Giap was prepared to take a gamble. His
divisions had been battered whenever they met the American forces
in conventional combat and the VC- if not exactly on the retreat
-was at least being pushed backwards. Hanoi was perfectly aware
of the growing US peace movement and of the deep divisions the
war was causing in American society What Giap needed was a body-blow
that would break Washington's will to carry on and at the same
time would undermine the growing legitimacy of the Saigon Government
once and for all. In one sense, time was not on Giap's side. While
Hanoi was sure that the Americans would tire of the war as the
French had before them, the longer it took, the stronger the Saigon
Government might become. Another year or so of American involvement
could seriously damage the NLF and leave the ARVN capable of dealing
with its enemies on its own. Giap opted for a quick and decisive
victory that would be well in time for the 1968 US Presidential
campaign.
Giap prepared a bold thrust on two fronts. With memories of
the victory at Dien Bien Phu still in his mind, he planned an
attack on the US Marines' firebase at Khe Sanh. At the same time.
the NVA and the NLF planned coordinated attacks on virtually all
South Vietnam's major cities and provincial capitals. If the Americans
opted to defend Khe Sanh, they would find themselves stretched
to the limit when battles erupted elsewhere throughout the South.
Forced to defend themselves everywhere at once, the U~ARVN forces
would suffer a multitude of small to major defeats which would
add up to an overall disaster Khe Sanh would distract the attention
of the US commanders while the NVA/VC was preparing for D-day
in South Vietnam's cities but, when this full offensive was at
its height, it was unlikely that the over-stretched American forces
would be able to keep the base from being overrun and Giap would
have repeated his triumph of fourteen years before.
It's highly doubtful that the NVA/VC expected to hold all or even some of the cities and towns they attacked, but the NLF apparently did expect large sections of the urban populace to rise up in revolt With a few exceptions, this didn't happen. South Vietnam's city dwellers were generally indifferent to both the NLF and the Saigon Government but the VC clearly expected more support than it actually got. The object of attacking the cities was not so much to win in a single blow as it was to inflict a series of humiliating defeats on the Americans and to destroy the authority of the Saigon Government. When the US/ARVN forces finally drove the NVA/VC back into the jungle, there would be left behind a wasteland of rubble, refugees, and simmering discontent. Stung by their defeats, the Americans would lose heart for the war and what was left of the Saigon Government would be forced to reach an agreement with the NLF and Hanoi which - after a time - would simply take over in the South. This offensive would begin in January 1968 at the time of the Vietnamese Tet (New Year) holidays.
The village of Khe Sanh lay in the
northwest corner of South Vietnam just below the DMZ and close
to the Laotian border Khe Sanh had been garrisoned by the French
during the first Indochina war and became an important US Special
Forces base early on during the second. Its importance lay in
its proximity to the Ho Chi Minh Trail. From Khe Sanh, US artillery
could shell the trail and observers could keep an eye on NVA traffic
moving southwards. If necessary they could call in air-strikes
or alert CIA/Meo raiding parties across the border in Laos. Special
Forces working with local Montagnard tribesmen also harried NVA
traffic in the area and were a definite nuisance to Hanoi. In
1967, the Marines took over Khe Sanh
and converted it into a large fire base. The Special Forces moved
their base to the Montagnard village of Lang Vei.
Towards the end of 1967, it was obvious that Giap was planning
something. Broadcasts from Hanoi were speaking of great victories
and of ta king the war into the cities of South Vietnam. Two NVA
divisions- the 325th and the 304th were spotted moving into the
Khe Sanh area and a third was positioning itself along Rout#9
where it would be able to intercept reinforcements coming in from
Quang Tn. The two NVA divisions near Khe Sanh had fought at Dien
Bien Phu and the warning was clear Westmoreland picked up the
gauntlet and began to reinforce the base despite predictions of
upcoming bad weather which could hinder air support and interfere
with vital supply planes. Appearances to the contrary, Westmoreland
had no intention of duplicating the French mistakes at Dien Bien
Phu. American airpower was capable of delivering devastating attacks
on concentrations of enemy troops and - apart from anti-aircraft
guns - was unopposed. Helicopters and parachute drops by low-flying
cargo planes reduced the dependence on re-supply by road.
By late January, some 6,000 Marines had been flown in to reinforce the Khe Sanh garrison and thousands of reinforcements had been moved north of Hue. The NVA build-up also continued; 20,000 North Vietnamese were ultimately moved in around Khe Sanh but other estimates put the number at twice that Initially, Giap would position his artillery in the DMZ and then send his assauIt troops against the fortified hills surrounding Khe Sanh which the Marines had captured in the dogged fighting in 1967. Having captured the hill positions, Giap reasoned, the NVA artillery could be moved onto the heights above the beleaguered base. Then - as happened at Dien Bien Phu - waves of determined infantry would steadily grind away until the defenders were pushed into a corner and finally over-run. The White House and the US media became convinced that the decisive battle of the war had begun. TV news reports were so obsessed with Giap's threatened replay of Dien Bien Phu that day-to-day life at Khe Sanh became lead-story material even when it showed nothing other than anxious Marines waiting for something to happen.
The first attack began shortly before dawn on January 21st, when the NVA attempted to cross the river running past the base. It was beaten back but followed by an artillery barrage which damaged the runway, blew up the main ammunition stores, and damaged a few aircraft. Secondary attacks were launched against the Special Forces' defenses at Lang Vel and against the Marines dug-in on the hills surrounding Khe Sanh but these attacks were aimed more attesting the defenses than anything else. The next day, helicopters and light cargo aircraft flew in virtually every few minutes replacing lost ammunition but the weather began turning worse.
The NVA began a concentrated artillery
barrage and moved their troops forward to begin building a network
of entrenched positions in which they could prepare for further
assaults on Khe Sanh's outer defenses. Anti-aircraft guns and
the worsening weather made incoming supply flights difficult running
skirmishes designed to break through on Rout#9. Air and supporting
US forces moved-up to engage the NVA in running skirmishes around
Khe Sanh were intensified and despite the weather- pounded the
North Vietnamese hour after hour. Electronic sensors of the types
running along the McNamara Line surrounded Khe Sanh. Seismic and
highly sensitive listening devices enabled the Americans to monitor
everything from normal conversations to radio communications.
Overhead, high-flying signal-intelligence (SIGINT) aircraft intercepted
communications traffic over the entire front and to and from command
centers in North Vietnam.
While the world was watching the drama unfolding at Khe San
h, however, NVA and VC regulars were also drifting into Saigon,
Hue, and most of South Vietnam's cities. They came in twos and
threes, disguised as refugees, peasants, workers, and ARVN soldiers
on holiday leave. In Saigon, roughly the equivalent of five battalions
of NVA/VC gradually infiltrated the city without anyone informing
or any of the countless security police taking undue notice. Weapons
came separately in flower carts, jury-rigged coffins, and trucks
apparently filled with vegetables and rice. There was also a VC
network in Saigon and the other major cities which had long stockpiled
stores of arms and ammunition drawn from hit-and-run raids or
bought openly on the black-market. It was also no secret that
VC drifted in and out of the cities to see relatives and on general
leave from their units. Viet Cong who were captured during the
pre Tet build up were mistaken for regular holiday-makers or deserters.
In the general pattern of the New Year merry-makers, the VC's
secret army of infiltrators went completely unnoticed.
Tet had traditionally been a time
of truce in the long war and both Hanoi and Saigon had made announcements
that this year would be no different - although
they disagreed about the duration. US Intelligence had gotten
wind that something was brewing through captured documents and
an overall analysis of recent events but Westmoreland's staff
tended to disregard these generally vague reports. At the request
of General Frederick Weyand, the US commander of the Saigon area,
however, several battalions were pulled back from their positions
near the Cambodian border. General Weyand put his troops on full
alert but- due to a standing US policy of leaving the security
of major cities to the ARVN -there were only a few hundred American
troops on duty in Saigon itself the night before the attack began.
Westmoreland later claimed to have anticipated Tet but the evidence
suggests that he was not prepared for anything approaching the
intensity of the attack that came and that he was still concentrating
his attentions on the developing battle at Khe Sanh where he thought
Giap would make his chief effort.
In the early morning hours of January 31st, the first day of
the Vietnamese New Year, NLF/NVA troops and commandos attacked
virtually every major town and city in South Vietnam as well as
most of the important American bases and airfields. There were
some earlier attacks around Pleiku, Quang Nam, and Darlac but
these were largely misinterpreted as the enemy's main thrust by
those who were expecting some activity during Tet Almost everywhere
the attacks came as a total surprise. Vast areas of Saigon and
Hue suddenly found themselves "liberated" and parades
of gun-waving NVA/VC marched through the streets proclaiming the
revolution while their grimmer-minded comrades rounded up prepared
lists of collaborators and government sympathizers for show trials
and quick executions.
In Saigon, nineteen VC commandos blew
their way through the outer walls of the US Embassy and overran
the five MP's on duty in the early hours of that morning. Two
MP's were killed immediately as the action-team tried to blast
their way through the main Embassy doors with anti-tank rockets.
They failed and found themselves pinned-down by the Marine guards
who kept the VC in an intense firefight until a relief force of
US lO1st Airborne landed by helicopter. By mid-morning, the battle
had turned. All nineteen VC were killed, their bodies scattered
around the Embassy courtyard. Five Americans and two Vietnamese
civilians were among the other dead. The commandos had been dressed
in civilian clothing and had rolled-up to the Embassy in an ancient
truck. The security of the Embassy was not in serious danger after
the first few minutes and the damage was slight but this attack
on 'American soil" captured the imagination of the media
and the battle became symbolic of the Tet Offensive throughout
the world. Other NVA/VC squads attacked Saigon's Presidential
Palace, the radio station, the headquarters of the ARVN Chiefs
of Staff, and Westmoreland's own MACV compound as part of a 7O0
man raid on the Tan Son Nhut air-base. During the heavy fighting
that followed, things became sufficiently worrying for Westmoreland
to order his staff to find weapons and join in the defense of
the compound. When the fighting at Tan Son Nhut was over, twenty-three
Americans were dead, eighty-five were wounded and up to fifteen
aircraft had suffered serious damage. Two NVA/VC battalions attacked
the US air-base at Bien Hoa and crippled over twenty aircraft
at a cost of nearly 170 casualties. Further fighting at Bien Hoa
during the Tet offensive would take the NVA/VC death total in
Saigon to nearly 1200. Other VC units made stands in the French
cemetery and the Pho Tho race track. The mainly Chinese suburb
of Cholon became virtually a NVA/VC operations base and, as it
later turned out, had been the main staging area for the attacks
in Saigon and its immediate area. President Thieu declared Marshal
law on January 31st but it would take over a week of intense fighting
to clear-up the various pockets of resistance scattered around
Saigon. Sections of the city were reduced to rubble in heavy street
by street fighting. Tanks, helicopter gunships, and strike aircraft
blasted parts of the city as entrenched guerrillas fought and
then slipped off to fight somewhere else. The radio station, various
industrial buildings, and a large block of lowcost public housing
were leveled along with the homes of countless civilians who were
forced to flee. The city dissolved into a chaos which took weeks
to begin to put right.
The fighting within Saigon itself was pretty much over by February
5th but it carried on in Cholon until the last week of the month.
Cholon was strafed, bombed, and shelled but the NVA/VC held on
and even mounted sporadic counter-offensives against US/ARVN positions
within the city and against Tan Son Nhut airport. B-52 strikes
against communist positions outside Saigon came within a few miles
of the city When the NVA/VC were finally driven out of Saigon's
suburbs, they retreated into the surrounding government villages
and fought there. US and ARVN artillery and strike-aircraft bombed
and shelled these supposedly pacified villages before troops moved
in to reoccupy them. The NVA/VC repeated this tactic again and
again in a clear effort to make the Saigon Government destroy
their own fortified villages and, by doing so, further alienate
the rural population. A month after the offensive began, US estimates
put the number of civilian dead at some 15,000 and the number
of new refugees at anything up to two million and still the battles
went on.
Elsewhere in South Vietnam, the success of the Tet offensive
was erratic. Many of the attacks on the provincial cities and
US bases were easily beaten back within the first minutes or hours,
but others involved bitter fighting. In the resort city of Dalat,
the ARVN put up a spirited defense of the Vietnamese Military
Academy against a determined VC battalion. Fighting raged over
the Pasteur Institute - which changed hands several times-and
the VC dug themselves in the central market Fighting in Dalat
went on until mid-February and left over 200 VC dead. In cities
like Ban Me Thuot, My Tho, Can Tho, Ben Tre, and Kontum, the VC
entrenched themselves in the poorer sections and held out against
repeated efforts to push them out The biggest battle, however
occurred at Hue.
The Buddhist crisis had left bitter feelings towards the Saigon
Government in the ancient
Vietnamese capital and, within a few hours of their attack, the
disguised insurgents supported by some ten NVA/VC battalions had
overrun all of the city except for the headquarters of the ARVN
3rd Division and the garrison of US advisors. The main NVA/VC
goal was the Citadel, an ancient imperial palace covering some
two square miles with high walls several feet thick. NVA troops
assaulted the Citadel and ran up the VC flag on the early morning
of January 31st but were unable to displace ARVN holding out in
the northeast section. Having overrun the city and found considerable
support among sections of Hue's populace, the NVA/VC began an
immediate revolutionary "liberation" program. Thousands
of prisoners were set free and thousands of "enemies of the
state" - government officials, sympathizers, and Catholics
were rounded up and many were shot out of hand on orders from
the security section of the NLF which had sent in its action squad
with a prepared hit-list. Most of the others simply vanished.
After Hue was finally recaptured at the end of February South
Vietnamese officials sifting through the rubble found mass graves
with over 1200 corpses and-sometime later-other mass burials in
the provincial area. The total number of bodies unearthed came
to around 2500 but the number of civilians estimated as missing
after the Hue battle was nearly 6000. Many of the victims found
were Catholics who sought sanctuary in a church but were taken
out and later shot Others were apparently being marched off for
political "re-education" but were shot when American
or ARVN units came too close.
The mass graves within Hue itself
were largely of those who had been picked up and executed for
various "enemy of the people" offenses. There is some
doubt that the NVA/VC had planned all these executions beforehand
but unquestionably it was the largest communist purge of the war.
US Marines and ARVN drove into the city and, after nearly
two days of heavy fighting, secured the bank of the Perfume river
opposite the Citadel. Hue was a sacred city to the Vietnamese
and apart from the ancient Citadel held many other precious historical
buildings. After much deliberation, it was reluctantly decided
to shell and bomb NVA/VC positions. Resistance was heavy and sending
the Marines into the city without air and artillery support would
have meant an unacceptable cost in lives. To many, the battle
for Hue reminded them of the bitter street-by-street fighting
that occurred during World War lI. The NVA had blown the main
bridge across the Perfume River. US forces crossed in a fleet
of assault craft under air and artillery cover which blasted away
at the enemy-held Citadel. Its walls were so thick that few were
killed but the covering fire made the enemy keep their heads down
while the Marines and soldiers hit the bank below.
While the ARVN, with US support, fought its way through the streets
of Hue block by block, the Marines prepared to assault the Citadel.
On February 2Oth American assault teams went in through clouds
of tear gas and the burning debris left over from air and artillery
attacks. The NVA/VC were pushed into the southwestern corner of
the Citadel and finally overwhelmed on February 23rd. Enemy resistance
in Hue was finally reduced to isolated pockets and sniper teams.
As the Citadel fell, NVA/VC units began retreating- some of them
marching groups of soon to be massacred prisoners before them
- into the suburbs while their rear guards fought holding actions
with the advancing ARVN. The fight for Hue ended by February 25th
at a cost of 119 Americans and 363 ARVN dead compared to about
sixteen times that number of NVA/VC dead.
The dramatic difference in fatalities
makes the battle look a one sided affair But it wasn't! The difference
in casuaity figures came largely from the heavy use of artillery
and aircraft back-up to devastate NVA/VC positions throughout
Hue which reduced large sections of the city to body-laden piles
of rubble. Had the commanders decided to preserve the ancient
and revered city US/ARVN casualties would have been much higher
American wounded during the battle for Hue came to just under
a thousand compared to slightly over 1,200 ARVN. Nearly 120,000
citizens of Hue were homeless and, of the close to 6,000 civilian
dead, many died in the bombing and shell-fire.
Contrary to many reports, large sections of Hue escaped relatively
undamaged but after the battle they were forced to suffer days
of looting by soldiers from the original ARVN garrison who had
spent the previous weeks keeping their heads low. Their commander-who
had also sat out the city's Buddhist rebellion against Ky-was
later accused of having known about the coming attack for days
beforehand. His defense was that he had allowed the NVA/VC battalions
into Hue in order to spring a trap! In the villages outside Hue,
the battle went on for another week or so as the retreating NVA/VC
took over the villages just long enough for them to be destroyed
by bombing and concentrated artillery shelling. Civilian deaths
and refugees increased.
On February 5th, the fighting died out in Saigon and the Marines
prepared for their river assault on the Citadel in Hue. The electronic
sensors around the besieged fire-base at Khe Sanh warned of enemy
preparations to assault the entrenched positions on Hill 881,
which was outside the main camp. Intensive artillery fire broke
up the assembling NVA troops but a second planned attack on Hill
881 had gone unnoticed until the Marines found themselves fighting
off waves of oncoming North Vietnamese regulars. For half an hour
the beleaguered Marines battled the NVA in hand to-hand fighting
- even trusting their flak jackets enough to use grenades at close
quarters - until the artillery could be brought to bear on the
hill and the attackers forced to withdraw.
Two days later, the Green Beret's
camp at Lang Vei was attacked by an NVA assault force led by ten
Soviet-built, FT-76 light, amphibious tanks. Despite a shortage
of anti-tank ammunition three of the armored vehicles were put
out of action before the NVA swarmed over the wire. Because of
the very real likelihood of an ambush, no relief force was sent
and the Lang Vei commander, Captain Frank Willoughby, ordered
his men into the jungle, and called down air and artillery strikes
directly onto the camp. Of the original force of twenty four Special
Forces and 900 Montagnard, only Willoughby and seventy-three others
managed to struggle into Khe Sanh. The next day NVA troops overran
nearly half of an outer Marine position at Khe Sanh before being
blasted back by artillery, aircraft, and armor.
Giap's ambition to win a massive victory against the Americans
was thwarted by massive aerial bombardments of NVA positions.
B-52's and strike aircraft dropped their loads with pin-point
accuracy within a few hundred feet of Khe Sanh's perimeter. During
the course of the battle, tons of bombs and napalm were dropped
around Khe Sanh. Bad weather and increasing anti-aircraft fire
inhibited the steady flow of incoming supplies but the vital cargo
planes and helicopters kept coming despite losses. The fortified
hills around Khe Sanh were supplied by Sea Knight Helicopters,
frequently accompanied by fighter escorts. The battle settled
down into a siege. The NVA concentrated on shelling the base and
trying to stop the supply planes with anti-aircraft fire while
digging in around the camp. Both sides employed teams of snipers
to harass each other's movements.
The NVA launched further attacks on February 17th, 1&h,
and 29th but massed artillery and air-strikes broke the first
up fairly easily while the second involved heavy fighting. In
early April, relief forces reached the base. A 1st Cavalry helicopter
assault force landed near Khe Sanh as American and ARVN forces
hit NVA positions along Rout#9. Khe Sanh was relieved on April
6th and, four days later, Lang Vei was reccu- pied. Fighting continued
around Khe Sanh for a time but Giap had long since given up any
hope of overrunning the base. The drive to relieve Khe Sanh had
gone smoothly and without heavy resistance. From this, many inferred
that the whole siege of Khe Sanh had been a feint to cover preparations
for the Tet Offensive in the South. And to an extent, this was
true but the evidence suggests that Giap's moves on Khe Sanh had
a more deadly purpose than simply drawing American attentions
away from the South at the critical time. By the middle of February
it was obvious that the battle for South Vietnam's cities was
failing and that US airpower would deny the NVA another Dien Bien
Phu. Seeing the inevitable, Giap seems to have began a slow wind
down of the siege before the US counter-attack began.