Hell in An Loc Page 11
Meanwhile, in the northeast sector, the 31st Rangers bore the brunt of the assault conducted by the 272nd Regiment of the 9th Division supported by a tank company. Lieutenant Phuoc’s company—which was securing Route 13 north of An Loc—withdrew toward the city under heavy pressure. Radio contact was lost at 6:50 A.M. with the company defending the high ground east of Dong Long airstrip. Some ARVN units who had never faced tanks before retreated in panic. Colonel Biet, the Ranger Group commander, was able to rally the 31st Rangers and to organize a new defense line about one block north of Tran Hung Dao Boulevard. Observers on the top of the 3rd Ranger Group command post reported one tank moving south on an adjacent street. The Ranger Group assistant operations officer requested an air strike. A U.S Air Force F-4 Phantom (twin-engine, long-range, all-weather, fighter-bomber) responded immediately, dropping a bomb on top of the tank and setting it afire.17
The 36th Battalion—which was screening the northeastern perimeter—was also under heavy attack from enemy infantry supported by a column of tanks racing from Quan Loi plantation. The Ranger Group command post requested air support. U.S. warplanes swung into action and destroyed the leading tanks, but the infantry kept attacking the 36th Battalion’s defensive positions at the city’s outer perimeter. The 36th Battalion suffered heavy losses, and had to withdraw toward the city. What was left of the battalion took up defensive positions on the multi-story buildings on the eastern edge of the town. In the afternoon, Colonel Biet issued an order to all units to hold the positions they were occupying, and not to withdraw any further.
While the USAF and VNAF warplanes and U.S. Army Cobra attack helicopters were chasing North Vietnamese infantry and tanks from the air, a key event on the ground galvanized the morale of the garrison and increased the confidence of the defenders in the effectiveness of the M-72. It also constituted a milestone in the fight against enemy tanks. As one of the tanks rolled down Route 13 all the way toward the southern gate, eighteen-year-old Pham Cuong Tuan, a member of the People’s Self-Defense Force—with two of his comrades Tran Van Binh and Nguyen Van Giang, both sixteen—standing on the roof of the second floor of a elementary school, raised his three-pound LAW-72 rocket launcher and shot point-blank at the approaching tank. The T-54 exploded amid the cheers of his comrades. At the same time, a ranger destroyed another T-54 with his rocket launcher on the eastern sector. Word spread quickly that LAWs can stop enemy tanks and that even young members of the PSDF can do it. ARVN soldiers overcame their fear, emerged from their foxholes and started to chase and destroy tanks all over the city.18
“The little guy goes out to hunt a 40-ton piece of metal with a light antitank weapon on his back weighing two to three pounds,” recalled a U.S. advisor with the 3rd Ranger Group. “That’s beyond belief and it inspired me. How do you describe a little ARVN soldier fighting tanks? I was pretty well frightened like everyone else till it was determined we could knock them out with the weapon we had.”19 Even the LCDBs assigned to the Ranger Group also participated in the fight against enemy tanks. As a column of four T-54s coming down from Trung Vuong Street turned to Nguyen Trung Truc Street behind the Old Market, one LCDB threw a hand grenade into the auxiliary fuel tank of one of the T-54s, causing the tank to burst into flames; the North Vietnamese tankers opened the hatch and ran out in all directions. They were all killed on the spot.20
While the jet fighters were effective in destroying enemy formations massing for the attack outside the perimeter of defense, close support inside the city was better handled by the more versatile and maneuverable Cobra attack helicopters. The latter were credited with destroying twenty NVA tanks during the battle of An Loc, but they also had to pay a heavy price for their bravery: five Cobras were shot down during the first day of the attack and eight crewmen (out of thirty-two) were lost.21
The withdrawal of the 8th Regiment and the 3rd Ranger Group toward the center of the town exposed both flanks of TF-52, which occupied the central area between these two units. Depleted and lightly armed—their heavy weapons and artillery had been abandoned or destroyed at Hung Tam Base—and still in a state of shell shock from its earlier disastrous encounters with the NVA, TF-52 also fell back in disarray from enemy tank attacks. Colonel Thinh, the task force commander, finally rallied his men within Colonel Nhut’s assigned area and joined his force with the province territorial units defending the southeastern sector.
In the early hours of April 13, Vo Tan Vinh, administrative deputy province chief, heard the roar of engines outside his house. Thinking that ARVN’s relief forces had broken through NVA blocking positions on Route 13, he rushed to his window to greet the rescuing column. He was virtually looking down the barrel of a 100mm cannon of a forty-ton Russian-built T-54 rolling toward the center of the town. The machine gunner stood in the open hatch, whistling, while two tank men, wearing leather helmets, sat casually on the top of the tank, and three soldiers wearing slippers dangled their feet nonchalantly on the side.22
Around 10:00 A.M., a T-54 tank ventured aimlessly into the south sector without infantry protection. Entangled with concertina and barbed wire—which were lying all around the city blocks—the tank stopped dead like a sitting duck at a point south of the Binh Long Sector headquarters. It started, however, to use its 100mm cannon to fire at the southern watchtower. Colonel Nhut ordered Captain Khai, the sector artillery commander, to destroy the tank with a disabled 105mm howitzer located near the flagpole in front of the sector headquarters. As the howitzer’s tires and sight instrument had been damaged by enemy artillery fire, Khai pointed the gun directly at the tank. He destroyed the tank with one single round. He was later promoted to major for this extraordinary exploit.23
One North Vietnamese soldier from the above destroyed tank was captured. He said his name was Van Mai, T-54 driver with the rank of corporal. He belonged to 226th Company, M72 battalion. His armored unit consisting of nine T-54s had arrived in Cambodia in February 1972. It moved from NVA’s secret base of Kratie, Cambodia, to Snoul, then to Quan Loi. On the morning of April 13, his unit and the 272nd Regiment of NVA’s 9th Division attacked An Loc. He also disclosed that his commander said that when their tanks attacked Loc Ninh, the defenders ran away in panic. This was why this time the unit commanders sent the tanks to the town first, followed by the infantry. However, the defenders at An Loc didn’t run; instead, they were waiting in their foxholes to kill the tanks. Further, when the infantry from the 272nd Regiment were strafed by Air Force fighters and Cobra gunships, they fled in all directions, leaving the tanks unprotected, thus transforming them into easy targets for the defenders.
Van Mai felt tired and disappointed. He said the political officer in his unit told the tankers that when they entered An Loc, they would be warmly welcome by the populace. This was why, like other NVA troops, he had brought along a new uniform to parade in An Loc, the new capital of the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) of the Liberation Front of South Viet Nam. As a matter of fact, that same day, Madame Nguyen Thi Binh, the head of the Viet Cong delegation at the Peace Talks at Paris, declared that “within the next ten days, An Loc will be proclaimed the capital of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Viet Nam.”24
Van Mai was not alone in feeling tired and disappointed. The North Vietnamese soldiers, subjected to incessant earth-shaking B-52 strikes, hungry, lonesome, unwelcome by the people they were supposed to liberate, were afraid, demoralized, and hopeless. Phan Nhat Nam, an army reporter, in Mua He Do Lua (Red Burning Summer), recalled that on the body of NVA soldier Nguyen Dinh Nghiem from Nghe An, military ID # HT 810042 SZ7, ARVN troops found an unsent letter in which he told his parents that “the conditions of the battle are very harsh, very difficult; sometimes I can’t write a letter in 2 or 3 years, therefore don’t wait for my letters.”25
On the body of Nguyen Van Huu, military ID # 271003B004, a letter from his wife read “ . . . This Tet I will buy the standard 1.5 kilograms of sugar which are allocated by the hamlet cooperative to families o
f people doing military service. Mother told me to bring flour and eggs, but this would be too expensive . . . I will make 50 cakes and will prepare some pudding and Mother had already agreed . . .” This prompted Phan Nhat Nam to comment, “Nguyen Van Huu, whom you want to liberate and for what reasons? What a pity! Three years working for liberation in exchange for 1.5 kilograms of sugar! Do you liberate your compatriots in the South to ‘progress toward socialist goals’ for 1.5 kilograms of sugar?”26
In a letter to her husband Le Van Huu, 174th Regiment, Nguyen Thi Hang, a teacher at Nghe An, wrote in part, “My only hope is that, after three years of military service, you will come back to me safe, I want to close my eyes so that time will pass by fast, faster, so that you and I, we will be able to live in a small house, to surmount obstacles together, to enjoy happiness . . .”27 Le Van Huu was killed in the first attack on An Loc, six months after he crossed the Chaine Annamitique to go south to “liberate” his Southern compatriots.
In the meantime, the people of An Loc did everything possible to prevent the kind of “liberation” the NVA soldiers and their political commissars were talking about. In his memoir, General Nhut disclosed that before the enemy attacked An Loc, the province police and intelligence agencies within the Phoenix program28 had preemptively arrested VC agents who had been previously identified but not apprehended because they were not deemed dangerous at the time. As the enemy relied on these VC infiltrators and sympathizers to guide them toward important objectives, such as the 5th Division and sector headquarters, or even to adjust artillery on these objectives, the detention of these agents caused NVA tanks to get lost and to roll aimlessly in the city streets. Further, when NVA troops forced the civilian population to show them the direction to their assigned objectives, people often directed them toward ARVN ambush sites.29
Another major problem for the NVA was that their troops had no experience with combined arms tactics and that the control of armor was centralized at the Central Office for South Viet Nam (COSVN), the People’s Army of Viet Nam (PAVN) political and military headquarters. As there was no direct coordination at division and regiment level, the tanks and infantry which attacked An Loc operated under separate commands, and as a consequence, when the infantry was stopped and dispersed by tactical air and Cobra gunships, the tanks continued to roll into the city without infantry protection.
While the defenders were busy beating back enemy human-wave assaults on the northern sectors, VNAF and USAF pilots provided constant air support—including B-52 missions around An Loc—and were in great part instrumental in breaking the human wave assaults on the city. Two enemy ammunition depots to the west and northwest of the city were hit by Arc Light missions—one of them exploded for several hours. As the battle progressed, a pattern of air support developed. The B-52s usually struck the enemy logistical installations and staging areas, although in many instances, they were being diverted to close tactical support; tactical air support was used in front of the perimeter of defense; and slow-moving warplanes, such as Cobra attack helicopters, A-37 Dragonfly jet fighters (Air Force trainers converted for close air support, equipped with a 7.62mm gun) and AC-130 Spectres operated within the city in close proximity to friendly troops.
Adding to the problem of air support was that an important number of South Vietnamese warplanes also participated in the battle of An Loc and that could cause interference and increase the risk of midair collisions. To solve this problem of command and control regarding tactical air support, USAF and VNAF were assigned specific zones of responsibility: U.S. warplanes would operate in an area three kilometers north of Chon Thanh to the Cambodian border—excluding the immediate area surrounding the camp of Tong Le Chan, fifteen kilometers southwest of An Loc. VNAF would cover the area south of USAF’s assigned sector.30
In any event, by midday of April 13, the twisted and burned-out wreckage of numerous T-54 and PT-76 tanks littered the streets of the city. Around An Loc, U.S. and South Vietnamese warplanes accounted for many more.
In the afternoon, the 5th Division received a report that an enemy unit had occupied the province’s Chieu Hoi Office and was firing on friendly troops moving on an adjacent street. (Chieu Hoi was the “Open Arms” program aimed at inducing the Viet Congs to rally to the government.) Because the Chieu Hoi building was located in close proximity to both the 5th Division headquarters and the Ranger Group command post, this enemy penetration constituted a serious threat, which needed to be eliminated at all costs. The 5th Division directed the 3rd Ranger Group to recapture the Chieu Hoi compound.
The mission to retake the building fell to a company of the 52nd Battalion. As the Chieu Hoi building was located on high ground with good fields of fire, the attackers had to cross an open area to assault the enemy position. Lt. Nguyen Van Hieu, the company commander, personally led his men in the attack; he was shot in the head and fell dead right in front of the building. His company was pinned down by all types of weapons, including heavy machineguns and also M-79 grenade launchers that the enemy had captured from dead ARVN soldiers. By late afternoon, as the 52nd Battalion was still unable to retake the Chieu Hoi building, Colonel Biet ordered the battalion to pull its attacking company out of the range of the enemy M-79s. He then ordered the 31st Battalion to send one of its companies to do the job.31
This mission was assigned to Lieutenant Phuoc. Phuoc’s company, which previously secured Route 13 north of An Loc, had suffered heavy casualties from enemy artillery and during the engagement against enemy tanks south of Can Le Bridge. So by the time Phuoc was ordered to take the Chieu Hoi Office, his company was down to a little more than twenty able-bodied men. Phuoc and his men, again, were pinned down in front of the Chieu Hoi building by enemy machinegun and M-79 fire. He requested air support, but the VNAF helicopter gunships, which were the first to arrive on the scene, determined that they could not fire because the target was too close to friendly troops. Thereafter, U.S. advisors with the 3rd Ranger Group requested USAF fighters. The latter requested the rangers to mark their position with white smoke, but the pilots could not see the target because strong winds caused the smoke to drift in the direction of the target and obscured it from their view.
Finally, the Ranger Group, through the advisory team, requested the support of the AC-130 Spectre that was supporting the 8th Regiment on the western sector. The advisors were informed that this aircraft was returning to its base because it had expended all of its ammunition, but that another one was on its way to An Loc and that the rangers would have the first priority. After a few moments, the American senior advisor was able to contact the FAC and to guide it toward the target, which was located a little over fifty meters southwest of the town square in the middle of Tran Hung Dao Boulevard. The FAC spotted the target immediately and fired a rocket. Lieutenant Phuoc made a few small adjustments and requested “fire for effect.” A string of explosions followed and when the smoke cleared, Phuoc and his men assaulted the Chieu Hoi building. A few frightened NVA soldiers emerged from the underground concrete bunkers—typical of provincial public buildings in An Loc—to gasp for air; they were finished off by Phuoc’s company. Phuoc reported that he counted more than ten bodies outside the collapsed bunkers, which were by that time heavily flooded by a torrential rain. He also captured one machinegun, two M-72s, and six AK-47s. In addition, he recovered a lot of ammunition, including M-79 ammunition; the latter was part of the pallets that had fallen into the Chieu Hoi compound, and the enemy had been using the dropped ammunition and food to resist the ranger attacks. Phuoc’s company also recovered the body of Lieutenant Hieu, from the 52nd Battalion, who was killed while leading his men during the first attack on the Chieu Hoi compound.32
All enemy resistance at the Chieu Hoi compound was completely eliminated around 11:00 P.M. About a half-hour later, Col. Le Nguyen Vy, the 5th Division deputy commander, wearing a flak jacket and steel helmet, accompanied by a second lieutenant, visited the Ranger Group headquarters to congratulate the group for its p
erformance. Colonel Vy and his boss, General Hung, had followed the action of Lieutenant Phuoc’s company by monitoring radio conversation between Phuoc, the group headquarters, and the FAC. He said the division commander was very pleased with the rangers’ performance in eliminating the enemy penetration. After he left the ranger command post, Colonel Vy went to the 31st Battalion frontline in the vicinity of the White Bridge along the road to Quan Loi. There he witnessed the bond of solidarity between the soldiers and the civilian population as the residents of this part of the city and the rangers of the 31st Battalion supported and cared for one another.
Back at the division headquarters, Colonel Vy called Colonel Biet and said he was impressed with the discipline and motivation he had observed during his visit to the 3rd Ranger Group and that this should put to rest the unfounded rumor that had been swirling around that the rangers hadn’t put up a good fight during the first NVA attack on An Loc.
In late afternoon, the enemy renewed their attack on elements of the 8th Regiment on the northwest sector. Because the 5th Division artillery had been put out of combat during the day by enemy counter-battery fire, Colonel Truong, the 8th Regiment commander, had to rely on his organic 81mm mortars for close support. When one of the mortar crew was wiped out by enemy artillery, some LCDBs, who were transporting ammunition for the 8th Service Company, jumped into the mortar pit to replace the decimated crew and continued to fire until the attack was repulsed. Colonel Truong was impressed with the LCDBs’ courage and professionalism.
Throughout the rest of the day, in the northern sector, the enemy was consolidating their positions around Dong Long airstrip, while small engagements at platoon and company levels and house-to-house fighting continued despite heavy air support.