By spring of 1972, all battlefronts were quiet. Both sides, the NVA and the ARVN, were exhausted after almost two years of fighting in Cambodia and in Laos. On the Americanside, the Vietnamization had proceeded and all seven U.S. Army infantry divisions and two Marine divisions were withdrawn. Only the 1st Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division and two battalions of the 196 Light Infantry Brigade remained in South Vietnam. These last U.S. combat units were scheduled to leave before May 1972. The United States’ “withdrawal with honor” was nearly complete while the “peace with honor” had yet to come. This was the reality.
North Vietnam took this opportunity to again test the ability of the South Vietnamese Armed Forces, then fighting alone, to obtain a definite victory on the battlefield and enhance its position at the negotiating table in Paris. Hanoi leaders saw the withdrawal of American combat troops as a sign that the United States had lost its will to retaliate against the North and re-intervene in the South. They, however, failed to evaluate correctly President Nixon’s aptitude and reaction during this period when the Vietnamization was not fully complete. They planned and executed the so-called “Eastertide Offensive” campaign against South Vietnam, which was the NVA’s largest conventional offensive to date across the DMZ and into South Vietnam.
Before the campaign, the VWP Military Committee had ordered the NVA command system in the South to be adjusted. The communist 5th Military Region, or MR5—an army-sized field command, was assigned to directly command all NVA forces to attack South Vietnam’s I Corps and the B3-Front field command in charge of those attacking the II Corps, while the COSVN would solely direct NVA and VC forces to attack the III Corps.
On March 30, 1972, more than 180,000 troops from 14 NVA divisions and 26 specialized regiments, totaling 22 division-equivalents, armed with Soviet tanks, surface-to-air missiles, 130mm artillery field guns, and new Chinese equipment, swept across the Partition line deep into South Vietnam’s I Corps & Region and flanked the western borders into the II Corps and III Corps & Regions.
This North Vietnam offensive campaign was a surprise. The MACV and the RVNAF Joint General Staff (JGS) had estimated in February that an enormous enemy offensive campaign would occur in the dry season of 1972, but the exact date was unclear. In addition, until the first week of the campaign, MACV and RVNAF’s JGS did not realize the true objectives of these three frontal attacks. Would the NVA attempt to attack Quang-Tri through the DMZ and Thua-Thien through the A-Shau Valley, seizing these two northernmost provinces of South Vietnam, or would they attack Kontum throughout Binh-Dinh Province in the II Corps & Region to cut South Vietnam in two as they had attempted (and failed) in 1968? Or would the NVA attack Loc-Ninh and An-Loc to capture Binh-Long Province in the III Corps & Region to officially present the puppet Southern Provisional Revolutionary Government? Allied intelligence deficiencies regarding the true objectives of the NVA meant the ARVN field commanders were confused about how to react to these enemy attacks.
Fortunately, once the enemy’s Eastertide Offensive began, President Nixon’s reaction was firm. He said: “The bastards have never been bombed like they’re going to be this time.”1 The president authorized the massive use of U.S. Air Force and Navy fire power to support the ARVN defensive forces on all fronts. U.S. Air Force and Navy tactical fighter-bombers and Air Force strategic B-52 bombers prepared to pound enemy targets. U.S. Army helicopters with TOW (tube-launch, optical tracked, wire-guided) anti-tank missiles were used for the first time in Vietnam. TOW missiles for infantry units and M-72 anti-tank missiles were also given in great numbers to the ARVN units in their fighting. In the first month of the overwhelming NVA attacks, the ARVN suffered a number of losses. In the second month, it began to respond to the fighting with ability and competence.
In I Corps & Region, Lieutenant General Hoang Xuan Lam, commander, and his adviser, Major General Frederick J. Kroesen, commander of the U.S. First Regional Assistance Command (FRAC), believed that Hanoi would not launch a frontal attack across the DMZ into Quang-Tri Province but would conduct an attack on Hue City through the A-Shau Valley as it had done in the 1968 Tet Offensive. These two generals concentrated their attention on defending Thua Thien and Hue City. General Lam kept the elite ARVN’s 1st Infantry Division to face the NVA 324B Division, which was strengthened by two independent infantry regiments, the 5th and the 6th Regiments, plus an armored regiment and an artillery regiment. He, otherwise, committed the newly formed 3rd Infantry Division to the defense of the DMZ and deployed two detached ARVN Marine units, the 147th and 258th Marine Brigades, to the outskirts of Quang-Tri City. The 147th Marine Brigade camped at base-camp Mai-Loc, 25 miles west of Quang-Tri City and the 258th Brigade was at base-camp Dong-Ha and along Highway 1. Farther to the north of Highway 9, a series of firebases were established from Gio-Linh in the east to the old U.S. firebase Rockpile in the west. This loose arc of tiny firebases just south of the DMZ was known as the “Ring of Steel.”
As a result, when the enemy’s new offensive campaign exploded on April 30, 1972, three regiments of the green ARVN 3rd Infantry Division—the 2nd, 56th, and 57th—had to face the first prong of attack of the NVA forces, comprised of three regiments of the 308th Division, plus several separate infantry and sapper regiments and a tank regiment along the DMZ from firebases Fuller and Cam Lo in the west to Gio Linh District in the coastal area. In the western side of Quang-Tri, the ARVN’s 147th Marine Brigade had to stand against three regiments of the NVA 304th Division plus a tank and an artillery regiments. All of these NVA units were placed under the command of the Communist MR-5, or NVA B-5. Hanoi also kept two infantry divisions, the 320B and 325th in the northern bank of the DMZ as reserves. The veteran NVA 312th Division was in the borderline area to support the 304th in the northern front and the 324B Division in the Southern front, in A-Luoi area, west of Hue. The latter was reinforced with two separate infantry regiments, the 5th and the 6th. The ARVN defensive forces on the DMZ also sustained the ferocious shelling of six NVA long-range 130 mm artillery regiments, which were dispersed along the northern bank of the Ben-Hai River, not including sixteen SA.2 surface-to-air missile emplacements, which would negate allied air support to ARVN defensive forces along the DMZ. In sum, I Corps & Region’s defensive forces were out-manned and outgunned by the massive NVA attacking forces of six to eight division-equivalents, all of which were armed with the most modern Soviet and Chinese weapons, tanks, and anti-tank and anti-air missiles.
On the northernmost front-line, the ARVN 3rd Infantry Division’s troop rotation was half completed on March 30 when the NVA artillery strikes opened. Unfortunately for their commander, Brigadier General Vu van Giai, the fatally destructive shelling of his firebases along the DMZ and the enemy ground attacks led to severe losses. On the third day of the attack, April 2, under the enormous artillery shelling of the NVA expending more than 11,000 rounds from 122mm, 130mm, and 152mm artillery guns, and through the consecutive fierce assaults of infantry and tank units, eight tiny firebases of the “Ring of Steel” had fallen; in the afternoon, the weak 56th Regiment of the ARVN 3rd Division surrendered to the NVA at base-camp Cam Lo. General Giai had to regroup his units and form a new line of defense along the Cua-Viet River. The 3rd Battalion of the 258th Marine Brigade at Dong-Ha, on Highway 1, was still holding its defensive line after blowing the Dong-Ha Bridge to halt NVA tank assaults. On the west side of Quang-Tri City, under the furious attacks of more than five NVA regiments, including a tank regiment, the ARVN 147th Marine Brigade’s commander, Colonel Nguyen Nang Bao, decided to abandon base-camp Mai-Loc and fight in retreat to regroup with the Marine defenders at base-camps Pedro and Ai-Tu, 3rd Division’s operational command headquarters.
On April 4, the 369th Brigade of the ARVN Marine Division was sent to Quang-Tri. The next day, the 147th Marine Brigade moved to Hue to be replenished. By April 5, reinforced by some Ranger, tank and artillery units, General Giai was ordered by General Lam to retake ARVN lost positions on the DMZ. Although he had under his command two infantry regiments (of his 3rd Division), two Marine brigades, four Ranger battle-groups, one armored brigade, and eight artillery battalions, the task proved impossible. On the contrary, he sustained forceful attacks by the NVA forces comprised of the 304th, 308th, 312th, 320B, 324th and 325th Divisions with ten attached independent regiments, or nine division-equivalents, plus two tanks regiments and at least an army-sized artillery unit on the DMZ and around Quang-Tri. Under such circumstances, no general could have done much better then General Giai had done. After three more weeks of bloody and heroic fighting and an unsuccessful counter-attack, General Giai’s forces had to abandon Quang-Tri City, the old Citadel, and the whole Quang-Tri Province, and withdraw to My-Chanh River, the natural border between Quang-Tri and Thua-Thien Provinces.
As a consequence of these actions, General Giai was bitterly prosecuted before a court martial for losing Quang-Tri, stripped of his rank and thrown in prison. General Hoang Xuan Lam, I Corps & Region commander, was relieved of his command and replaced by the young Lieutenant General Ngo Quang Truong, a real troop leader and an ARVN hero.
With the diligent strategic air support of the US Air Force, US Navy tactical air and artillery assist, and Vietnamese Air Force (VNAF) tactical air cover, General Truong was able to halt the NVA attacks at all fronts of the I Corps & Region. Later, from June, he successfully conducted several counter-attacks against the NVA forces, retook Quang-Tri Province and pushed them back over the Thach-Han River.
In early February of 1972, Colonel Trinh Tieu, Chief Staff G-2 (intelligence) of II Corps headquarters was fully informed about the move of the elite NVA 320th Division from North Vietnam to Ben-Het in the Three-Frontier borderline area between Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. Colonel Tieu reported to Lieutenant General Ngo Du, II Corps commander, and estimated that the NVA would open a new campaign in the dry season; the main target would be Kontum Province.
General Ngo Du had under his commander two infantry divisions, the 22nd and 23rd, to defend the 12 provinces of his military region. It was not enough and impossible for any commander to assure the security of this crucial central part of South Vietnam. Prior to 1969, General Westmoreland had placed five allied divisions (one American, two South Korean, and two Vietnamese) in the II Corps & Region for a fair territorial defense.
The weakest zone of this military region was the west Central Highlands stretching 450 miles from north to south, on which lay the Kontum, Pleiku, Phu Bon, Darlac, Quang-Duc, Tuyen-Duc, and Lam-Dong Provinces. Five provinces comprised the coastal zone, but the most important was Binh-Dinh, which connects Pleiku by strategic Highway 19. Many times during the war, Hanoi tried to cut South Vietnam in two along this critical line.
The NVA forces could attack any of the Central Highlands provinces through four main accesses: Ben-Het in the north; Duc-Co, in the center; and Ban-Don and Duc-Lap in the South. Ben-Het in the Three-Frontier was the NVA’s important sanctuary 609 and the base camp headquarters of General Hoang Minh Thao, commander of the communist B3-Front, or the 3rd Military Region of the communists in South Vietnam. In the summer of 1967, the U.S. 173rd Airborne Brigade suffered 257 dead and more than 1,000 wounded when attacking this enemy base camp.
Colonel Trinh Tien believed in March of 1972 that General Hoang Minh Thao, communist B3-Front commander, likely regrouped his NVA forces comprised of three infantry divisions, an armor and two artillery regiments in the Ben Het area, or Sanctuary 609, before launching an attack on ARVN II Corps & Region, first at Dakto and then at Kontum. In the summer of 1967, during the testing campaign of General Vo Nguyen Giap, Dak-To had been an area of intense fighting between the NVA forces and the American 4th Infantry Division, the 173rd Brigade Airborne and a brigade of the 1st Calvary Division. By February 1972, Dak-To was defended solely by the 42nd Regiment of the ARVN 22nd Infantry Division.
Based on current information concerning the presence of the NVA 320th Division at Ben-Het, and on the estimate of his staff intelligence officer, II Corps commander General Ngo Du decided to move the field command headquarters of the ARVN 22nd Infantry Division, its 47th Regiment and 14th Armored Regiment from Binh-Dinh to Dak-To. Colonel Le Duc Dat, 22nd Division Commander, camped his field command headquarters with the 42nd Regiment at Tan-Canh, an old base camp of the U.S. 4th Infantry Division, and deployed the 47th Regiment and the 14th Armored Regiment to the west of Dak-To, on provincial Road 512, to bar enemy access from Ben-Het. The disposition was completed at the end of February.
General Du also asked Saigon for troop reinforcements for his military region. The 2nd Brigade of the ARVN Airborne Division, with five battalions, was sent to Vo-Dinh, on Highway 14, seven miles south of Dak-To. Under the command of the young and competent Colonel Tran Quoc Lich, the 2nd Airborne Brigade deployed to the west bank of the Poko River and established a series of outposts and firebases on several mountain peaks of the strategic “Rocket Ridge,” five to twelve miles southwest of Dak-To. These outposts and firebases were named by capital letters A, C, D, H and Y, or Alpha, Charlie, Delta, Hotel and Yankee. The most important of these were Delta and Charlie. Especially at Charlie, the 11th Airborne Battalion could hear NVA’s trucks moving on the Ho Chi Minh Trail around Three-Frontier.
These outposts and firebases of the 2nd Airborne Brigade on the “Rocket Ridge” range along the west side of the Poko River and at Vo Dinh, on Highway 14, would all protect the ARVN supply-line from Kontum to Dak-To and cover the southwest flank of Dak-To and the northwest flank of Kontum City. NVA B3-Front commander General Hoang Minh Thao would neutralize the ARVN 2nd Airborne Brigade in this crucial area if he were to primarily attack Dak-To or Kontum.
On March 20, five days after the ARVN Airbornes were in position, NVA General Thao launched a test attack against Airborne outpost Delta with the 3rd Regiment of the NVA 320th Division. After three days of bloody fighting, the 2nd Airborne Battalion and the 2nd Airborne Recon Company crushed the NVA 3rd Regiment in pieces, killing hundreds and capturing 12 NVA troops, including the commander of the NVA 1st Battalion of the 3rd Regiment. The attack was a huge defeat. In the last week of March, General Thao then hastened two other NVA 320th Division regiments to the Rocket Ridge range in order to detain the 2nd Airborne Brigade in place, by intense shelling and harassing attacks, as other NVA large units moved into the outskirts of Dak-To.
The clear intention of NVA General Thao was to detain the 2nd Airborne Brigade at the “Rocket Ridge” range to attack the ARVN 22nd Division at Dak-To. If the NVA had defeated the ARVN 22nd Division and seized Dak-To, they would have obtained more political and psychological effect than defeating the Airbornes. However, in order to cut off the Airbornes’ possibility of reinforcing Dak-To, the NVA had to attack again the 2nd Airborne Brigade. The NVA B3-Front commander needed three more weeks, from April 1 to April 22, and the NVA units suffered huge losses of weapons and personnel in isolating the Airbornes. The ARVN 11th Airborne Battalion at outpost Charlie lost its heroic commander, Lt Colonel Nguyen Dinh Bao, on April 14. The outpost was overrun and retaken two days later. In sum, under the brilliant and wise command of Colonel Tran Quoc Lich, the Airborne hero (later, in September 1972, promoted to Brigadier General and Commander of ARVN 5th Infantry Division), the 2nd Airborne Brigade was able to firmly stand on its positions.
A careful study of the case reveals that the fierce fighting of the 2nd Airborne Brigade on the Rocket Ridge gave the ARVN II Corps & Region commander enough time to move the ARVN 23rd Infantry Division from Ban-Me-Thuot to Kontum for a fair defense of its capital city. And, by consequence, this valiant resistance of the Airbornes also retarded the NVA attacks on Dak-To and Kontum. This resulted in a delay of the whole B3-Front’s attack plan in ARVN II Corps & Region during the Eastertide offensive campaign and deprived NVA forces in the highlands of the precious time necessary to link-up with the NVA 3rd Division at Binh-Dinh, in order to cut South Vietnam in two as they had plotted. Thus, this NVA offensive campaign in the Central Highlands failed even though they did realize some temporary successes.
In the three consecutive days from 20 to 22 of April, Colonel Trinh Tieu, II Corps’ chief of staff intelligence officer, gave detailed reports to General Du on the positions of NVA 10th and 968th Divisions that surrounded the ARVN 22nd Infantry Division field command headquarters and its two regiments at Tan-Canh and Dak-To. Colonel Tieu proposed to use strategic B-52 bombing to eradicate these NVA units. His proposition was refused by ambassador John Paul Vann, the only civilian official who was assigned to the job of U.S. general as adviser to the II Corps & Region commander. J.P. Vann did not believe that the NVA had the ability to use tanks and 130mm long-range artillery guns in the Central Highlands, especially at Tan-Canh and Dak-To, and refused to use B-52 bombing. As a result, on April 23, at 10:00 P.M., the field command headquarters of the ARVN 22nd Division was attacked by overwhelming NVA forces, including destructive artillery shelling and tanks assaults. On April 24, at 10:00 A.M., Tan-Canh base camp was overrun. Colonel Le Duc Dat, 22nd Division commander, was unheard of since then and most of his staff officers were killed or captured by the NVA forces. The Dak-To District was seized.
In the coastal area, from the beginning of April, the NVA 3rd Division continuously attacked the 40th and 41st Regiments of the ARVN 22nd Division at the three northernmost districts of Binh-Dinh Province along Highway 1, from Hoai-An to Tam-Quang. Without U.S. air support, Colonel Tran Hieu Duc, the ARVN commander of the area, had to abandon Hoai-An District to concentrate his units on the defense of the two Districts, Bong-Son and Tam-Quang. The loss of the ARVN 22nd Division at Tan-Canh and Dak-To in Kontum and at Hoai-An in Binh-Dinh Province was out of the control of General Ngo Du, II Corps commander, but was resulted from his adviser’s decision. Ambassador John Paul Vann decided not to support Colonel Le Duc Dat. Vann’s disgraceful behavior of a “modern super-regional governor,” would kill one Vietnamese commander and make a grudging hero of another. Clear to the eyes of any high ranking officer was that Vann refused to afford U.S. strategic B-52 bombing to save the 22nd Division at Tan-Canh or at Hoai-An because Colonel Dat was not the man he had preferred to be assigned as commander of this division. A month later, he saved the ARVN 23rd Division at Kontum City, by affording maximum B-52 sorties to Colonel Ly Tong Ba, because Ba was his chosen man for the command of the 23rd Division.
In early May 1972, Lieutenant General Ngo Du, II Corps & Region commander, resigned. He was replaced by Lt. General Nguyen van Toan. Within a week, General Toan was ordered to move the 23rd Division from Ban-Me-Thuot to Kontum for the defense of the city. He also reinforced Kontum by an armored brigade and two Ranger battlegroups. The defenders of Kontum heroically sustained ferocious attacks by the communist B3-Front’s forces, including enormous artillery 130mm round shelling and tank and infantry assaults over all their positions for almost two more months until they were able to lead counter-attacks and totally defeat the NVA 2nd, 320th and 968th Divisions. More than ten thousand NVA troops were killed, thirty tanks destroyed and ten others captured. The bulk of NVA casualties resulted from U.S. strategic B-52 bombings and U.S. and VNAF tactical air strikes. Colonel Ly Tong Ba, ARVN 22nd Division commander, was promoted to Brigadier General.
General Ba would later claim that his great victory at Kontum went unnoticed by the foreign media and was barely mentioned by the Vietnamese press. If he understood that most will despise those who seek honor from the devoted protection of an arrogant figure, such as the “modern governor” John Paul Vann, he would know the true reason why his victory was left behind. Vann was criticized by Americans after the victory of the ARVN at Kontum, when he gushed: “This race, the women are fantastic lovers, the men can not be heroic soldiers, but they are the people of good use and able to bring us victory we wish for, if we take the trouble to teach them.”2 Possessed of such an attitude of ethnocentrism, this brave soldier but stupid diplomat, John Paul Vann, was naturally censured by American opinion; likewise, General Ly Tong Ba, Vann’s protégé, was not appreciated by Vietnamese opinion.
From early February 1972, intelligence had gathered information from contacts between ARVN units and regular NVA reconnaissance force elements in III Corps & Region concerning a huge new communist offensive campaign. Captured documents revealed that all NVA units under the command of COSVN were studying the option of a “combined attack of tank, artillery and infantry” into cities and towns. Lieutenant Colonel Tran van Binh, III Corps Chief of Staff G-2, briefed the III Corps commander and all ARVN regional commanders regarding this intelligence information and estimates. The information suggested the communists would conduct a massive attack into Tay-Ninh or Binh-Long Province, to seize one of these provinces for the presentation of their Southern Provisional Revolutionary Government. Binh-Long would possibly be the NVA main target.
The attacking NVA forces would be the VC 5th and 9th Divisions, the newly formed 320C and 7th Divisions, and the COSVN’s 69th Artillery Division, which was transformed into the 70th Artillery Division, reinforced by an anti-air artillery regiment and an armored regiment from North Vietnam. There were two elements that III Corps staff intelligence could not predict: first, the exact starting date of the communist campaign and second, the ability of the NVA to move tanks from far away into the III Region for a “combined attack.”
General Nguyen van Minh, III Corps & Region commander, had under his command the ARVN 5th, 18th and 25th Infantry Divisions, an armored brigade, and three Ranger battlegroups to defend his military region, which included the Capital Military Special Zone. The 18th Division, camped at Xuan Loc, assured the security of Long-Khanh, Phuoc-Tuy and Binh-Tuy Provinces; the 5th Division, camped at Lai-Khe plantation on Route 13, was in charge of Phuoc Long, Binh-Long and Binh-Duong Provinces; the 25th Division, with its base camp headquarters at Cu-Chi, operated in Tay-Ninh, Hau-Nghia and Long-An Provinces. Brigadier General Le van Hung, 5th Infantry Division commander, established his field command headquarters at An-Loc, the capital city of Binh-Long Province.
Contrary to the general opinion saying that General Minh, III Corps commander, neglected the defense of Binh-Long, he believed in the estimate of his staff intelligence and perceived the COSVN intention to attack Binh-Long instead of Tay-Ninh. First, he sent Colonel Le Nguyen Vy, his operational assistant, to Binh-Long to prepare to shift his field command headquarters from Tay-Ninh City to An-Loc, and then reinforced the 5th Division with the 52nd Task Force of the 18th Division at Can-Le Firebase on the northern bank of the Can-Le River, six miles north of An-Loc. He also requested Saigon to reinforce the 5th Division with an Airborne brigade. In mid–March, the 1st Airborne Brigade was dispatched to Chon-Thanh, a district of Binh-Long Province, 18 miles south of An-Loc. The defense of Binh-Long was almost completed.
As chief of staff G-2 of the 5th Infantry Division, during February and March, I sent continuous long-range reconnaissance teams and covert intelligence agents across the Binh-Long and Phuoc-Long borders into Cambodia Kratie’s southern forested areas to collect any evidence of NVA tanks in the region. Air observations were also used but in vain. No traces of NVA tanks were found. Later, during the fighting at An-Loc, a captured NVA officer from the 203rd Tank Regiment confessed that 60 tanks, including PT-76 and T-54, were carried into the III Region. This shifting of NVA tanks through their long and difficult itinerary must be regarded as an incredible feat. However, when these tanks came into the fighting, they became the prey for the An-Loc defenders. Nobody could have imagined that the battle at An-Loc would be the largest and most ferocious of the Vietnam War. It was bigger than Dien-Bien-Phu in 1954 and Khe-Sanh in 1968. It was more brutal because An-Loc was a city but not a strongly defensive outpost like Dien-Bien-Phu and Khe-Sanh. NVA units did not hesitate to shell the city and kill thousands of its residents. Such was the true nature of the Vietnam communists who wanted to “liberate the people.”
On March 30, at 2:00 A.M., NVA units suddenly attacked all positions of the ARVN 49th Regiment along Road 22 in Tay-Ninh Province. The next morning, they ambushed this ARVN unit on this route, at 3 kilometers South of Thien Ngon base camp, when it was on the move in retreat to Tay Ninh City. All ARVN base camps and firebases from Thien Ngon to Xa Mat were completely overrun after twelve hours of fighting. The most important was firebase Lac-Long, 20 miles north of Tay-Ninh City. General Minh, III Corps commander immediately moved the 1st Airborne Brigade from Chon-Thanh to Tay-Ninh and committed two other regiments of the 25th Division and a Ranger battlegroup to the battlefield. But when these units arrived, the enemy units had disappeared. They left without collecting equipment, weapons, and artillery (105mm and 155mm guns) left by the ARVN 49th Regiment at Lac-Long firebase and others, and even without gathering the bodies of their comrades dispersed all over Route 22 from Trang-Lon Airfield to Xa Mat on the frontier. Captured documents on these NVA troop bodies revealed that they belonged to the newly formed 320C Division, or the Binh-Long Division of the COSVN. On April 2, order in the northern area of Tay-Ninh Province was secured. It was clear that the NVA attack on ARVN positions at Tay-Ninh was a deception. COSVN had reserved its main forces, the 5th, 7th, 9th Infantry Divisions, the 70th Artillery Division and other reinforced units from North Vietnam, the 203rd Tank Regiment and the 271th Anti-Air Regiment, for its nearby offense against Binh-Long Province, its prime target.
Three days passed with an eerie silence in all corners of III Region. Then the communists began their brutal attack into Binh-Long, starting with the Loc-Ninh District. On April 5, at 3:00 A.M., Colonel Nguyen Cong Vinh, commander of the 9th Regiment, reported to his direct superior, General Le van Hung, commander of the ARVN 5th Infantry Division, that his base-camp headquarters and the Loc-Ninh District headquarters were under ferocious enemy shelling. Two battalions of his regiment, the 2/9 and the 3/9, operating in the southwest and northeast of the city, were engaged with overwhelming NVA forces. The 1st Armored Regiment and its attached 4/9 Battalion at base-camp Loc-Tan, a frontier-guard Ranger battalion at outpost Alpha on the frontier, two miles west of Loc-Tan, and the 1/9 Battalion at Bo-Duc, a district of Phuoc-Long Province on Route 14, 12 miles northeast of Loc-Tan, were also under heavy enemy shelling. All of these units would be assaulted within hours. General Hung immediately reported the situation to General Minh, III Corps & Region commander, and requested air support for his units in Loc-Ninh and ground troop intervention for Binh-Long.
In mid–March, Lieutenant Nguyen Hong Quan of the NVA 70th Artillery Division’s Reconnaissance Battalion was arrested in an area one-and-one-half miles north of Loc-Ninh. He confessed that his battalion was charged with studying the terrain for the 70th Artillery Division to place artillery guns for a combined attack against both the ARVN 9th Regiment at Loc-Ninh and the 1st Armored Regiment at Loc-Tan. He knew only that a huge offensive campaign imminent and that the target was Binh-Long; but not the detailed allotment of NVA large units in each phase of the campaign.
As chief of staff for intelligence of the ARVN 5th Infantry Division, I presented to General Hung my estimate concerning the two possible COSVN actions. First, it might simultaneously attack An-Loc and Loc-Ninh with divisional-sized units, plus tank and artillery units, and freeze our reinforcements on Route 13, somewhere north of Chon-Thanh District. Second, COSVN might first attack the 9th Regiment at Loc-Ninh and the 1st Armored Regiment at Loc-Tan, and ambush our reinforcements on Route 13, north of Can-Le Bridge and somewhere on Route 14, between Loc-Tan and Bo-Duc, and then concentrate its forces to attack An-Loc, the capital city of Binh-Long Province.
In the early morning of April 5 at the Lai-Khe base-camp, before General Hung took his command helicopter to the air of An-Loc and Loc-Ninh to directly command his units, which were under enemy fire, he told me:
Fortunately, the NVA has performed the second estimated possibility by attacking the 9th Regiment at Loc-Ninh and the 1st Armored Regiment at Loc-Tan. This will give me enough time to defend An-Loc. If they had followed the first option, we would have lost both Loc-Ninh and An-Loc, because our two units at Loc-Ninh could not move and the sole 7th Regiment at An-Loc could not safeguard the city without a defense system. However, in such a critical situation, under the enemy attacks of four divisions, we are at risk of losing Loc-Ninh and our 9th Infantry and 1st Armored Regiments. If Colonel Vinh and Lt. Colonel Duong can resist and slow them for at least three days, they will be heroes. Anyhow, I will try to do my best to save them.
General Hung could not save Loc-Ninh and his units, despite Vietnamese Air Force (VNAF) fighters and bombers that were called in to support the 9th Regiment base camp and cover the itinerary for the 1st Armored Regiment and its attached artillery and infantry units as they withdrew from Loc-Tan in order to join the 9th Regiment at Loc-Ninh. These ARVN 5th Division units were overwhelmed by superior enemy forces numbering ten to one and were totally defeated after two days of fighting, except the 1/9 Battalion at Bo Duc District which was commanded by the brave and competent Major Vo Trung Thu, who had graduated 1st in the National Military Academy’s Class of 1961 (15th Promotion).
General Hung lost contact with Lt. Colonel Nguyen Duc Duong, 1st Armored Regiment commander, on April 6 at 10:00 P.M., and with the 2/9 and 3/9 Battalions on April 7, at 06:00 A.M. At 10:00 A.M., the 9th Regiment base camp and the Loc-Ninh District headquarters were overrun. Colonel Nguyen Cong Vinh, commander of the 9th Regiment, was arrested by the NVA but his deputy commander, Major Tran Dang Khoa, took his own life while the communists were pouring into his command post after requesting General Hung bomb the base camp. On the morning of April 7, in the command helicopter in the air above Loc-Ninh, I saw General Hung shed tears for the death of a hero. It was the first and last time I witnessed one hero weeping silently for another. Later, on April 30, 1975, the last day of the Republic of Vietnam, as deputy commander of IV Corps & Region, General Hung also took his own life after President Duong van Minh announced the surrender to the communists.
Loc-Ninh had fallen completely. The communist COSVN leaders had mustered more than 40,000 troops to the battlefield at this small northernmost district of Binh-Long Province; but by doing so, they had lost the opportunity to capture An-Loc. This was their biggest strategic mistake in III Corps & Region. They had even launched into the battle Soviet tanks and various Soviet and Chinese modern weaponry, including artillery long-range 130mm guns with piercing and delayed detonator shells, and anti-aircraft 23mm, 37mm guns and surface-to-air SA-7 missiles.
From April 5, General Nguyen van Minh decided to reinforce An-Loc City with the 3rd Ranger Battle-Group and the 8th Regiment, which was an organic unit of the ARVN 5th Infantry Division. He moved back the 1st Airborne Brigade from Tay Ninh to Chon-Thanh and requested from Saigon reinforcement ground troops and the U.S. II Field Forces for strategic and tactical air support. Within two days, from April 5 to April 7, General Hung had 4,000 troops, including 200 local guards of Binh-Long Province, to organize the defense of An-Loc. As field commander of all ARVN units, General Le van Hung displayed his strength of will, energy and leadership in defending An-Loc, even at the sacrifice his own life.
On April 7, after the last contact with Major Tran Dang Khoa of the 9th Regiment, General Hung, flying in his command helicopter back to An-Loc, observed the NVA tanks and troops hastily moving southward on Route 13. He ordered Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen van Hoa, commander of two infantry companies and an artillery company (six 105mm guns) at Can-Le Bridge Firebase, to discharge all artillery shells on the enemy before destroying his guns and blow up the Can-Le Bridge. Meanwhile, he ordered the commander of the 52nd Regiment at Can-Le base camp to engage two of his battalions to block the enemy forces on Route 13, one mile north of Can-Le Bridge. He also requested an immediate VNAF airstrike on NVA units moving along the road and the Be River.
At noon, a strategic U.S. B-52 sortie performed the first bombing box on the advanced command headquarters of the VC 5th Division at three miles northeast of Can-Le Bridge on the west bank of Be River. (A B-52 box was a target consisting of an area measuring 2.5 by 1 kilometers. In one shot a B-52 bomber might drop 20,000 mini-bombs on the box.) From noon to midnight, at the request of General Hung, ten more B-52 boxes were realized on NVA suspect concentration positions in the vicinity of An-Loc and along Route 13 north of Can-Le River.
At 6:00 P.M., the 52nd Regiment at Can-Le Firebase was overrun and its two battalions blocking on Route 13 were also overwhelmed. The remainder of this ARVN unit, more than five hundred, withdrew to An-Loc. Enemy losses along Route 13 were enormous, estimated at more than eight hundred killed by U.S. B-52 bombing, VNAF airstrikes, and fighting with the ARVN 52nd Regiment. Several NVA tanks were also destroyed, according to reports of ARVN troops retreating from Loc-Ninh on April 8 and the following days.
General Hung’s quick and vigorous decisions and the U.S. B-52 intervention had slowed the NVA attack on An-Loc for almost a week. His decisive reactions were the main factors that saved An-Loc from the early days of the communist offensive campaign against the city. If General Hung had not demolished the Can-Le Bridge, stopped the enemy march by the 52nd Regiment, and annihilated the VC 5th Division advanced command headquarters, An-Loc would have been attacked and taken in the afternoon of April 7 by tanks and the VC 5th Divisions. Indeed, the NVA 7th Division had pulled out from its previous positions on Route 13, north of Can-Le River on the night of April 6 and, in the afternoon of April 7, it cut the Route 13, south of An-Loc, from Sa-Cat Plantation to Tau-O Stream, 4 miles north of Chon-Thanh District. An-Loc was not hit on that day, but it was isolated after that. Anyhow, General Hung had enough time to reorganize the defense of the city even if four thousand troops and almost ten thousand civilian residents were provided food and supplies only by helicopters of the VNAF 237th Helicopter Squadron on U.S. Huey and CH-47 Chinooks via Dong-Long Airfield, north of the city.
From April 7 to April 13, the two kilometer long and one kilometer wide city was shelled with a hundred artillery rounds a day. General Hung had to move his field command headquarters to another place in order to avoid the enemy’s concentrated shelling. His wise decision would avoid the devastation of his staff headquarters throughout a hundred days of brutal enemy shelling. Within the first three days more than a hundred civilians were dead and three hundred wounded. Two groups of refugees, led by a Catholic priest and a Buddhist monk, tried to escape southward along Route 13. They were shelled and fired upon by the NVA 7th Division. Hundreds were killed along the road, the majority being women and children.
From April 8, General Minh, III Corps commander, ordered the 1st Airborne Brigade to dislodge the enemy blockade at Tau-O Stream and clear Route 13. But when Saigon decided to reinforce Binh-Long the 21st Infantry Division from IV Corps & Region, the 1st Airborne Brigade of Colonel Le Quang Luong was ordered to pull out from the action zone for the next move. The 21st Division had been fighting to clear Route 13 since April 12. Its field command headquarters was at Chon-Thanh.
In the meantime, in An-Loc, General Hung ordered all units to consolidate their defensive positions and prepare for a big battle. Every defender was to have his own fighting foxhole and shelter strength. I was ordered to prepare targets for B-52 bombing to cut enemy supply lines, tank and troop accesses, and suspect concentrated positions. During one hundred days under enemy siege and attack, I had proposed 196 boxes for B-52s. Later, after the city was released and the enemy defeated, I learned that 90 percent of these proposed boxes had been approved and performed by U.S. Strategic Air Command (SAC).
On April 9, three war reporters of the Song Than newspaper, Nguyen Tien, Duong Phuc, and Thu-Thuy, flew into An-Loc to interview General Hung. Occupied at this moment with operational concerns, General Hung directed me to receive them, saying: “Convey to the reporters my excuses and tell them ‘I will defend An-Loc to the death, I will never come out of the city alive, if I lose it.’” His words were instructions for his troops that roused them in the fighting. In the morning, when the Song Than newspaper appeared, the whole nation learned that An-Loc would be a battle to the death, and it would not be ended until the last defensive unit was sacrificed.
This small city of two square kilometers, 60 miles north of Saigon, came under the main communist attack on April 13. The old NVA tactics involved heavily destructive shelling followed by forceful continuous assaults with overwhelming forces. From 3:00 A.M., to 6:00 A.M., the COSVN’s 70th Artillery Division shelled more than 8,000 rounds of 130mm and 122mm into the city. Immediately after the last wave of concentrated fire stopped, the VC 9th Division units, the main striking force, accompanied by T-54 tanks, assaulted the ARVN 8th Regiment in the northwest and the ARVN 7th Regiment in the west and southwest, while the VC 5th Division units assaulted the ARVN 52nd Regiment in the north, the ARVN 3rd Ranger Battle-Group in the northeast and the east, and the Binh-Long Sub-sector headquarters, which was protected by a Civil Guard battalion, in the southeast of the defensive line. In the afternoon, under the enemy’s fourth fierce assault wave, the front line of the 8th Regiment, the 52nd Regiment, and the 3rd Battle Group from the west to the east of the city and at Dong-Long Airfield was pierced. These units had to withdraw to the second defensive line, south of the main avenue that cut the city in two from east to west. A Civil Guard company at Doi Gio (the Windy Hill, 176m) and Hill 169 (169m), three to five kilometers southeast of An-Loc, was brutally attacked and annihilated.
In the early morning, VNAF fighters were called in to support the defenders. During the day, U.S. strategic B-52 bombers dropped more than 30 boxes on enemy positions around the city and along their access points and supply lines. Enemy casualties from the U.S. and VNAF air strikes were enormous, with 400 killed on the attacking lines and countless others around the city.
Four NVA tanks, oddly unaccompanied by infantry troops, strayed around the streets and seemed lost. One such tank coming across the defense line of the ARVN 5th Division field command headquarters was shot by Colonel Le Nguyen Vy, and was soon burning and exploding. ARVN troops shouted out with joy and jumped from their bunkers to the streets with their M-72 anti-tank guns to hunt the other NVA tanks, which were also shot and demolished. On the night of April 13, a U.S. Gunship AC-130 Specter that was covering the air over An-Loc shot down two more NVA T-54 tanks and four PT-76 armored carriers. The morale of the defenders was extremely high. After that, they did not lose one more inch of city ground to the enemy. On April 14, NVA units tried to attack again the ARVN 8th Regiment and the 3rd Ranger Battle-Group new defensive lines, but failed and were pushed back to the northern part of the city. The 52nd Regiment thereafter was ordered to move to the southwest defensive line.
However, the loss of the half city in the north and the Dong-Long Airfield put General Hung’s troops under daily enemy pressure and pushed the general himself into the impossibility of evacuating wounded soldiers and transporting ammunition and provisions for his troops. An-Loc was completely besieged. Serious problems began surfacing. The city hospital was hit by NVA shelling that destroyed it and put it out of operation. More than 400 civilians were wounded and two hundred others killed by NVA shelling. Colonel Bui Duc Diem, 5th Division operational chief of staff, personally directed the digging of several of collective graves on the large hospital’s frontal court to bury the dead. ARVN unit commanders had to bury their dead soldiers on the spot within their defensive positions. Troop replacements were cut off. Wounded soldiers continued fighting in place. Two hundred were on the defensive lines. The communists continued shelling the city with nearly two thousand rounds a day, killing and wounding hundreds more defenders and civilians. Reinforcement of troops and supply of ammunition and food for An-Loc were the most imperative decision for General Minh, III Corps commander. Shortage of strength and supplies would place An-Loc on the verge of collapse, despite the iron will of General Hung and his troops to defend it.
With the loss of Dong-Long Airfield on April 13, the unique landing zone (LZ) for additional troops and supplies by CH-47 Chinooks and helicopters was cut off. VNAF promptly received orders to airlift by fixed-wing airdrops, using Fairchild C-123s and C-119s. At An-Loc, the NVA had modern anti-aircraft weapons, including 37mm and 57mm canons, and began using hand launched surface to air SA-7 Strela guided missiles. Vietnamese C-123 and C-119 airlifters found themselves facing the deadliest concentration of fire ever seen in South Vietnam. In three days, two C-123s were shot down and after 27 missions, only 10 percent of the 135 tons of ammunition and supplies were recovered by the defenders.
The most important problem that happened in these days was the disagreement on tactical matters between General Hung and his U.S. advisor, Colonel William H. Miller. Colonel Miller many times tried to push General Hung to take positive action to retake the northern part of the city and more than once threatened to request TRAC (U.S. Third Regional Assistance Command) to “rescue” his Advisory Team from An-Loc. Sometimes Hung responded nicely but many times he kept his silence and left the operational bunker (a long, underground shelter-trench used as a TOC, or tactical operational center). Once, General Hung told me: “I respect him as an experienced soldier, but he does not know much about the enemy in this war compared to me. How could I execute a counter-attack? As you know, we had just a small force without ammunition and supplies. I just need him for air support and supplies, not for his knowledge and tactics.” Colonel Miller also told me: “Your ‘young’ General is good for keeping his silence rather than for speaking and acting.” I politely replied: “Yes, Sir; his ‘silence’ means he would stand firm to fight and his soldiers would look at him to stand firm for the fight. He is young but he is the best and a very experienced combatant of our army.” Later, I knew they became “enemies” on the sly. They underestimated each other.
An-Loc was becoming more and more like Dien-Bien-Phu or Khe-Sanh as the NVA artillery anti-aircraft units, attached to infantry divisions, managed to thwart the airlifters’ efforts at resupplying the besieged defenders. The next step was to decisively destroy them by ground assaults. Every Vietnamese and American leader knew that if An-Loc were lost, Saigon would be shaken and the Vietnamization would fail. Saving An-Loc was a question of vital importance for Saigon.
President Thieu immediately ordered the 2nd Airborne Brigade to move back from II Corps to reinforce III Corps, plus the 15th Regiment of the 9th Infantry Division of IV Corps & Region. MACV commander General Abrams also instantaneously ordered the U.S. 374th Tactical Airlift Wing (U.S. 374th TAW) to commence airdrop supplies for An-Loc since the VNAF C-123 and C-119 airlifters’ efforts had proved so ineffective under the intense enemy ground-fire around the besieged city. After two weeks of risky airlifts and the loss of three C-130s, a new dropping method to keep An-Loc supplied had been discovered. Flying at high-altitudes of over 10,000 feet, U.S. C-130s were out of range of NVA SA-7 missiles that made their appearance in the vicinity of An-Loc. The high-velocity and delayed-opening parachute droppings would guarantee 98 percent of the special bundles of supplies and ammunition would be recovered by the defenders. The U.S. 374th TAW C-130 crews were the first saviors of General Hung’s troops after the U.S. B-52 bombers’ crews. Their supply missions continued successfully until the enemy siege was released and the defenders totally defeated their enemy. But the real saviors of An-Loc were the ARVN 1st Airborne Brigade and the 81st Special Airborne Battlegroup commanders and troops. General Minh, III Corps commander, undertook to save An-Loc by reinforcing General Hung with these elite units.
Colonel Le Quang Luong, commander of the 1st Airborne Brigade, was the great tactical commander of the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces (RVNAF) after General Do Cao Tri and General Nguyen Khanh. On April 14, he flew into An-Loc to meet General Hung before engaging his troops into the battlefield.
The initial plan of III Corps commander was to airlift the 1st Airborne Brigade by VNAF helicopters and drop them on a landing zone (LZ), the vast, dry rice-field between the Can-Le River and the Dong-Long Airfield, five kilometers north of An-Loc. From there, the airbornes would move southward to attack the NVA units occupying the Dong-Long Airfield and the northern part of the city on April 13. In combination, General Hung’s units would attack the enemy from the south in order to recapture these lost targets. This III Corps’ operational plan sounded good, but it was far from perfect. In a meeting with General Hung, Colonel Luong explained that if the 1st Airborne Brigade landed in this flat and exposed rice-field, they would have become live targets to be destroyed by the NVA artillery. He foresaw more than half of his troops would be lost by this feasting of the cruel vultures on airborne flesh. The remainder would be unable to successfully fight as they would be pinned down and destroyed under direct enemy fire. Colonel Luong proposed that instead of attacking the enemy to retake the lost portion of the city and the Dong-Long Airfield, consolidating the morale of the defenders would be the better course. Giving them provisions and ammunition to fight and evacuating the wounded soldiers in each ARVN unit while providing thousands of additional troops should precede any counter-attack measures.
Colonel Luong proposed airlifting 1st Airborne Brigade troops by VNAF helicopters and dropping them on a secret LZ near Hill 169, four to five kilometers southeast of An-Loc. From there, one of his battalions would advance and attack enemy elements on Hill 169 and the “Windy Hill,” retake these highest points in the vicinity of An-Loc and set up a strong support firebase. They would protect the two other battalions, which would proceed into the city and establish a temporary landing path for VNAF helicopters and U.S. C-47 Chinooks on a spacious portion of Route 13, abutting the Binh-Long Sub-Sector headquarters compound in the southern part of the city. His units would protect this landing path of three kilometers in length and 800 meters in width for the resupply of An-Loc defenders until they could regain their strength for a future counter-attack. General Hung saw the wisdom of Colonel Luong’s operational plan to rescue An-Loc and backed it. General Minh also approved this clear-sighted design which became the key factor that led the ARVN units at An-Loc to final victory.
Colonel Luong’s officers and troops resolutely followed this master plan. At sunset on April 15, the 6th Airborne Battalion was dropped at the designed LZ. They promptly moved forward and suddenly attacked elements of the VC 5th Division at Doi-Gio (the Windy Hill) and Hill 169. After two hours of fighting, the Airbornes broke the enemy unit to pieces and reoccupied these highest strategic points to set up their firebases. Before daybreak on April 16, the two other battalions of the 1st Airborne Brigade and Colonel Luong’s command headquarters were on the assigned defensive line in the city. The 8th Airborne Battalion was charged with managing and securing the landing path for helicopters and chinooks as planned while the 5th Battalion was established near General Hung’s headquarters as his reserve. Colonel Luong’s headquarters encamped within the Binh-Long Sub-Sector’s compound of Colonel Tran van Nhut, Sub-Sector commander and province-chief.
On April 17, the ARVN 81st Special Airborne Battle-Group, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Phan van Huan, entered the city at sunset and immediately launched a night attack against the VC 9th Division’s units in the northern part of the city. At daybreak of April 18, ninety percent of this commercial section was recaptured. From then on, fighting continued day and night from street to street for several weeks (see Map 5).
The 1st Airborne Brigade and the 81st Special Airborne Battle-Group at An-Loc caused NVA troops great consternation by their flexible tactics, determined action, and competence of nightly movements and attacks. In addition, the establishment of the new landing path for helicopters to resupply and refresh the city’s defenders surprised the COSVN to the point that it could not react adequately to the new situation on the battlefield. General Hung took advantage of this opportunity to evacuate wounded soldiers and receive two thousand fresh troops within a single week, by VNAF helicopters and U.S. CH-47 Chinooks via the new landing path. Allied supply activities in this landing path continued and lasted to the end of the An-Loc battle. Provisions and ammunition for the defenders and food for the residents, about thirty percent of the total sum needed, came through this arterial supply path. The greater part of supplies remained in the hands of the U.S. 374th TAW C-130 airlifters.
On the ground were about twenty American advisers to the ARVN 5th Infantry Division, the Binh-Long Subsector, and the 81st Special Battle-Group. These small groups of people greatly helped the ARVN defenders through strategic and tactical air support and supply. Their heroic work contributed to the victory of An-Loc.
In sum, the marvelous presence of the ARVN 1st Airborne Brigade and the 81st Special Airborne Battle Group on the ground and U.S. Air Force B-52 bombers, AC-130 Specter Gunships, and C-130 Airlifters plus VNAF fighters and helicopters in the air, had brought with them a new, fresh wind for the An-Loc defenders and changed the complexion of the battle. The presence of these brave saviors of An-Loc also revealed the unworkable tactics of the communist COSVN and the inefficiency of their anti-air activities. The communists missed all opportunities to defeat General Hung’s forces at An-Loc. The defenders, their morale extremely high, were ready to forcefully greet any new enemy attacks or wait for a general counter-attack if Route 13 were cleaned by the ARVN 21st Infantry Division and its attached units, the 2nd Airborne Brigade, the 5th Armored Regiment, and the 15th Regiment of the 9th Infantry Division.
The COSVN leaders were forced to change their offensive plans. Over the following two months they launched several violent combined attacks against General Hung’s forces, including the Airborne and Ranger units, but all of their efforts ended in failure.
On April 19, COSVN launched the second phase of the offensive against An-Loc. In the early hours of the morning, after attacking the city for two hours with concentrated artillery fire of more than five thousand rounds, ten thousand troops of the VC 9th and 5th Divisions, plus twenty T-54 and PT-76 tanks, attacked ARVN units positions at all frontlines. At the same time, the 275th Regiment of the VC 5th Division and the 141st Regiment of the NVA 7th Division struck the ARVN 6th Airborne Battalion’s firebases at Hill 169 and the Windy Hill. After twelve hours of fighting, supported by the VNAF fighters, the airbornes still firmly held the fight against several waves of enemy assaults. But at night, outnumbered by the enemy, two airborne companies at the Windy Hill had to cut the siege and withdraw to rejoin the 1st Airborne Brigade. Two other companies of the 6th Airborne Battalion, commanded by Lt. Colonel Nguyen van Dinh, had to destroy six artillery 105mm guns before abandoning Hill 169 and fighting in retreat to the Be River. From there, in the next morning, these two airborne companies were rescued by VNAF helicopters to Lai-Khe to be replenished. The 6th Airborne Battalion had lost more than a hundred troops killed or missing in action.
Fighting in the city continued the next day, April 20. Communist attacking forces were unable to advance one inch, except several T-54 tanks that again erred and were destroyed. Enemy casualties numbered more than 800 killed. A dozen T-54 and PT-76 tanks were demolished. Communist forces suffered further casualties around the city because of VNAF fighters, U.S. AC-130 Specter gunships, and U.S. strategic B-52 bombers. In two days, April 19 and 20, twelve B-52 bombing-boxes were dropped on their positions.
After recapturing the Windy Hill and Hill 169, COSVN leaders believed they could dominate the city and neutralize the new landing path, south of Binh-Long Subsector’s compound, by attacking the 1st Airborne Brigade. On April 21, they ordered two other regiments of the VC 5th Division, the E6 and 174th, to move and join the 275th Regiment at Sa-Cam rubber plantation, four kilometers south of An-Loc, in order to attack the 5th and 8th Airborne Battalions and the 2/7 Battalion. But, at night, a U.S. AC-130 Specter gunship, providing air coverage for the city, detected five moving NVA tanks and destroyed them. In addition, these communist units were hit by two B-52 bombing-boxes at midnight. COSVN’s attempt to attack An-Loc from the south failed.
In the first three days of their second-phase attack on An-Loc the communists would lose possibly two thousand troops killed and twenty tanks destroyed. After this defeat, COSVN had to delay its next offensive phase against An-Loc for almost three weeks, despite the announcement on April 18 by Hanoi’s Broadcasting Station that the city would be presented by the North Communist Party to honor its puppet government in the South, the Southern Provisional Revolutionary Government, at An-Loc on April 20. The 70th Artillery Division would continue firing into the city nearly 2,000 rounds a day from heavy artillery guns, causing more damage to the city, its defenders, and its civilian residents. But evacuation of wounded soldiers, replacement of troops, and supply of provisions and ammunition continued to proceed successfully by VNAF helicopters via the new landing path, although, on Route 13, the ARVN 21st Division had not yet dislodged the NVA 7th Division at Tau-O Stream. An-Loc remained under enemy siege.
On May 11, the COSVN launched the third phase of its attack on An-Loc. In this phase, the VC 5th Division, after replenishing its strength, undertook the main effort with the assistance of the VC 9th Division, plus tanks and artillery anti-aircraft of the 271st Regiment. The communist tactics were unchanged. From midnight to 5 A.M., the 70th Artillery Division concentrated ferocious firing into the city of more than 11,000 rounds by heavy 150mm and 130mm guns, 122mm rockets, and 120mm mortars. This was the most devastating concentrated NVA artillery shelling seen throughout the Vietnam War. An-Loc City almost collapsed except for the iron morale of the defenders. Immediately after the artillery firing stopped, communist attacking units assaulted the defenders at all frontlines. Again, their troops were killed and tanks destroyed by M-72 personal anti-tank guns of the defenders.
This enemy plan of attack was anticipated. An NVA officer who had been rallied to an ARVN unit at An-Loc on May 8 had disclosed it. Therefore, when the attack started, U.S. B-52 bombers and VNAF A-37 fighters urgently interfered on the battlefield. In twenty-four hours, thirty B-52 sorties dropped several tons of bombs on enemy positions and their accessible itineraries in the vicinity of An-Loc. To avoid the danger of mass-killing, enemy forces closely approached ARVN defensive lines before fiercely attacking. The fighting occurred hand-to-hand, or removed only by a wall, a small yard, a building, or a street.
The battle’s most critical event happened on the morning of May 11, when a regiment of the VC 9th Division, after piercing the ARVN 3/7 Battalion’s positions, advanced and assailed General Hung’s headquarters command post (CP), which was defended by the 5th Reconnaissance Company. General Hung instantly ordered the 5th Airborne Battalion to move from the southern defense line to reinforce his CP. Since dawn that day, Captain Chanh, 5th Reconnaissance Company commander, and 43 remainders, despite the loss of two-third of the troops, had heroically fought and successfully safeguarded General Hung’s CP before all of his staff officers and NCOs, including Colonel Le Nguyen Vy, Colonel Bui Duc Diem, and U.S. Divisional Advisory Team chief, Colonel W. F. Ulmer (who replaced Colonel Miller in early May), came up to the defensive line. General Hung himself, with a signal team, stood in his CP’s front courtyard without a combat helmet, like a simple company commander, but with a black star added to his combat uniform’s collar. For more than an hour he gave orders to ARVN commanders at all city fronts and directly communicated with two VNAF A-37 fighter crews to guide their firing on the nearest enemy attack positions, until the 5th Airborne Battalion appeared on the battleground. This elite unit, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Chi Hieu, intensely attacked the enemy troops from their flank in front of General Hung’s headquarters CP, and crushed them completely before noon.
The communist offensive continued until May 13. However, after a huge loss of troops and tanks inside the city, and unable to reinforce troops from the outside for a continuous attack, the communist units’ offensive efforts hourly withered as their assaulting strength faded and diminished. Finally, all enemy attacking forces were broken to pieces and disappeared. The third phase of the offensive against An-Loc was entirely defeated by the afternoon of May 14.
Four days on the offensive resulted in communist casualties so enormous that COSVN could not launch another attack against An-Loc, despite their ultimate ambition of seizing it for political gain. Inside the city more than a thousand had been killed and two dozen tanks destroyed. On the outskirts an even greater number of manpower, firepower, and tanks were annihilated by allied strategic and tactical airstrikes. In total, ¾ of their artillery field guns and ⅘ of their tanks were estimated demolished and more than four thousand troops were killed.
The month after this last enemy offensive phase, General Hung and his adviser, Colonel Ulmer, proceeded with their plans to attack the enemy by U.S. strategic and VNAF tactical air raids against their supply lines along Saigon and Be Rivers. The air raids, especially by the U.S. B-52 bombings, targeted farther enemy sanctuaries 708, 350, 352, and 353 in Perrot’s Beak and along the border of Cambodia and Binh-Long Province.
Inside Binh Long Province the communist units were not totally destroyed for one reason. Lieutenant Colonel Tran van Binh, III Corps Staff G-2, and this writer, as General Hung’s Staff G-2, knew that these communist units could not hide in their secret-zones, such as Duong-Minh-Chau, Long-Nguyen, or Ben-Than, but would instead go to Loc-Ninh Rubber Plantation or several others around An-Loc such as Quan-Loi in the east, Sa-Cam, Sa-Cat, and Sa-Trach in the south along Route 13, and Dau-Tieng in the west along the Saigon River. We proposed a number of B-52 bombing-boxes to eradicate them, especially aimed at the communist COSVN and the Southern Provisional Revolutionary Government (SPRG) at Loc-Ninh, and the NVA 7th Division at Sa-Trach Rubber Plantation. However, General Minh, III Corps commander, would not sow more terror or death on innocent people, tens of thousands of whom had been unable to escape from these rubber plantations since the communist offensive campaign occurred. Another explanation was that General Minh would not devastate these plantations, which were all owned by Frenchmen, because it would cause complicated political problems for the U.S. and South Vietnamese governments with France. While I had to respect General Minh’s humane and political motives to refuse our proposal, these untouchable plantations became the last but solid bastions for the communist units to shelter as their base-camps. This prolonged the battle in Binh-Long.
The difference between the Vietnamese communists and Vietnamese nationalists was made clear on Binh-Long battlefield in the summer of 1972. The communists would do anything to achieve their goals, even the most savage and cruel of measures, such as pushing the women and children refugees from Quan-Loi in front of their troops as shields, to cover them, on the first day of their attack on An-Loc; firing on the masses of refugees from the city on Route 13, killing thousands of them and leaving their exposed bodies on the ground to decay; and randomly shelling the commercial areas and the hospital of the city, killing thousands of others. The Vietnamese nationalists refused to act without consideration for human beings, their lives, their feelings, and their property. For this reason, ARVN units had to sacrifice more soldiers’ lives in fighting against the communists to save innocent people. General Minh knew that, when he refused to allow U.S. B-52 bombing against the communist COSVN in Loc-Ninh and the NVA 7th Division in Sa-Trach and Sa-Cat Rubber Plantations. He had to change his operational plans to dislodge the NVA 7th Division units at Tau-O Stream and along Route 13 to release An-Loc from the enemy siege, although the city had been stable since May 15.
General Minh organized a special task force, comprised of the 15th Infantry Regiment, the 5th Armored Regiment, and the 6th Airborne Battalion, and moved the latter by helicopter to Tan-Khai in the west of Route 13, four kilometers north of Tau-O Stream. From there, this task force would attack the NVA 7th Division from its east flank and advance to An-Loc. The ARVN 21st Division was ordered to push its 31st Regiment to attack the enemy at Tau-O Stream while two other regiments, the 32nd and 33rd, were carried by helicopters to an LZ, west of Sa-Cat and Sa-Cam Plantations, to attack the enemy on their west flank. The 1st Airborne Brigade at An-Loc was also ordered to attack the enemy at Sa-Cam Plantation from the north. General Minh’s new operational plan was successfully carried out by all ARVN units under his command.
On June 11, the 6th Airborne Battalion of Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen van Dinh fiercely attacked the NVA 141st Regiment, in revenge, broke it into fragments, and linked-up with the 8th Airborne Battalion of Lieutenant Colonel Van Ba Ninh on Route 13 four kilometers south of An-Loc. On the same day, the 32nd Regiment of the ARVN 21st Division, after dislodging the enemy from positions at Sa-Cam Plantation, also coupled with these two Airborne units.
Inside An-Loc, from May 18, ARVN units had counter-attacked and eliminated all the remainders of the enemy 5th and 9th Divisions in the northern portion of the city. On June 12, the 81st Special Airborne Battle Group recaptured the Dong-Long Airfield and eradicated the last enemy unit at Dong-Long Hill, two kilometers northeast of the airfield.
The national flag flying on the top of Dong-Long Hill in the afternoon of June 12 marked the final victory of all ARVN units at An-Loc.
On July 7, President Nguyen van Thieu flew into An-Loc to honor the ARVN heroes who had fought the biggest battle of the Vietnam War. The city had been completely devastated by the unimaginable communist shelling. Eighty-five percent of the city’s structures were collapsed. Every wall and tree, if still standing, was traced with numerous shell-splinters. Only the 15-foot-tall statue of Jesus Christ on the west end of “Sunset Avenue” remained in an untouchable mighty state under the sunlight when President Thieu came to pray before Him. Thousands of ARVN soldiers who had sacrificed their lives to defend this small city of God against the army of Satan, would live eternally with Jesus Christ in this glorious ground.
While An-Loc City collapsed under the thousands of artillery rounds launched by the communists, the fighting spirit of the defenders did not. ARVN soldiers held their ground in a life-or-death battle. Courtesy Nguyen Cau and Sao Bien.
Communist casualties, during the three months of their Summer 1972 Offensive Campaign in III Corps & Region, especially at An-Loc, were fivefold greater than those of the ARVN. It was estimated that half of their attacking forces, twenty-five to thirty thousand infantry troops were killed, eighty percent of their artillery and anti-aircraft guns destroyed, and ninety five percent of their tanks demolished. The majority of these casualties were caused by U.S. strategic bombing and U.S. and VNAF airstrikes.
ARVN 5th Infantry Division troops at their defensive line. Courtesy Nguyen Cau and Sao Bien.
Soldiers of the ARVN 3rd Ranger Battle Group in a counter-attack in the northern part of An-Loc City (June 1972). Courtesy Nguyen Cau and Sao Bien.
The South Vietnamese commanders who achieved victory for the ARVN forces at An-Loc in summer of 1972 were Lieutenant General Nguyen van Minh, III Corps & Region commander, Brigadier General Le van Hung, ARVN 5th Infantry Division commander and An-Loc field commander, and Colonel Le Quang Luong, 1st Airborne Brigade commander (later, in December 1972, promoted to Brigadier General and Commander of the Airborne Division). Certainly, in this grand battle, all ARVN commanders of smaller units, officers, NCOs, and soldiers at An-Loc and on Route 13, were heroes. Among them, the most glorious would be Colonel Le Nguyen Vy (later, in 1973, promoted to Brigadier General and Commander of the ARVN 5th Infantry Division), Colonel Tran Van Nhut (later, in September 1972, promoted to Brigadier General and Commander of the ARVN 2nd Infantry Division), Colonel Truong Huu Duc, commander of the 5th Armored Regiment (killed in action); Colonel Bui Duc Diem, 5th Infantry Division operational chief of staff; Lieutenant Colonel Phan van Huan, 81st Special Airborne Battle-Group commander, Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen van Biet, 3rd Ranger Battle-Group commander, Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Viet Can, 32nd Regiment commander (killed in action), Lieutenant Colonels Le van Ngoc, Nguyen Chi Hieu, Nguyen van Dinh, and Van Ba Ninh, four heroes of the 1st Airborne Brigade. The list would include Lt. Colonel Ly Duc Quan the 7th Regiment Commander, Major Huynh van Tam, deputy commander of the 8th Infantry Regiment, Captain Pham Chau Tai of the 81st Special Airborne Battle-Group and Captain Le van Chanh, commander of the 5th Reconnaissance Company.
On July 11, the ARVN 18th Infantry Division of Brigadier General Le Minh Dao, replaced the ARVN 5th Infantry Division at An-Loc and the ARVN 25th Infantry Division replaced the ARVN 21st Infantry Division at Chon-Thanh. On July 20, the 25th Division finally dislodged the NVA 7th Division’s blockades at Tau-O Stream and along Route 13 to An-Loc.
Brigadier General Le van Hung, ARVN 5th Infantry Division and An-Loc Field Commander. The General declared he would fight to the death; he would never leave the city if he lost An-Loc. On April 30, 1975, after President Duong van Minh surrendered to the Communists and disbanded the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces, this hero took his own life. Courtesy Brigadier General Le Quang Luong.
The battle of An-Loc ended and the communist Summer 1972 Offensive Campaign against ARVN III Corps & Region was completely defeated. The victory of An-Loc in III Corps and Kontum in II Corps permitted the Joint General Staff of the RVNAF to move the Airborne Division and the 81st Special Airborne Battle-Group to reinforce I Corps & Region for a counter-attack campaign against the communists to recapture Quang-Tri Province.
On July 28, General Ngo Quang Truong, I Corps & Region commander, launched the Lam-Son 72 counter-attack campaign against the communist forces, which had increased to six infantry divisions and two other division-sized armored, artillery and anti-aircraft units in the northern part of his military region. His plan was to recapture Quang-Tri Province’s territory north of My-Chanh River, the capital city, and the Old Citadel with two ARVN elite Airborne and Marine Divisions, while keeping the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Infantry Divisions for the search-and-destroy operations in Thua-Thien, Quang-Tin, Quang-Nam, and Quang-Ngai Provinces to secure his rear side.
The ARVN units’ competence at fighting was again proved in this unbalanced battleground, particularly in Quang-Tri Province. Even though outnumbered by the communist forces, the Airborne and Marine Divisions, plus some additional armored and artillery regiments, under the direct command of General Truong, advanced along both sides of Highway 1 and successively crushed the communist small and large units on their march to the Quang-Tri capital city. After three months of proceeding with the decisively powerful support of U.S. Air Force strategic B-52 bombers, U.S. Navy warships’ firepower along the coast, and U.S. and VNAF tactical bombers-fighters, these ARVN Airborne and Marine Divisions, and their attached units, finally recaptured Quang-Tri City and the Old Citadel on September 16, 1972, and pushed the NVA forces over the Thach-Han River. This latter victory marked the disastrous end of the communist Summer 1972 Offensive Campaign in South Vietnam. South Vietnamese writer Captain Phan Nhat Nam named this communist campaign “Red Summer 1972.”
The total communist losses in the battles were assuredly enormous. It was estimated that sixty percent of their troops and eighty percent of their war materiel, including tanks, artillery fields guns, and anti-aircraft guns and missiles that had poured into South Vietnam battlefields in this audacious Summer 1972 Offensive Campaign, were destroyed. In the third week of September, when President Thieu and COMUSMAVC General Abrams visited the ARVN Airborne Division’s field command headquarters at Hiep-Khanh, Quang-Tri, they saw abundant NVA war materiel captured, tanks (T-54, PT-76, and BTR 85); field artillery guns (75mm, 122mm and 130mm); anti-aircraft missiles and guns (SA-7, AT-3, 12.8mm, 37mm, and 57mm) plus three dozen transport vehicles (Zi and Molotova) and thousands of personal weapons of all kinds. The Soviet-made war equipment had been carried from the Soviet Union to North Vietnam via the Hai-Phong Seaport.
Brigadier General Le Quang Luong, Commander of the Airborne Division, a prominent tactician and RVNAF hero. He commanded the 1st Airborne Brigade that saved An-Loc in May and June of 1972. Courtesy Brigadier General Le Quang Luong.
Lieutenant General Nguyen Van Minh (center), Commander of ARVN III Corps and Region. Brigadier General Le Van Hung (right), Commander of ARVN 5th Infantry division and An-Loc's Field Commander. Colonel Le Quang Luong (Left), commander of ARVN 1st Airborne Brigade (in December 1972, he was promoted to Brigadier General and Commander of ARVN Airborne division). Courtesy General Le Quang Luong.
During this communist offensive campaign, the ARVN troops had proved their bravery, ability and competence. They would have assured the success of the Vietnamization if the United States had continued to strongly support them with airpower and firepower. In addition, the South Vietnamese Army should have been strengthened with at least four or five more divisions to replace the eleven U.S. and Allied large units that had left South Vietnam in the previous months. This crucial augmentation of ARVN combat units should have been realized prior to any political solution to preserve the existence of the South Vietnamese regime. If the United States had never engaged combat troops in this “testing ground,” the question of the life and death of South Vietnam would have depended on its own government. But now, after ten years of directly engaging, leading and escalating this complicated war to the point that it puzzled even the most clever brains of the world, the United States had the responsibility to do its best for the ARVN before transferring the heaviest burden of the war to the shoulders of its commanders and troops. President Nixon and his adviser Kissinger should know these problems, especially after the communist 1972 Summer Offensive Campaign, where ARVN units everywhere had been outnumbered and outgunned by the NVA units.
On their side, South Vietnam’s leaders should have learned from the Red Summer that without the strong support of US Air strategic and tactical firepower, ARVN units, through with determined morale, bravery and fighting capacity, could not fight and defend their assigned grounds. Thus, had the Vietnamization been completed, the U.S. Air Force would have gone and the equation “ARVN + U.S. Air Powers = NVA + Inter-Com Weaponry” would have been deficient and become “ARVN < NVA + Inter-Com Weaponry.” Further, the balance of firepower in the battlefield would tilt to the enemy side and South Vietnam would be in danger.
In this situation, the most imperative needs for the RVNAF to continue safeguarding democracy were firepower from the air force and the navy and more troops for the army. Undeniably, President Thieu had vision concerning these important matters. However, he lacked the determination to deal with the Nixon administration. The period prior to the U.S. 1972 presidential election was very sensitive to President Nixon. Every political or military event in South Vietnam could seriously affect his second-term presidential candidacy. If President Thieu exposed his desire to give up his power in South Vietnam, then that might have changed Nixon’s decisions to transform the RVNAF into a really modern armed force. Or, at the very least Thieu could have called for a nationwide “Committee for Reforms” with selected and elite politicians, economists, and strategists to carefully study measures for South Vietnam in a longer-standing struggle against North Vietnam while the United States had clear intentions to disengage from Vietnam.
President Thieu took several political and military actions to strengthen his administration after the Red Summer, but these moves were not clear enough, not efficacious enough, and less known to visionaries. On the contrary, everybody knew that he shared power with a few feckless and corrupt generals who, instead of contributing their knowledge to heal a fragmented society after the Vietnamization and a wounded armed force after the Red Summer directed contraband and black markets or spread corruption for their own greed and prosperity. They ruined both the administration and the armed forces by selling important posts to mediocre officers and collecting monthly bribes from them. Corruption at the highest levels of South Vietnam wreaked the greatest havoc to the regime and most discouraged its supporters in Washington and around the world. South Vietnam in the 1970s was different from South Korea in the 1950s. How would the United States solve the problem of Vietnam reasonably?