting side and armor plating 

and sandbagging floors to their five-ton cargo trucks. Trucks 

were usually equipped with M60 and .50-caliber machine guns. 

Specially fitted gun trucks were jerry-rigged with heavier armor 

and weapons such as quadruple .50-caliber machine-gun mounts 

originally designed for air defense. Combined with the two or 

so armored cars per convoy, protection was still insufficient to 

cover convoys that were normally broken down into three or four 

segments, or serials, to avoid congestion. Gun truck conversions 

also meant the loss of a truck company per transportation group. 

Transportation personnel assigned as ad hoc infantry also reduced 

manpower. Drivers were told to keep moving through sniper fire 

and to contact security forces at the first sign of trouble. Meanwhile, 

the Army continued working on better convoy defensive weapons.

Fighting in Coastal Areas and Along the Demilitarized Zone

General Rosson’s strike force on the central coast, two 

airmobile brigades from the 1st Cavalry Division, continued to 

put pressure on the enemy through Operation Pershing, which 

began in February 1967 and would continue into early 1968. 
The I Field Force commander’s objective was to eliminate Viet 

Cong and North Vietnamese forces from that rice-rich coastal 

province. The 1st Cavalry Division, commanded by Maj. Gen. 

John J. Tolson, combined the surprise of cavalry with the shock 

of armor to overwhelm North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong 

defenses. Enemy fortifications were well organized and typically 

prepared in a series of hedgerows quickly thrown up in an elaborate perimeter that gave excellent cover and concealment around 

an entire village. General Tolson used an armored company on 

loan from the 4th Division equipped with M48A3 medium tanks 

to deal with the enemy fortifications. The tank’s 45-metric-ton 

weight and 90-mm. cannon were capable of destroying even the 

stoutest bunker. In September, the division received another 

armor capability with the attachment of the 1st Battalion 

(Mechanized), 50th Infantry, a recent arrival in Vietnam. The 

mechanized unit took the lead in securing Highway 1, usually 

accompanied by minesweeping teams and bulldozers. Repairing 

damage caused by enemy attacks on the forward bases and countering his increased use of mines and booby traps drew heavily on 

the 1st Cavalry Division’s engineers. The onset of the monsoon 

limited the movement of armor cross-country, and engineering 

42

National Archives

U.S. units developed countermeasures to deal with enemy targeting of supply convoys.
43

equipment, especially bulldozers and portable bridging, helped 

overcome obstacles and gaps along the way.

In late 1967, the 1st Cavalry Division fought a major battle 

against the 3d PAVN Division in northern Binh Dinh Province. 

On 6 December, a scout helicopter crew spotted an enemy radio 

antenna poking up from a hamlet near the town of Tam Quan just 

east of Highway 1. The division used “piling-on” tactics that had 

proved successful in earlier operations. An air cavalry battalion 

and elements of the attached mechanized infantry battalion 

deployed first. The 1st Brigade added forces and teamed up with 

South Vietnamese troops in a battle characterized by massive 

use of artillery, tactical air support, and air assaults. The mechanized force, which included flame-throwing armored personnel 

carriers, closed in to destroy and crush enemy trenches. Bulldozers 

supported the attackers by building a causeway over the spongy 

ground, burying trench lines, and clearing areas for helicopter 

medical evacuation. Enemy forces, consisting primarily of the 22d 

PAVN Regiment, lost 650 men during this fierce engagement and 

in several more contacts during the next two weeks.

When enemy main force units could not be found in the hills 

and wooded hamlets of coastal II Corps, which was most of the National Archives

An M48A3 Patton tank of the 1st Battalion, 69th Armor, attached to the 1st Cavalry Division 

(Airmobile), moves through the dense jungle in Binh Dinh Province during Operation 

Pershing.
44 

time, U.S. units helped South Vietnamese units and local authorities carry out a variety of security and economic development 

programs designed to win the loyalty of the rural population and 

extend the reach of government control. Turning dirt roads into 

paved, all-weather routes, building new bridges or strengthening 

old ones to carry the weight of heavy vehicles, and establishing 

manned checkpoints at regular intervals on Highway 1 prompted 

a resurgence of commercial traffic and a growing confidence on 

the part of the South Vietnamese government trying to reclaim 

control over the region. A determined enemy, however, struck 

back. With renewed vigor, the Viet Cong waged a relentless 

campaign of mining the roads, ambushing vehicles, and damaging 

or destroying recently built bridges. Even though enemy activity 

along the Americal Division’s section of Highway 1 was extremely 

high, the road was never closed for an entire day. Destroyed or 

damaged bridges were usually discovered during early morning 

aerial reconnaissance flights or by minesweeper teams. Normally, 

the road was open to traffic by noon or at least before nightfall. National Archives

Artillerymen of Battery C, 1st Battalion, 21st Artillery, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), load a 

round into a 105-mm. howitzer.
45

In southern I Corps, the Americal Division faced the dual 

challenge of patrolling a long stretch of enemy-infested lowlands 

while undergoing a major organizational change. In October, one 

of the division’s permanently assigned units, the 198th Infantry 

Brigade (Light), deployed from the United States to Hoi An in 

Quang Nam Province, replacing the on-loan 1st Brigade, 101st 

Airborne Division, which returned to Phan Rang in II Corps. 

In December, a second organic unit, the 11th Infantry Brigade 

(Light), arrived at Duc Pho to replace the 3d Brigade, 4th Infantry 

Division, though the latter unit would not return to its parent 

division until March, giving the 11th Brigade time to acclimate 

to its new environment. While those swaps were taking place, the 

Americal Division continued to operate in the Que Son Valley on 

the border of Quang Nam and Quang Tin Provinces with the 1st 

Cavalry’s 3d Brigade and the 196th Infantry Brigade. This mission 

known as Operation Wallowa relieved the 1st Marine Division 

of its former responsibilities in the Que Son, allowing the Marine 

division to shift more forces to the north to strengthen the U.S. 

position in northern I Corps.

While the introduction of an Army division threw the enemy 

off balance in southern I Corps, the North Vietnamese kept relent- National Archives

Soldiers from Company A, 1st Battalion, 52d Infantry, 23d Infantry Division, provide 

cigarettes to some villagers during a search-and-clear operation in the Binh Son and Son 

Thinh Districts in Quang Ngai Province.
46 

less pressure on the marines all along the Demilitarized Zone. The 

increased shelling endangered the construction of border posts and 

bases, including the combat outpost at Khe Sanh in the mountains 

of northwestern Quang Tri Province. The construction of strongpoints, begun in April 1967, was part of the long-debated electronic 

anti-infiltration barrier, the “McNamara Line,” ordered by Defense 

Secretary Robert S. McNamara to be built from the coast to the 

Laotian border. Mounting casualties prompted Westmoreland and 

the Marine commander, who both had doubts whether the system 

would work, to halt construction temporarily and concentrate on 

improving existing strongpoints and combat bases. Meanwhile, 

electronic sensors would be dropped along the Demilitarized Zone 

as listening devices to detect enemy movement. As 1967 came to an 

end, Marine units were constantly pounded by North Vietnamese 

artillery that continued to pin them down inside their fortified bases. 

Although battles raged along the border and intelligence 

showed massive enemy troop movements still taking place, 

General Westmoreland believed the military situation in South 

Vietnam was turning in the allies’ favor. The South Vietnamese 

government had succeeded in holding national elections. A new 

coordinated pacification program was under way. The protective 

arc around major cities expanded, and more U.S. troops arrived, 

allowing operations to shift to the remote border regions. When 

summoned to Washington by President Johnson in November, 

Westmoreland effused his most optimistic assessment of the war. 

“It is significant,” he told the National Press Club, “that the enemy 

has not won a major battle in more than a year. In general, he can 

fight his large forces only at the edges of his sanctuaries. . . . His 

guerrilla force is declining at a steady rate. Morale problems are 

developing within his ranks.”

Planning for 1968

As 1967 drew to a close, General Westmoreland saw no reason 

to change the campaign plan for 1968 that he had issued in October. 

Over the past few months, the Communists had achieved nothing 

tangible. U.S. forces had repulsed the Communist offensives in 

northern III Corps and western II Corps at great cost to the enemy. 

During 1967, allied units had killed an estimated 88,000 Viet Cong 

and North Vietnamese troops. Infiltration from the North had 

dropped slightly compared to the previous year. Overall, enemy 

troop strength had dipped slightly during the last year, and now 
47

stood at 261,000 combat troops and support personnel. The pacification effort was especially heartening with some two-thirds of the 

hamlets in South Vietnam judged as secure and under the control 

of the central government compared to two and a half years earlier 

when the government was being chased from the countryside and 

on the verge of collapse. Westmoreland regarded Hanoi’s choices as 

few, and he intended to keep them that way. 

Indeed, as additional U.S. ground forces arrived, he saw an 

opportunity to deploy the mobile 1st Cavalry Division as a theater 

exploitation force in areas where good weather prevailed. In a 

series of operations code-named York, the division would deploy 

to the III Corps border during the December to April dry season in 

the south. During the May to September dry season farther north, 

the cavalry division would then move to I Corps to sweep the 

four provinces along the Laotian border. Reestablishing control in 

the A Shau Valley in southwest I Corps could set the stage for an 

invasion of Laos, which, along with a possible amphibious assault 

around the Demilitarized Zone, could, Westmoreland believed, 

help end the war.

The MACV commander had also refined his earlier concept 

of a three-phase war to one of four phases. He saw 1968 as the 

year of the third phase, in which the Americans would continue 

to help strengthen the South Vietnamese military. The United 

States would also turn over more of the war effort to the South 

Vietnamese. In what he termed the fourth—and decisive—phase, 

Westmoreland could see the “U.S. presence becoming superfluous 

as infiltration slowed, the Communist infrastructure was cut up, 

and a stable government and capable Vietnamese Armed Forces 

carried their own war to a successful conclusion.” He also expected 

that the enemy would try to do something to change this trend. 

Still, he reported that if all went well, a phased withdrawal of U.S. 

forces could begin in late 1969.

The 1968 Tet Mau Than Offensive

As the new allied campaign plan was going into effect at 

the beginning of January, the enemy was making last-minute 

preparations for his general offensive-general uprising that 

would commence during the Tet Mau Than holiday at the end of 

January, a celebration that marked the beginning of the lunar new 

year. Despite Westmoreland’s belief that infiltration had declined 

precipitously, during the last two months almost 35,000 North 
48 

Vietnamese soldiers had traveled down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, 

roughly three times the normal average. Communist logisticians 

had delivered more than 55,338 metric tons of supplies to the 

southern battlefield, twice what it 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 brand-new AK47s 

and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. Rank-and-file enemy 

soldiers had received dozens of hours of political indoctrination 

meant to convince them that the war was entering its decisive 

phase and could be won within the next year.

The Communists planned to commit some 84,000 Viet Cong 

and North Vietnamese troops for the initial wave of the general 

offensive. Nearly every Communist main force and local force unit 

in South Vietnam had a role to play, some attacking into the cities 

while others blocked lines of communications or tied down allied 

units in the countryside. As always, military action was subordinate to a political goal. The Communists hoped the offensive would 

paralyze the South Vietnamese government and lead to a popular 

uprising that would undermine support for the regime in Saigon. 

If all went according to plan, war-weary South Vietnamese citizens 

would demand the formation of a new government that included 

representatives from the Viet Cong in order to negotiate an end to 

the conflict. Even if a popular uprising failed to materialize, North 

Vietnamese leaders still believed that the general offensive would 

do serious and lasting damage to the South Vietnamese state, and 

erode the confidence of its civilians and military personnel alike.

The allies received enough intelligence warnings in January 

to know that some kind of enemy offensive was in the works. 

Westmoreland alerted both his subordinates and his superiors to 

the coming danger and authorized some changes in U.S. dispositions. In III Corps, General Weyand pulled some of his units that 

were operating near the Cambodian border back to the National 

Priority Area around Saigon, just in case COSVN launched an 

attack near the capital. Allied commanders in the western highlands also put their forces on high alert after U.S. units recovered 

a Communist document that indicated that the enemy intended 

to launch an offensive in Kontum and Pleiku Provinces. However, 

General Westmoreland and his subordinates believed that 

Hanoi’s main target would be northern I Corps, where the North 

Vietnamese could easily mass their forces, as they had done around 

the Khe Sanh combat base. Allied leaders only began to appreciate 
49

the true scope of the enemy’s offensive on the early morning of 30 

January 1968 when Communist troops invaded eight major cities 

in southern I Corps and II Corps (a premature strike caused by 

a mix-up in communications between Hanoi and some regional 

commanders) (see Map 8). 

Twenty-four hours later, fighting erupted almost everywhere 

across South Vietnam as the Communists attacked 36 of 44 provincial capitals and 64 of 242 district towns, as well as 5 of 6 of South 

Vietnam’s autonomous cities, among them Hue and Saigon. Local 

force units and sappers spearheaded the assaults and attempted to 

hold their designated objectives until reinforcements could arrive 

in strength from outside the cities. Political cadres accompanied 

the assault groups with the intent, in vain as it turned out, to coax 

the local population into rebellion. The fighting in Hue and Saigon 

was especially vicious, and throughout the country heavy rocket 

and mortar fire and demolition charges damaged airfields, logistical facilities, and supply routes. While the South Vietnamese 

government and its forces constituted the prime enemy target, U.S. 

units were swept into the turmoil.

The earliest and premature attacks took place in the coastal 

cities of II Corps. At 0035 on 30 January 1968, only a half hour 

into the Vietnamese lunar New Year, mortar rounds landed near 

the South Vietnamese Navy Training Center in Nha Trang. At 

0410, two Viet Cong battalions attacked Qui Nhon, a major allied 

supply base. The important port of Cam Ranh Bay experienced 

its first major threat when sappers swam into the bay and set off a 

demolition charge on a tanker, leaving it with a diamond-shaped 

hole above the water line. Within two days, the enemy attacked 

major population centers in nine of the corps’ twelve provinces. 

Communist troops cut Highway 19 just west of Qui Nhon, as well 

as the road from Cam Ranh Bay to Ban Me Thuot in the southern 

highlands province of Darlac. Heavy fighting at Da Lat, Ban Me 

Thuot, and Kontum shut down the airfields in all three towns.

The fighting in the Qui Nhon area lasted from 30 January 

well into February and was typical of the allied experience 

in coastal II Corps. Before the attack on Qui Nhon, South 

Vietnamese forces had uncovered local Viet Cong hideouts 

and captured several cadre and prerecorded tapes to be used 

following the seizure of the radio station. Expecting an attack, 

the province chief announced a ban on fireworks, which some 

people ignored, and a curfew. Despite these precautions, a Viet 
1

9

14

14

19

14

13

15

1

1

1

1

4

4

4

4

4

21

11

20

QUANG TRI

KHE SANH

DA NANG

HOI AN

TAM KY

KONTUM

QUI NHON AN KHE

HAU BON

TUY HOA

NINH HOA

NHA TRANG

BAN ME THUOT

PLEIKU

DA LAT

PHAN THIET

XUAN LOC

PHUOC LE

TAY NINH

SONG BE

MY THO

SA DEC

VINH LONG

PHU VINH

CAN THO BEN TRE

GO CONG

PHU CUONG

BIEN HOA

LONG BINH

CHAU PHU

MOC HOA

RACH GIA

CA MAU

BAC LIEU

SOC TRANG

HUE

CHU LAI

QUANG NGAI

DAK TO

SAIGON

I CTZ

III CTZ

II CTZ

IV CTZ

SOUTH CHINA SEA

SOUTH CHINA SEA

Mekong R

Mekong R

Phan Rang

Cam Ranh

PHNOM PENH

Attopeu

Stung Treng

Tchepone

Savannakhet

Kratie

Paksé

Tan An

DEMARCATION LINE

LAOS

THAILAND

CAMBODIA

NORTH VIETNAM

TET OFFENSIVE

Engagement

1968

0

0

100

100

Miles

Kilometers

Map 8
51

Cong sapper battalion and a local force battalion slipped into 

the city, some of the insurgents disguised as South Vietnamese 

soldiers. They seized and briefly controlled the radio station, 

freed Viet Cong captives, and occupied the railway station. The 

South Vietnamese regrouped and with the help of troops from 

the South Korean Capital Division based outside the city ousted 

the attackers. The counterattack, however, destroyed the radio 

station and damaged the train station’s workshop, including a 

new General Electric locomotive, and other buildings in town.

Because the Viet Cong’s primary objectives in Qui Nhon 

were South Vietnamese facilities, the attackers initially bypassed 

the Americans unless they happened to be in the way. At daybreak 

on 30 January, three U.S. civilian contractors traveling to work in a 

company jeep passed near the radio station. The Viet Cong opened 

fire killing all three. In addition, seven U.S. troops died and several 

were wounded in Qui Nhon, including three soldiers who also 

drove by the radio station during the fighting.

The thousands of U.S. rear service troops that were based at 

dozens of logistical and administrative facilities in the Qui Nhon 

area immediately took up arms to help defend their installations. 

While the enemy focused most of his attacks on South Vietnamese 

targets, the American bases were often located nearby, putting them 

in the line of fire. On 3 February, for example, Communist rockets 

landed near the fuel storage tanks at the 84th Engineer Battalion 

west of town, leaving holes but no other damage. That same day, 

a squad of sappers infiltrated the camp itself, and the engineers 

lost two killed and two wounded. A second attack occurred on the 

twenty-sixth, along with an assault on a nearby South Vietnamese 

ammunition depot. This time the engineers killed two sappers 

without suffering any casualties. Meanwhile, the 84th Battalion’s 

quarry at Phu Tai off Highway 1, a few kilometers south of Qui 

Nhon, was hit by a mortar attack on 11 February that resulted in 

the battalion’s third combat death.

The first attacks in the highlands took place around 0130 on 

30 January at Ban Me Thuot, the capital of Darlac Province, about 

an hour following the opening strike at Nha Trang. As celebrants 

set off a string of fireworks in the streets, a barrage of mortar and 

rocket rounds struck the town, followed by a ground assault by 

two Viet Cong battalions. Simultaneously, a battalion-size attack 

took place against the small district capital of Tan Canh near Dak 

To. Thirty minutes later, a North Vietnamese regiment and two 
52 

separate battalions, almost 3,000 men, moved against Kontum 

City, the capital of Kontum Province; and a half hour later, a second 

enemy force invaded Pleiku City, the capital of Pleiku Province 

and the location of South Vietnam’s II Corps headquarters.

With one of its infantry brigades still operating with the 

Americal Division in southern I Corps, the 4th Infantry Division 

was hard-pressed to defend the western highlands. When a 

Viet Cong local force battalion stormed into Pleiku City on the 

morning of 30 January, the division assembled an ad hoc mixture 

of engineers, tankers, cavalrymen, and artillerymen to help retake 

the city. At 1500, the engineers landed by helicopter outside town 

and set up a defensive perimeter. The armor company’s tanks 

joined the task force that afternoon, followed that evening by the 

4th Engineer Battalion’s own armor force. The next morning, the 

task force and South Vietnamese troops advanced into town, took 

enemy fire, and continued the sweep until dusk. The U.S. troops 

took three prisoners, two of whom were members of sapper teams 

on suicide missions. The next morning on 1 February, the engineers formed two skirmish lines and resumed the sweep, this time 

with the tank company. This drive resulted in the killing of twentyone Viet Cong and the capture of several weapons. As the advance 

proceeded northward resistance ceased. By nightfall, the task force’s 

command post moved to a South Vietnamese artillery compound. 

One platoon reinforced the Artillery Hill Camp west of town, and 

another platoon with a platoon of tanks guarded the power plant. 

The engineers also manned a nearby observation post equipped 

with two Starlight scopes. By 1930, the observation post reported 

enemy troops moving toward town. Heavy concentrations of firepower delivered by artillery, helicopter gunships, and Air Force 

AC–47 Spooky gunships halted the advance. South Vietnamese 

troops moving through the area the next day found some bloodsoaked clothing, bandages, and equipment but no bodies. Several 

sweeps of the area followed without any traces of the enemy. Its 

mission as infantry completed, the task force returned to Camp 

Enari at 1800, 1 February, and its troops resumed normal chores 

as engineers.

At Kontum City, heavy fighting developed around government facilities and the airfield. By noon on 30 January, it 

became apparent that the South Vietnamese regular and territorial defenders needed help. The South Vietnamese rushed 

in a reinforced battalion, and the 4th Division deployed a task 
53

force centered on the 1st Battalion, 22d Infantry. In a campaign 

that lasted through 12 February, the 4th Division’s task force 

(divided into teams and supported by two batteries of artillery, 

a company of armor, a troop of air cavalry, and two Dusters) 

helped retake the city in house-to-house fighting and pursued 

the enemy through nearby hamlets and heavily defended hills 

to the north. 

Convoys in the highlands carrying men and materials 

continued to move at great risk, and ambushes took an everincreasing toll in casualties and damage to equipment. The 

enemy, believing that U.S. and South Vietnamese forces would 

be dispersed while reacting to the attacks on the cities, made it a 

point to attack isolated vehicles and large convoys alike. Because 

Highway 14 served as the main supply road between the two 

province capitals, the engineers cleared one hundred meters of 

vegetation from each side to reduce ambushes, but this did not 

discourage the attackers. On 6 March and again on 13 March, 

convoys took heavy losses. In the second attack, the vehicles at 

the rear of a 150-vehicle convoy were struck from both sides of 

the road. The enemy, estimated to range from two reinforced 

companies to two battalions, had taken positions behind berms 

of foliage and earth formed by the land clearing. After the initial 

fusillade of automatic weapons and rocket fire, sappers rushed 

toward the vehicles, throwing satchel charges at the trucks. The 

South Vietnamese armored cavalry squadron providing security 

entered the battle, and air strikes broke the attack. A few vehicles 

managed to run the ambush and clear the killing zone, but one 

destroyed truck blocked the road. A relief convoy moved to the 

ambush site to remove the disabled vehicles. Casualties totaled 

twelve dead and nineteen wounded.

Although the allies in III Corps had expected trouble at Tet, 

the number of Viet Cong who slipped through the defenses around 

Saigon in the morning of 31 January and the fury of the offensive 

came as a shock. South Vietnamese and U.S. troops recovered 

quickly, however, and ejected most of the attackers within a week, 

save for some holdouts in Cholon, the Chinese quarter of Saigon. 

The attack in Saigon began with the raid on the U.S. Embassy, a 

rectangular six-story fortress completed the previous September. 

The embassy was a dubious military objective but of significant 

psychological value. After breaching the wall and entering the 

grounds and chancery building, but not the embassy building, 
all nineteen of the sappers were killed by elements of the 716th 

Military Police Battalion, U.S. Marine Corps guards, and a platoon 

from the 101st Airborne Division. By the end of the day, five U.S. 

battalions were in and about the city and troops occupied positions along roads leading into the city. Army helicopter gunships 

were in the air almost continuously, assisting allied forces. 

Simultaneous assaults at Tan Son Nhut Air Base and the nearby 

South Vietnamese Joint General Staff compound, the presidential 

palace, and other installations in Saigon also failed, although some 

enemy soldiers did briefly penetrate the back side of the air base 

and the South Vietnamese headquarters complex. Racing through 

the night, armored cavalry from the 25th Infantry Division helped 

to defeat an enemy regiment threatening to overrun the air base. 

Communist assaults in the provinces north and west of Saigon 

and in IV Corps were also short-lived, although a second series of 

attacks in and around Saigon took place on 17 February, beginning 

with rockets striking Tan Son Nhut Air Base and MACV headquarters. Their intensity, however, was much less than the initial 

assaults. These attacks lasted intermittently until early March, 

highlighted by several fire fights in Saigon and Cholon.

54

National Archives

U.S. Ambassador Ellsworth 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. 
55

The heaviest attack to take place on the outskirts of Saigon 

commenced on the morning of 31 January when a Viet Cong 

regiment from the 5th PLAF Division assaulted the II Field 

Force headquarters at Long Binh and a second Viet Cong 

regiment from the 5th Division assaulted Bien Hoa Air Base, 

three kilometers to the west. The attack aimed at the II Field 

Force headquarters at Plantation originated from Ho Nai Village 

on the other side of Highway 1A, nicknamed “Widows’ Village” 

because it housed the widows and orphans of South Vietnamese 

soldiers. Advancing across the road, Viet Cong soldiers opened 

up with a torrent of rifle and machine-gun fire and rocketpropelled grenades against the camp. The defenders—in many 

cases cooks, radiomen, engineers, and clerks manning defensive positions—responded with automatic weapons fire and 

grenades, which stopped the assault and pinned down the 

attackers. Military police and Army helicopter gunships joined 

the fighting. Soon elements of the 199th Infantry Brigade, 9th 

Infantry Division, and the 11th Armored Cavalry swept the area, 

leaving sixty enemy dead in Ho Nai. Down the road at Bien Hoa 

Air Base, a combination of U.S. Air Force security troops and 

South Vietnamese soldiers repulsed the Viet Cong attack with 

help from helicopter gunships based on Bien Hoa, including 

several sleek new AH–1G Cobra attack helicopters.

Mechanized soldiers from the 9th Infantry Division advance into an enemy-held hamlet 

outside of II Field Force headquarters at Long Binh. National Archives
56 

The enemy interdicted all major roads from Saigon. Convoys 

caught in outlying areas often waited for days for the engineers 

to clear the way. Ground transportation in the delta was also at 

a standstill since the Vietnamese drivers, fearing reprisals, stayed 

away from work. Most highway improvement work in III and IV 

Corps ceased. River barges, which normally plied the waterways 

in the region, were held up at Vung Tau. Rail movements stopped 

entirely. For several days, only priority airlifts could reach some of 

the inland bases.

Elsewhere in III and IV Corps the enemy suffered defeats. 

South of Saigon, the riverine troops of the 2d Brigade, 9th 

Infantry Division, fought successively at My Tho, Cai Lay, and 

Vinh Long, and by the second week of February had crippled 

the offensive in the upper Mekong Delta. North of the capital, 

“tunnel rats”—specially trained teams of soldiers, usually made 

up of men of small stature, to search tunnel complexes—found a 

large North Vietnamese Army staging base. Rome plows moved 

in and razed the facility, deterring an expected attack on the 

U.S. 1st Infantry Division’s Phu Loi base camp in southeastern 

Binh Duong Province. Viet Cong gunners repeatedly rocketed 

and mortared the 1st and 25th Infantry Division base camps 

north and west of Saigon during the first few weeks of February, 

Troops of the 1st Infantry Division during an operation near Phu Loi in March 1968

National Archives
57

but their sporadic and inaccurate fire caused relatively little 

damage and did not hinder U.S. operations.

In northern I Corps, North Vietnamese troops attacked 

Hue and Quang Tri City and cut off Tan My, one of the three 

ports above Da Nang. The other two, Dong Ha and Cua Viet, 

fell within artillery range from the Demilitarized Zone, making 

their use tenuous. The enemy also cut the Hai Van Pass along 

Highway 1 linking Da Nang to Hue. Supplies could be delivered 

by air, but the monsoon weather made flying and landing overthe-beach uncertain at best. Meanwhile, the North Vietnamese 

had increased their pressure on the marines at Khe Sanh. 

General Westmoreland had decided to hold the base, which 

he believed could tie down large North Vietnamese forces that 

otherwise could have moved unhindered around allied positions into the populated areas. On 5 February, heavy ground 

attacks followed by intense artillery fire the next day struck 

Khe Sanh and nearby Lang Vei Special Forces Camp. Although 

the enemy took Lang Vei, the defenders at Khe Sanh and the 

surrounding hilltop outposts held out against heavy bombardments and ground assaults.

Some of the most tenacious combat of the Tet offensive 

occurred in Hue, the capital of Thua Thien Province. Hanoi’s strategists thought that here if anywhere the general offensive-general 

uprising might gain a political foothold. North Vietnamese 

Two Navy armored troop carriers from the Mobile Riverine Force approach the shore to 

disembark soldiers from the 2d Brigade, 9th Infantry Division, during an operation in the 

Mekong Delta. National Archives
58 

regulars with the help of accomplices inside the city were thrown 

into the battle, indicating that the stakes at Hue were higher than 

elsewhere in the South. They quickly captured most of the city on 

the south bank of the Perfume River and later seized the bulk of 

the northern half, including the Imperial Citadel. House-to-house 

and street-to-street fighting caused enormous destruction, forcing 

nearly 100,000 residents of Hue to flee their homes.

To the north and northeast of Hue, the 1st Cavalry Division 

began to strike back at the enemy. The 1st Brigade quickly 

moved from Binh Dinh Province and helped South Vietnamese 

troops clear Quang Tri City. The 3d Brigade, which had been 

conducting operations between Chu Lai and Da Nang, moved into 

the hamlets west of Hue in an attempt to cut the enemy’s main 

supply channel. To help coordinate U.S. operations in northern I 

Corps, Westmoreland established a joint headquarters at Phu Bai 

(south of Hue) named MACV Forward where his deputy, General 

Abrams, took charge in mid-February. While South Vietnamese 

and U.S. Marine units advanced through Hue in bitter house-tohouse combat, four U.S. Army battalions managed to take the 

enemy-held hamlets west of the city. The last North Vietnamese 

troops were driven out of the city in late February.

Allied counterattacks were slow to develop in northern 

I Corps because the enemy had done a thorough job in cutting 

Highway 1 between Da Nang and Hue. Sappers closed the narrow 

winding Hai Van Pass with three major breaks and many obstacles. Along a straight stretch farther north, dubbed the “Bowling 

Alley,” they destroyed every bridge and culvert and excavated large 

trenches along the way. During the first two weeks of February, 

attempts by Marine engineers and Seabees (Navy engineers) to 

clear the road resulted in heavy casualties and loss of equipment. 

When the Army’s 35th Engineer Battalion arrived from II Corps 

to take over reopening the road, it too could not proceed due to 

the strong presence of enemy forces. Repeated efforts over the next 

few days resulted in enemy fire and several casualties. Only in late 

February when the 101st Airborne Division arrived to sweep the 

area west of the pass, and with similar efforts by the marines to the 

north, was it possible for the Americans to reopen the road.

The reopening of Highway 1 eased the logistical crisis 

around Hue, but officials still faced the task of supporting the 

action farther north and reconstituting the forward stockpiles, 

especially the fuel and ammunition, that would be needed for 
59

the relief of Khe Sanh. By one estimate, another 907 metric tons 

a day would be needed, nearly four times the rated capacity of 

Highway 1, if the counteroffensive was to kick off as planned on 

1 April. With no other practical alternative but supply by sea, 

the surest way to move materiel in bulk, the U.S. command now 

gambled that the battle for the northern coast was about to be 

won. It immediately laid plans for landing supplies on a beach 

east of Quang Tri City.

The over-the-shore facility was a major accomplishment. A 

joint effort by Army engineers, Navy Seabees, Army transportation units, Navy landing ships, and a Marine Corps fuel detachment transformed the beach into a key logistical facility. Landing 

craft discharged cargo over the pontoon causeway, while amphibious resupply cargo barges and lighters brought supplies of all 

types ashore from deep-draft ships. Over time, the site contained 

extensive ammunition and fuel storage areas, a helicopter refueling point, a road net with a two-lane connection to Highway 1, 

and fuel pipelines laid offshore and from the beach to Highway 1 

and then north to Dong Ha. Each day truck convoys moved cargo 

inland from the beach storage area to the forward support bases 

of the combat divisions. (Because of the remarkable achievements 

of its personnel, the facility took on the name of Wunder Beach, a 

slight play on words of the transportation commander’s name, Lt. 

Col. Charles H. Sunder.) As an additional benefit, the new inland 

road also crossed and effectively cut a main North Vietnamese 

supply route leading into Hue.

By the end of March 1968, the storm of the Tet offensive had 

abated. U.S. officials estimated that during the first three months 

of 1968, the allies had killed 72,455 Communist soldiers. Many of 

these casualties had fallen on Viet Cong troops and political cadre, 

thereby weakening the Communist’s hold over the population 

at the local level. During the same period, allied forces suffered 

15,715 dead, of which 4,869 were Americans. 

With so much of the fighting occurring in populated areas, 

civilians became casualties as well. Most civilian suffering was 

the result of being caught in the crossfire between Communist 

and allied forces, but not all. When the Communists captured 

communities, they often executed officials and anyone else 

whom they believed posed an obstacle to their control. In Hue, 

Communist officials massacred several thousand men, women, 

and children. Allied soldiers occasionally committed atrocities 
60 

as well, albeit on an unsystematic and smaller scale. The most 

widely known of these occurred in the hamlet of My Lai in 

March 1968. 

My Lai, one of several hamlets in the village of Son My, 

was situated in the coastal plain of Quang Ngai Province, about 

eight kilometers northeast of the provincial capital of Quang 

Ngai City. The Communists had long dominated the area, 

and the allies considered its population, which rarely offered 

information or assistance, to be hostile. Operations in the 

area proved to be slow, frustrating exercises, with most U.S. 

casualties coming from mines and booby traps. Operating in 

such conditions day after day induced a climate of fear and 

hate among the soldiers of the Americal Division who were 

ordered to eliminate Communist forces in the area. The already 

thin line between civilian and guerrilla combatant was easily 

blurred and violated. On 6 March, elements of Company C, 1st 

Battalion, 20th Infantry, a relatively inexperienced unit with 

weak leadership, went on a rampage and massacred several 

hundred civilians in My Lai and surrounding areas. 

Looking across South Vietnam, and unaware of the events at 

My Lai due to a cover-up at the local level, General Westmoreland 

had reasons for optimism. True, allied casualties had been significant, but the Communists had suffered grievously. The populace 

had not rallied to the Communists as officials in Hanoi had 

predicted. Indeed, far from collapsing, the South Vietnamese 

government had rallied, and although the situation had been 

precarious in many places, no South Vietnamese units had been 

destroyed and many fought extremely well. More than simply 

rallying, the South Vietnamese government finally mobilized the 

nation in the wake of Tet, approving a MACV plan to increase 

its armed forces to over 800,000 men in the next two years. The 

ground seemed to be laid for the allies to make a devastating 

riposte, one that would not only recapture lost ground, but also 

make inroads into areas long dominated by the enemy. 

Americans at home saw a different picture. Tet shocked 

a public that was growing tired of mounting U.S. casualties. 

Dramatic images showing the sapper attack on the U.S. Embassy 

in the heart of Saigon, the besieged marines at Khe Sanh, and 

the bitter fight for Hue dimmed General Westmoreland’s 

contention of an allied victory. President Johnson’s claims of 

progress in the war, already doubted by many, lost even more 
61

credibility, and he showed signs of frustration with the war. 

Defense Secretary McNamara, also disenchanted, left office on 

29 February, replaced by Clark M. Clifford, an adviser and close 

friend of the president. Public skepticism over the war swelled 

when the New York Times revealed that Westmoreland had 

requested, at the urging of Joint Chief of Staff (JCS) Chairman 

General Earle G. Wheeler, an additional 206,000 troops be 

sent to Vietnam. This appeal for more troops would require 

mobilizing some reserve and national guard units. Half of the 

guardsmen and reservists called up would be sent to Vietnam; 

the remainder would replenish the U.S. strategic reserve force. 

General Westmoreland had made it clear to the president that 

the allies were in no danger of being defeated, and that those 

additional troops would only be necessary if the United States 

decided to prosecute the war more aggressively in order to 

hasten victory, to include sending troops into Laos to cut the 

Ho Chi Minh Trail. But to a jaded public, the request sounded 

like desperation.

With public support plummeting to new depths, President 

Johnson decided to authorize a more modest troop increase 

than Westmoreland and Wheeler had requested. He rejected 

the proposal for 206,000 more troops, but agreed to send some 

3,650 men from the 3d Brigade, 82d Airborne Division, from 

Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and some 3,300 men from the 27th 

Marine Regiment from Okinawa, to northern I Corps where 

the situation remained precarious. The brigade soon joined the 

101st Airborne Division in Thua Thien Province as its third 

brigade. This measure allowed the 101st Airborne Division’s 3d 

Brigade to remain in the Saigon area. Johnson also agreed to 

send the 1st Brigade, 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized), to 

Vietnam that autumn—the last Army combat unit to deploy to 

South Vietnam. 

Now that the president had drawn a firm limit on the U.S. 

commitment, Westmoreland knew that he must make the best 

possible use of the troops he had, and the South Vietnamese 

would have to take on a larger share of the war effort. As a signal 

to foster negotiations, Johnson also curtailed air strikes against 

North Vietnam. When the president outlined his decision in 

a nationwide address on 31 March, he surprised everyone by 

announcing that he would not seek reelection and would devote 

his full attention to resolving the conflict. Though Hanoi had 
62 

suffered a military defeat, Johnson’s actions implied that the 

Communists had achieved a political and diplomatic victory.

Allied Counterattacks

On 1 April, Westmoreland believed the allied forces were 

ready to counterattack. He told his senior commanders that forces 

in I Corps were “now in position to seek decisive battles in Quang 

Tri and Thua Thien.” Along the coastal regions and in the western 

highlands “our troops are orienting their operations on the 

enemy to keep him away from population centers and resources.” 

Moving south, he noted, “Allied campaigns throughout III and 

IV Corps are diligently securing and restoring lines of communications and installations (economic lifelines) that are vital to 

these rich and populated areas.” Westmoreland concluded, “We 

must go after the enemy throughout the country; we must hound 

him and hurt him. We can achieve a decisive victory and we must 

do so at once, to restore the perspective with which the world 

sees this war. We must demonstrate by our actions that we are, in 

fact, winning the war.”

Westmoreland’s admonition to increase the tempo of pressure 

against the enemy came soon after the announcement that he 

would be leaving Vietnam after four years as MACV commander. 

On 23 March, he was informed of his appointment as Army chief 

of staff. His deputy, General Abrams, would replace him that 

summer. In his few remaining months as MACV commander, 

Westmoreland directed counteroffensive operations that regained 

all the ground and population lost during Tet, broke the siege of 

Khe Sanh, and severely disrupted the enemy’s supply network in I 

Corps. Sharing Westmoreland’s basic approach to the war, General 

Abrams intended to continue the allied counterattack once he took 

charge of MACV in June.

In mid-March, the North Vietnamese decided to abandon 

the siege of Khe Sanh and began to pull back into Laos just as 

Westmoreland chose to reestablish a land link with the Marine 

base. The MACV commander did not consider the base in 

great peril but became anxious to reestablish contact “if for no 

other reason than to silence dolorous critics and allay President 

Johnson’s concern.” Soon after taking charge of MACV Forward, 

General Abrams had developed a plan, code-named Operation 

Pegasus, to break the siege of Khe Sanh, but weather conditions and logistic preparations held up launching the campaign. 
63

Planning continued while allied forces retook Hue, more Army 

reinforcements reached the area, engineers reopened the lines of 

communications, and logisticians reconstituted stockpiles. When 

the logistics-over-the-shore supply facility began to discharge 

over 907 metric tons a day, MACV set 1 April as the D-day for 

the relief of Khe Sanh.

Meanwhile, five widely scattered U.S. divisions, three 

Army and two Marine, had taken up positions in I Corps, and 

Westmoreland considered the force too large to be controlled 

from a single headquarters. The recent arrivals included the 

101st Airborne Division, which deployed from III Corps to Phu 

Bai on 19 February. When the 101st took over responsibility for 

the 1st Cavalry Division’s old operating area, the cavalrymen 

moved to a new base and airstrip called Landing Zone Stud at 

Ca Lu in central Quang Tri Province to prepare for Pegasus. 

At that point, Westmoreland decided to upgrade the III Marine 

Amphibious Force to the level of a field army headquarters with 

a subordinate Army corps. On 10 March, accordingly, MACV 

Forward at Phu Bai officially became Provisional Corps, Vietnam, 

and General Abrams returned to Saigon. General Rosson, who 

had earlier commanded Task Force Oregon and then I Field 

Force, and was currently serving as Abrams’ deputy at MACV 

Forward, assumed command of the new Army corps and operaMembers of Battery A, 6th Battalion, 33d Artillery, build protective sandbag walls around 

105-mm. howitzers at Landing Zone Stud, the forward base camp of the 1st Cavalry 

Division (Airmobile), in preparation for Operation Pegasus. National Archives
64 

tional control of the two Army divisions, the 3d Marine Division, 

and other supporting forces in northern I Corps.

Operation Pegasus began at 0700 on 1 April with 

American and Vietnamese forces moving out from Landing 

Zone Stud along Highway 9 toward the Khe Sanh base (Map 

9). This followed an allied deception operation initiated a few 

days earlier northeast of Dong Ha. The Pegasus force, under 

the control of the 1st Cavalry Division, included the division’s 

three brigades, a Marine Corps regiment, a South Vietnamese 

OPERATION DELAWARE/LAMSON 216 19 Apr–17 May 68

OPERATION SOMERSET PLAIN 4–20 Sep 68

OPERATION PEGASUS 1–14 Apr 68

DA NANG

PHU BAI

CHU LAI

QUANG NGAI

KHAM DUC

Special Forces Camp

Special Forces Camp

A SHAU

BA TO

KHE SANH

DONG HA

DUC PHO

II CTZ

SOUTH CHINA SEA

1

9

1

1

14

14

DEMARCATION LINE

Quang Tri

Con Thien

Gio Linh

Hoi An

Hue

Tam Ky

My Lai

QUANG

TRI

THUA THIEN

QUANG NAM

QUANG TIN

QUANG NGAI

KONTUM

BINH DINH

NORTH VIETNAM

LAOS

CAMBODIA

Corps Tactical Zone Boundary

Engagement

1967–1968

I CORPS TACTICAL ZONE

0 50 Miles

0 50 Kilometers

Map 9
65

airborne task force, and the garrison at Khe Sanh, over 30,000 

troops. The 1st Marine Regiment led the ground attack, 

securing and repairing the road as it advanced westward. Poor 

weather delayed the airmobile part of the operation to 1300, 

when the 1st Cavalry Division’s 3d Brigade began seizing 

high ground in a series of airmobile assaults. On 3 April, the 

2d Brigade landed three battalions southeast of Khe Sanh and 

attacked to the northwest. During the fourth day, the marines 

continued their push while the cavalrymen applied pressure 

throughout the battle area. The following day, elements of the 

26th Marine Regiment sallied forth from Khe Sanh and seized 

Hill 471 southeast of the base. On 5 April, North Vietnamese 

troops tried to retake the hill, but the marines, sustained by 

artillery and close air support, cut down the attackers in one 

of the major fights of the campaign. That same day, units of 

the 1st Cavalry Division’s 1st Brigade made air assaults into 

positions overlooking Highway 9 south of the base. More air 

cavalry troops landed on Hill 471 to relieve the marines in the 

first relief of Khe Sanh’s defenders. The official linkup came 

the following afternoon when the 1st Cavalry Division airlifted 

South Vietnamese airborne troops to the base. On the morning 

of the eighth, the 3d Brigade cleared the remaining section of 

road and linked up with the 26th Marine Regiment. Two days 

later, the 1st Brigade seized the old Lang Vei Special Forces 

camp. Provisional Corps, Vietnam, officially ended Pegasus

on 15 April. 

Next in line in I Corps was an airmobile assault against 

the North Vietnamese redoubt in the A Shau Valley. Located 

less than ten kilometers from the Laotian border and running 

northwest to southeast, the valley extends between two high 

and steeply sloped mountain ranges. Among the few manmade 

features were three abandoned airfields spread along the valley 

floor. North Vietnamese troops had controlled the A Shau 

since March 1966 when they overran the Special Forces camp 

in the southern end and established a major staging area to 

infiltrate troops and supplies through Laos into Thua Thien 

Province. After reviewing detailed intelligence of the North 

Vietnamese bastion, General Tolson exclaimed, “This was his 

[the enemy’s] Cam Ranh Bay, so to speak.” The valley’s peculiar 

location and topography expose it to both the northeast and 

southwest monsoons, and the brief interval between monsoons 
66 

(mid-April to mid-May) prompted Westmoreland’s planners 

to propose a quick strike. During the last days of Operation 

Pegasus, Provisional Corps, Vietnam, completed final preparations for the assault, called Operation Delaware/Lam Son

216, committing elements of Tolson’s 1st Cavalry Division 

and the 101st Airborne Division along with South Vietnamese 

forces. A corps reserve was established by moving the 196th 

Infantry Brigade (Light) to Camp Evans, a base camp just north 

of Hue.

The operation began on the morning of 19 April with 

preplanned air and artillery strikes. But almost at once, heavy 

antiaircraft fire met the 1st Cavalry Division’s 3d Brigade, 

and poor weather played havoc with helicopter assaults and 

Air Force resupply missions. Just getting the desired firebases 

in place to support an assault on the old French airstrip at A 

Luoi took until the twenty-fourth. Meanwhile, to the east, the 

1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, drove westward along 

Route 547, a narrow, winding, overgrown, unimproved road. 

On the second day, the cavalry division’s 3d Brigade expanded 

operations with one battalion pushing southeast and another 

blocking Route 548 that entered the valley from Laos. The 

following day, 21 April, the fighting increased as the Americans 

moved deeper into the sanctuary. As the weather temporarily 

improved, the 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, inserted a 

battalion into the central part of the A Shau, about a kilometer 

south of the A Luoi airstrip. Two more battalions followed, 

sweeping the surrounding area. During the rest of April, the 

buildup of forces and supplies continued around the airstrip, 

and by early May, North Vietnamese resistance lessened. On 12 

May, the 1st Cavalry Division and South Vietnamese airborne 

troops pushing westward along Routes 547 and 547A met some 

ten kilometers east of A Luoi. As the operation proceeded, U.S. 

and South Vietnamese forces uncovered vast enemy caches. 

One find included a large maintenance area and two Sovietmanufactured bulldozers used in building the logistical base 

and supply routes. By mid-May, the rains of the southwest 

monsoon intensified, and the allies began to pull out. Operation 

Delaware/Lam Son 216 officially ended on 17 May.

Allied officers declared Pegasus and Delaware/Lam Son

216 tactical and strategic successes, but it did not take long for 

the North Vietnamese to return to Khe Sanh and the A Shau. 
67

North Vietnamese artillery pieces located across the border in 

Laos resumed a steady bombardment of the Marine combat base, 

and in May, a North Vietnamese infantry division had once again 

taken up position in the nearby hills. After Pegasus, senior U.S. 

Army and Marine Corps commanders in I Corps repeatedly 

declared the Khe Sanh base a liability. The marines had long 

advocated quitting Khe Sanh and employing a mobile defense 

along the Demilitarized Zone. Westmoreland agreed in principle, 

but he disagreed with the recommended timing and deferred the 

decision to his successor, General Abrams. Preparations already 

under way to close the base were canceled, and the marines dug 

in again. On 15 April, fresh Marine battalions and two battalions 

from the 1st Cavalry Division launched a new operation. In the 

ten weeks that followed Pegasus, U.S. troops in or near Khe Sanh 

suffered more than twice the casualties reported during the siege. 

In June, Abrams became theater commander, and he quickly 

decided to close the combat base. With shells continuing to rain 

down on the base, the marines completed the evacuation on the 

evening of 5 July. The decision to leave Khe Sanh caused some 

bewilderment in the United States. Abrams justified this move 

by pointing out that not tying down troops to specific terrain 

would better the chances to counter future threats. Its abandonment signaled the demise of the McNamara Line and further 

postponement of MACV’s hopes for large-scale American crossborder operations, a measure that President Johnson still refused 

to sanction.

The May and August Offensives 

Communist actions suggested a renewed offensive, and it 

began on 5 May. Its timing coincided with the opening of the 

long-heralded Paris peace talks after President Johnson halted 

the bombing of North Vietnam above the 20th Parallel. This 

offensive, which Americans dubbed the “mini-Tet,” turned out to 

be less powerful than its predecessor nearly everywhere except 

in Saigon. At the same time, it showed the negotiators in Paris 

that Hanoi would continue to fight. Except at Saigon and a few 

other places, the May attacks featured rocket and mortar attacks 

against towns, cities, and U.S. installations. Attacks on bridges 

and airfields were usually repulsed. In northern I Corps, the 

allied forces anticipated the attacks and blocked enemy advances 

toward Dong Ha. After a series of bloody engagements in the 
68 

eastern Demilitarized Zone, the planned attack on Hue never got 

under way. Strong North Vietnamese forces did succeed in taking 

the Special Forces camp at Kham Duc, located about seventy-five 

kilometers southwest of Da Nang near the Laotian border. In 

the area around Pleiku and Kontum, preemptive attacks—by the 

4th Infantry Division, elements of the 173d Airborne Brigade, 

and the 3d Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, plus heavy B–52 

strikes—forced the enemy to cancel attacks and withdraw into 

Cambodia. The main attack took place in Saigon. U.S. and South 

Vietnamese troops on the approaches to the capital intercepted 

and destroyed many small guerrilla bands. Those that got into 

the city holed up in the Cholon district and fought stubbornly, 

often setting fires in the highly flammable shanty neighborhoods. This gave the impression of a city under siege and was 

designed to embarrass the government and influence the talks 

in Paris. Allied efforts to rout the enemy created more destruction. By mid-May, the allied forces had rooted the Communists 

out of most of their strongholds, ending the worst of the street 

fighting. Rocket and mortar attacks continued, however, and 

renewed attacks in Cholon and near the Phu Tho racetrack took 

place later that month. National Archives

Enemy weapons and ammunition captured by South Vietnamese paratroopers during the 

fighting near Tan Son Nhut Air Base during the May 1968 “mini-Tet” offensive.
69

The only real North Vietnamese battlefield success took place 

at Kham Duc in southwest I Corps. Kham Duc and its satellite camp 

at Ngok Tavak, seven kilometers to the southwest, served as the last 

remaining Special Forces camps along the Laotian border in I Corps. 

Kham Duc camp sat astride Highway 14, which also served as an 

avenue for the North Vietnamese coming down the roads and tracks 

of the Ho Chi Minh Trail just across the border. Although the two 

outposts could not block Communist infiltration into South Vietnam, 

they kept the enemy’s activities under observation and frequently 

hindered his movements. Placed in one of the most rugged border 

regions in Vietnam only fifteen kilometers from the Laotian border, 

the Kham Duc camp, village, and airfield sat in a kilometer-wide 

bowl surrounded by hills rising abruptly to 610 meters high. Earlier 

in January when General Westmoreland canceled the first of his 

projected York operations, he had still wanted the airfield upgraded 

to handle sustained C–130 traffic and pads built for a radio navigation system. These tasks were passed down to an engineer company 

based at Pleiku. After some delays on 9 April, the first platoon flew 

to Kham Duc and moved to a nearby abandoned camp located on 

higher ground adjacent to the airfield. Work was well under way by 

the time the last element arrived on 15 April. National Archives

Members of the South Vietnamese 7th Battalion, Airborne Division, fire M60 machine guns 

and lob hand grenades at a Viet Cong position near Tan Son Nhut Air Base.
70 

A major ground attack now appeared imminent, and an infantry 

battalion task force from the Americal Division began arriving by 

air and assumed command, while the engineers cleared fields of fire 

and improving defensive positions. On the morning of 10 May, a 

Viet Cong battalion attacked the compound at Ngok Tavak, forcing 

the defenders to abandon the camp and withdraw to Kham Duc 

before darkness. Scattered mortar fire rained down on Kham Duc 

on 11 May as the last of the reinforcements arrived. By then, U.S. 

commanders had second thoughts about another protracted battle, 

and they recommended vacating the camp. After reviewing the situation that evening, General Westmoreland concluded that Kham 

Duc “had none of the importance of or defensive potential of a 

Khe Sanh, and I ordered evacuation.” Army and Marine helicopters 

managed a few pickups, but a downed CH–47 blocked the runway. 

Because two bulldozers had been disassembled for evacuation, the 

engineers used a bucket loader to move the damaged Chinook. Fuel 

leaking from the burning helicopter, however, set the bucket loader 

ablaze, and the engineers had to abandon it. Frantically, they reassembled a bulldozer and finally moved the helicopter, permitting 

the landing of C–123s and C–130s. When one C–130 took off down 

the cratered and shrapnel-littered runway, mortars burst on all sides 

flattening a tire. The crew aborted the takeoff, off-loaded the passengers, and with the help of engineer maintenance troops cut away 

the ruined tire. With fuel streaming from holes in the wings, the 

damaged and nearly empty aircraft managed to take off. At 1100, 

a C–123 took off with forty-six engineers, and CH–47s carried out 

the remaining sixty-four between 1100 and 1500. That afternoon, 

the enemy shot down two C–130s, but helicopters and transports 

protected by close-in air strikes completed the evacuation by 1600. 

Following the evacuation, air strikes demolished the remains of the 

camp.

The May attacks in the Saigon area proved more destructive 

than those of Tet. Some 15,000 homes were destroyed creating 

nearly 104,000 new refugees. With the monsoon on the horizon, 

the South Vietnamese government began a crash reconstruction program. Fortunately, the government’s Central Recovery 

Committee established during the Tet offensive was still carrying out 

Project Recovery, and was able to move quickly to erect temporary 

housing. Media claims that allied firepower had caused much of the 

damage prompted General Westmoreland to lend assistance. On 13 

May, a joint task force of U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force engineers 
71

began building some 1,500 temporary family units. Plans called for 

building 6-meter-by-18-meter standard wooden barracks shells 

divided into five-family units. Unfortunately, renewed attacks in 

late May and coordination problems caused by the hasty assembly 

of the diverse workforce initially hampered the operation. After two 

weeks of construction, the project’s original completion date was 

moved back two weeks to the end of July. Despite these setbacks 

and the arrival of the rainy season, the project neared completion 

by early September.

In mid-August, Hanoi attempted to renew its general offensive a third time, but with limited results. Many Communist 

units were still depleted from the fighting earlier that year, and 

instead of attacking major cities, they settled for raiding remote 

outposts and bombarding populated areas. In I Corps, the 

Americal Division’s armored cavalry squadron blocked North 

Vietnamese forces heading toward Tam Ky. In II Corps, the 

enemy avoided contact with two exceptions. One unsuccessful 

assault took place against Duc Lap district headquarters near 

the Cambodian border. Another struck the Dak Saeng CIDG 

camp farther north along the Laotian border. In III Corps, the 

U.S. 25th Infantry Division fought off enemy attacks at Firebase 

Buell, four kilometers northeast of Tay Ninh City, and a night 

defensive position west of Dau Tieng. Another isolated attack 

was a damaging ambush on a supply convoy traveling between 

Long Binh and Tay Ninh. During the attack on the convoy, 

soldiers returning from a minesweeping operation fought off 

the attackers until relieved by an armored cavalry troop. The 

battered convoy reached Tay Ninh, but some two dozen ruined 

vehicles littered the road.

August also marked the arrival of the 1st Brigade, 5th Infantry 

Division (Mechanized), from Fort Carson, Colorado, which 

consisted of one tank battalion, a mechanized infantry battalion, a 

standard infantry battalion, a self-propelled artillery battalion, an 

armored cavalry troop, and an engineer company. In a short time 

the brigade, which deployed along the Demilitarized Zone under 

3d Marine Division control, surprised the North Vietnamese who 

had never battled true armor formations in this area.

Finally, two U.S. Army reorganizations in midsummer created a 

new corps headquarters in I Corps and a second airmobile division. 

On 15 August, the Provisional Corps, Vietnam, became the XXIV 

Corps, a headquarters that had previously seen combat service in 
72 

the Pacific during World War II. Lt. Gen. Richard G. Stilwell, who 

had replaced General Rosson in July, assumed command of the 

corps and operational control over the 1st Cavalry, 101st Airborne, 

and 3d Marine Divisions and the 1st Brigade, 5th Division. Like its 

predecessor, XXIV Corps remained under the operational control 

of the III Marine Amphibious Force. Conversion of the 101st 

Airborne Division to an airmobile configuration had been considered by the Department of the Army prior to the division’s deployment. Conversion began on 1 July. A year would pass before the 

full complement of helicopters was available and support facilities 

at Camp Eagle located between Hue and Phu Bai were completed.

Hanoi’s offensives did not deter the allies from trying to regain 

the initiative through a series of operations aimed at supply trails, 

caches, and way stations. U.S. Marines, no longer tied down to fixed 

bases, launched more airmobile operations along the Demilitarized 

Zone. They followed the Army’s lead in setting up mutually 

supporting firebases atop jungle peaks as the Marine riflemen fanned 

out below searching for trails and supplies. In early August, allied 

forces returned to the A Shau Valley. A brigade-size task force from 

the 101st Airborne Division and elements of the South Vietnamese 

1st Infantry Division were airlifted into the valley in Operation 

Somerset Plain. Again, the engineers kept the main supply route, 

Route 547, to Firebase Birmingham open and built four new firebases covering the five infantry battalions in their sweeps. Along with 

finding and destroying caches and base camps, the invading troops 

this time left the area littered with minefields. These obstacles hardly 

daunted the North Vietnamese, who quickly moved back from neighboring Laos. After withdrawing from the A Shau, the 101st carried 

out an integrated airmobile, naval, and ground cordon operation on 

the enemy sanctuary at Vinh Loc Island east of Hue. The II Corps 

zone saw a continuation of reconnaissance and reconnaissance-inforce operations. Around Saigon, a large-scale campaign, Operation 

Toan Thang (Complete Victory), which had started in April, aimed 

at enemy units in the area. In the delta, the U.S. 9th Infantry Division 

fought several battles, destroying a main force battalion near the III/IV 

Corps border. To support the effort in the delta, a study done by Army 

and Navy headquarters in Vietnam concluded that additional units 

of the 9th Division could be stationed at Dong Tam without further 

dredging. With a modest addition of naval craft to the river-assault 

squadrons, an expanded force could support two brigades afloat and 

one at Dong Tam. By midyear, planning was under way to reorganize 
73

the 9th Division to a mobile river configuration and move it to IV 

Corps. On 25 July, the division headquarters moved from Bearcat to a 

new base camp at Dong Tam.

Analysis

Taking stock of the war in late September 1968, General 

Abrams had reason to believe that allied fortunes were on the 

rise. The most striking statistic concerned enemy losses. Over the 

last nine months, the allies had eliminated approximately 242,000 

enemy soldiers from the battlefield, more than double the casualty 

rate from the previous year. Dozens of battalions, particularly 

those which had attacked Saigon, Hue, and other large cities, had 

sustained casualty rates of over 50 percent; some units had been 

decimated twice, once during Tet and a second time during May. 

The overall weakening of the general offensive between January 

and August offered compelling evidence that the enemy was 

pursuing a losing strategy that would continue to degrade his 

forces at an unsustainable rate.

Another statistical measurement, the ratio of manpower, 

had also changed in favor of the United States during the last 

nine months. While enemy manpower had grown slightly, allied 

strength had expanded at a far greater rate. MACV now consisted 

of 538,563 personnel, an increase of nearly 40,000 troops, with 

the U.S. Army, Vietnam, and its 354,729 soldiers representing the 

largest service component. General Abrams had gained 10 Army 

maneuver battalions, bringing the total number in September to 

89. All told, the allies now fielded a combined total of 303 combat 

maneuver battalions, an increase of 21 since January.

The South Vietnamese government had shaken off the effects 

of Tet and was now on the rebound. Encouraged by the fact that 

the population had refused to rise up in support of the Tet offensive, President Thieu enacted measures to mobilize the nation 

more efficiently. Most of the South Vietnamese regular infantry 

battalions were now equipped with M16 rifles and other modern 

weapons, and some of the Regional Forces units were beginning 

to receive them as well. Thanks to Westmoreland’s counteroffensive and increased South Vietnamese efforts, pacification was back 

on track in most parts of the country. Hamlet Evaluation Survey 

data showed that almost 66.8 percent of the total population now 

lived in relatively secure areas, just short of the 67.2 percent figure 

recorded in January prior to the general offensive. The Phung 
74 

Hoang/Phoenix program to identify and eliminate the enemy’s 

shadow government was also gaining some traction. Finally, 

since Tet, President Thieu had sacked no fewer than 25 province 

chiefs and 162 district chiefs for incompetence or corruption, with 

MACV advisers reporting that the new officials were “significantly 

more honest and competent than their predecessors.” 

Despite those positive trends in the war, many challenges 

remained for General Abrams and his South Vietnamese allies. 

Thanks to infiltration from North Vietnam, the total number 

of enemy troops in South Vietnam—combat soldiers, administrative personnel, and guerrillas—had actually grown from 

224,000 personnel in January to around 253,000 troops in 

September. Viet Cong influence remained strong in many parts 

of South Vietnam, most notably the lower half of IV Corps, in 

Long An Province just south of Saigon, in the coastal border 

area between II Corps and I Corps, and in the lowlands of 

Quang Tri Province. North Vietnamese leaders showed no signs 

of yielding, while U.S. politicians had been shaken by Tet and 

public support in the United States continued to fall. On average, 

over 1,000 U.S. troops were being killed and another 8,000 

wounded each month in South Vietnam. War is a test of wills, 

and although Tet was a military disaster for the Communists, 

the failed offensive had seriously shaken America’s willingness 

to continue the fight. Whoever gained the White House in the 

November presidential election would face nearly irresistible 

pressure to begin drawing down U.S. forces. It remained an 

open question whether General Abrams could accomplish the 

mission of preserving an independent, non-Communist South 

Vietnam as U.S. leaders began thinking about ways to exit the 

imbroglio in Southeast Asia. 
75

The Author

Adrian G. Traas is a retired Corps of Engineers officer who 

has served in a variety of assignments in the United States, Korea, 

Italy, Ethiopia, Liberia, Iran, and two tours in Vietnam. He ended 

his military career at the U.S. Army Center of Military History in 

administrative positions and as a historian. He currently holds the 

title of visiting professor at the Center of Military History.

He is the author of Engineers at War (2010), a volume in 

the U.S. Army in Vietnam series, and From the Golden Gate 

to Mexico City: The U.S. Army Topographical Engineers in the 

Mexican War, 1846–1848 (1993); and a contributor to The Story 

of the Noncommissioned Officer Corps (1989) and The United 

States and Mexico at War: Nineteenth-Century Expansionism 

and Conflict (1998).

77

Further Readings

Cosmas, Graham A. 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. 

Murphy, Edward F. Dak To. Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 

1993.

Oberdorfer, Don. Tet! Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1971.

Sharp, Admiral U. S. G., and General William C. Westmoreland. 

Report on the War in Vietnam (As of 30 June 1968). Washington, D.C.: 

Government Printing Office, 1969.

Spector, Ronald H. After Tet: The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam. 

New York: Free Press, 1993. 

Tolson, Lt. Gen. John J. Airmobility, 1961–1971. Vietnam 

Studies. Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 1973. 

Westmoreland, William C. A Soldier Reports. Garden City, 

N.Y.: Doubleday, 1976.

For more information on the U.S. Army in the Vietnam War, 

please read our other titles in the U.S. Army Campaigns of the 

Vietnam War series published by the U.S. Army Center of Military 

History (www.history.army.mil).


nam War

The

Viet

50th Anniversary

PIN: 201510–000