Hell in An Loc Page 18

  Andradé had a more optimistic assessment of the situation on May 11 when he wrote: “By noon on 11 May it was over. The North Vietnamese had failed to take An Loc. Panicked enemy soldiers fled from air strikes, trying to disperse in the forests to the west . . . On at least one occasion fleeing North Vietnamese soldiers were caught in the open and torn to pieces by tactical air strikes. Not a single enemy tank was reported moving anywhere near An Loc during the rest of the day, although many abandoned and destroyed hulks were counted. All forty tanks involved in the morning attack were dead on the battlefield. Some were smoking carcasses, others undamaged though abandoned. Some had been left with engines still running.”25

  Despite the severe beating they had received, the enemy, in fact, was determined to press on and expand their penetration. During the night of May 11, the NVA consolidated their newly gained territories while ARVN forces sent small units behind their lines to cut their supply routes and force them to withdraw. On May 12, despite their staggering losses, the enemy tried to widen their gaps by launching a new pincer attack, employing the 272nd Regiment of the 9th Division in the west and the 174th Regiment of the 5th Division in the northeast. Both of these columns were supported by elements of a tank company. With efficient tactical air support, the garrison held out and beat back the enemy attack.

  In the 81st Commando sector, the enemy effort to exploit their penetration was spoiled by a lack of communication between their forward observer and the supporting artillery unit. One commando from the 3rd Company later reported that as the enemy was preparing to launch their tank-supported assault, the first elements were hit by their own artillery fire, which obviously failed to stop or to hit deeper targets in accordance with their tien phao, hau xung tactic. The battalion commander, the forward observer, and his radioman were killed. One NVA officer grabbed the radio and ordered the artillery to stop; but, as he was unable to provide the artillery internal radio code, the artillery unit continued to fire because it suspected the call came from ARVN troops who had been hit by their fire.26

  By night fall it became apparent that the enemy offensive had lost its momentum and that, like the first two attacks, this one had also failed. The next morning, a dozen NVA soldiers, whose unit was hit by a B-52 strike the previous night, got lost and wandered into the 5th Airborne Battalion positions. A master sergeant in the battalion headquarters and his men killed all the intruders but the sergeant was fatally hit by a stray bullet.27

  Following are the results of the two days’ fighting:

  Friendly: 51 KIA, 137 WIA, 136 MIA, 142 weapons lost.

  Enemy: 218 KIA, 2 captured, 13 crew-served and 23 individual weapons captured, 23 tanks destroyed.28

  After this last attempt to take An Loc, COSVN decided to withdraw the 5th Division from the battlefield and to continue the siege of An Loc with their 9th Division. Intelligence information indicated that the 5th Division had withdrawn to Cambodia to reorganize; its presence at the border of Kien Tuong province in MRIV was reported on June 6. A COSVN document captured by ARVN/JGS intelligence bureau also indicated that NVA forces suffered extremely heavy casualties; each combat battalion had only about ninety fighting men (as compared to the original average effective force of 350), and the morale of the troops was very low; but the Politburo in Hanoi had decided that the campaign would be continued for three additional months to strengthen the Communist position at the Paris Talks.29 This was asking too much, however, and in the weeks following that third failed attempt to take An Loc, the enemy could not muster any significant attack, but instead maintained the siege with only sporadic artillery fire and small-unit actions.

  For the defenders, the situation was not much better. Although they had repulsed three major attacks, the battle fatigue caused by uninterrupted fighting, lack of sleep, hunger, the unbearable stench of unburied dead, and the mounting number of unevacuated casualties began to set in; the morale of the troops had almost reached the breaking point. “If it were not an army with a high degree of discipline, a war with a good cause and a high spirit of sacrifice for the national cause, then no human being would have the energy to endure this tense life for many consecutive months,” wrote Mach Van Truong in his memoir.30

  On May 13, taking advantage of the period of relative quiet after the third attack, some religious leaders and political organizations requested permission to go to Chon Thanh despite the fact that the section of Route 13 between Tan Khai and Chon Thanh was still under enemy control. Colonel Nhut agreed to let them go in spite of the objections from Lieutenant Colonel Corley, the provincial senior advisor, who was concerned about their safety. Nhut ordered the provincial Administration and Logistics Agency to allocate rice rations to thousands of evacuees. He also allowed some public employees, whose presence was not necessary at An Loc, to leave the city to avoid being wounded or killed by continuing enemy artillery fire. Nhut asked Colonel Corley to request U.S. Cobra gunships to escort the column of evacuees to Tan Khai, because some sections of Route 13 north of the town were still occupied by NVA blocking forces. Later, Colonel Nhut was informed that the enemy stopped the evacuees in order to screen them. Some residents were allowed to proceed to Chon Thanh, but high-ranking provincial administration officials were detained and sent to prisoner camps inside Cambodia; they were released only after the signing of the Paris Agreement in January 1973. Nhut was particularly proud that no members of the province RF and PF units had joined the columns of refugees.31

  While the situation in An Loc became relatively calm after the third attack, the VC’s B3 Front on the Central Highlands resumed the long-awaited offensive to take Kontum on May 18 in order to celebrate Ho Chi Minh’s birthday the following day. This time, instead of launching frontal attacks on the northern perimeter, their infantry units, taking advantage of the persistent fog in the Highlands, infiltrated behind ARVN positions to occupy strategic key points within the city and to use these salients as springboards to capture the rest of the city.

  This tactic had been used with great success by the Viet Minh in North Viet Nam during the Indochina War. It consisted of infiltrating behind the defenders’ lines or attacking a weak point of the defense, normally an area between two units, then once inside the defensive positions, one element would destroy the command headquarters while the rest of the attacking forces would spread out to attack the front-line units from the rear. The Viet Minh called this type of attack the “blossoming flower” tactic.

  True to this tactic, in addition to infantry units from the 320th and 10th Divisions, the NVA also sent their last T-54 tanks to infiltrate between the front-line defensive positions to launch a direct attack on the 23rd Division headquarters, hoping to achieve a repeat of their much celebrated victory against ARVN’s 22nd Division in Tan Canh in March. However, as the T-54 column progressed to within fifty meters from the 44th Regiment command bunker, one soldier from the 44th Reconnaissance Company fired his XM-202 rocket and destroyed the leading tank, causing all tank crews to get out of their tanks and escape in great panic.32 In the meantime, however, the enemy units that had infiltrated behind the 23rd Division front-line positions quickly spread out to occupy strategic key points in the city, including the airport, the Logistical Center and the Armored Regiment’s rear base.

  The next day, Colonel Ba launched a counter-attack spearheaded by the 45th Regiment—which had replaced the 44th Regiment on the high ground northwest of the city—and the 53rd Regiment, which defended the northeastern sector. These two units were ordered to attack toward the city to eliminate the enemy penetrations while the 1/8 Tank Company, reinforced with an infantry unit, was directed to eliminate NVA chot in strategic areas within the city. Supported by division artillery and tactical air support provided by AD-6 Skyraiders from the VNAF 6th Air Division in Pleiku, the counter-attacking forces succeeded in eliminating the enemy enclaves one by one.

  Capt. Le Quang Vinh, 1/8 Tank Company commander, later reported that, during the battle of Kontum—including the encount
er with the enemy chot at the Chu Pao Pass north of Pleiku on April 26—his unit suffered sixty-eight KIA (including eighteen officers), over 300 WIA; two M-41 tanks were destroyed, ten were damaged. The enemy losses included ten T-54s destroyed, one T-54 captured; over 1,000 North Vietnamese soldiers were killed.33 Gen. Ly Tong Ba reported in his memoir that the NVA left 1,000 dead after the second attack on Kontum and he had to use bulldozers to dig a common grave for a mass burial.34

  After the failed offensive of May 18, the NVA gave up their ambition to take the Central Highlands in order to cut South Viet Nam in half and to eventually reinforce the successful prongs in MRI or MRIII.

  Despite their failure to take An Loc, the Communists were not ready to give up. A secret COSVN message captured by the ARVN/JGS intelligence bureau after the third attack on An Loc directed the NVA attacking forces to withdraw, reorganize, get replacements and celebrate Ho Chi Minh’s birthday three days ahead so that they could try one more time to take An Loc on May 19, Ho Chi Minh’s birthday. One ARVN commando team was inserted into the suspect area and reported the coordinates of the identified enemy assembly location. Six B-52 sorties dropped their bombs on the targeted area the day of the birthday celebration. Unconfirmed reports indicated that 60% of the enemy forces were destroyed.35

  Despite these severe setbacks, on May 19, Uncle Ho’s official birthday, an NVA force, supported by tanks, attacked the 1st Airborne Brigade through the rubber plantations south of An Loc. Instead of achieving tactical surprise, the North Vietnamese tanks, on the contrary, had difficulty maneuvering at night in a dense plantation with limited vision and restricted fields of fire. The attacking forces were ambushed and annihilated by the paratroopers before daylight. The paratroopers jumped on the tanks and threw grenades through the hatches, destroying many T-54s and PT76s. A few M-113s, captured by the NVA in Loc Ninh the previous month, were also destroyed.36

  Toward the end of May, most of the enemy anti-aircraft defense system had been suppressed by air power and by early June helicopters were able to land at An Loc for resupply and medevac. The lull in the fighting allowed the 81st Commando Group to improve and decorate its cemetery. (By the time of the liberation of An Loc in mid-June 1972, the commando cemetery contained 67 graves, or 12% of the strength of the Commando Group.) A small brick wall painted in white was built around the cemetery. In the middle of the cemetery was erected a memorial monument on which were inscribed the two famous verses that had been quoted earlier in the introduction to this book. These two verses were composed by Ms. Pha, an elementary class teacher who was wounded by NVA artillery fire and was treated and saved by the commandos’ medical team. Ms. Pha, as one story had it, fell in love with a soldier from the 81st Commando Group, but her lover was killed during a close combat engagement.

  Because the commando cemetery was the biggest military cemetery erected in An Loc during the siege—the paratroopers had two small cemeteries, one near the Binh Long Sector Hospital, and one in the vicinity of the helicopter pad in the southern area of the city—it was a testimony to the sacrifice of all fallen soldiers. And these verses expressed the gratitude of the city toward not only the commandos, but also toward all soldiers who had given their lives in the defense of a small and innocent border town with a peaceful and noble name. It was also an expression of love, pride, and sorrow of a beautiful girl toward her fallen hero.

  In front of the cemetery, one commando had painted two verses from the famous Chinese poet Vuong Han:

  “Tuy ngoa sa truong quan mac van,

  Co lai chinh chien ky nhan hoi”

  (Awake or drunk after a battle, no one cares to ask.

  From ancient times, how many had returned from a distant military campaign.)

  Nine

  Securing Route Nationale 13

  As mentioned in an earlier chapter, General Minh, III Corps commander, was concerned about an attack on the cities immediately north of Saigon by elements of NVA’s 7th Division in conjunction with two independent VC regiments and other local units. The latter constituted what was known as the Binh Long Division. An attack on these cities would not only threaten the capital of South Viet Nam, but may also cost Minh his command. Thus, to defeat the enemy attempt to bypass An Loc and to race toward Saigon, Minh used the entire 21st Division, reinforced with one armored squadron, to secure Route 13 and link up with the besieged garrison of An Loc from the south.

  In General Minh’s view, blocking a possible enemy advance toward Saigon, in fact, was as important as securing Route 13, at least during the initial stage of the 21st Division deployment in MRIII. The U.S. advisors with the 21st Division seemed to agree: in response to complaints by Saigon correspondents about the lack of progress of the 21st Division, Col. J. Ross Franklin, senior advisor to the 21st Division, angrily told one journalist: “You people write that the 21st is not clearing the highway to An Loc. That’s not our job. We are here to find and engage the NVA 7th Division, which is the only big enemy outfit not committed to this Hanoi offensive. We’re fighting the 7th, engaging it and keeping it at bay. So you guys in Saigon can sleep tonight.”1

  Maj. Gen. Nguyen Vinh Nghi, the commander of the 21st—like the former commanders of that division—was himself a member of the famous “Delta Clan.” When General Minh, who commanded the 21st Division, was offered the job of commander of the important Capital Special Military District in the middle of the 1968 Tet Offensive, Nghi, a protégé of President Thieu with little combat experience, was picked to replace Minh.

  Nghi’s division, which operated in the Mekong Delta under IV Corps, was put under the operational control of III Corps by the war council meeting in Saigon on April 7. The 32nd Regiment arrived in Chon Thanh by vehicle on April 11 without incident. By April 12, the remaining units of the 21st, including division artillery, had been airlifted to Bien Hoa airport and transported by trucks to the Lai Khe area. From April 12 to April 23, the 21st Division consolidated its operational base in Lai Khe and organized its logistical system in preparation for its relief mission. The troops that operated in the flooded rice fields, swamps, and canals in the Mekong Delta against lightly armed VC units, needed also to adapt to the new battlefield—consisting mostly of small hills covered with dense forests and rubber plantations—where they were expected to face well-armed NVA regular divisions supported by tanks and artillery regiments.

  The deployment of the 21st Division to Binh Long province was a welcome change in the static mentality that prevailed within ARVN before 1972. Previously, there existed a fierce competition between division commanders; their respective tactical areas were considered inviolable and the incursion of outside units into their jealously guarded fiefdoms was unthinkable. This static mentality fortunately changed during the North Vietnamese 1972 and 1975 offensives, when it was necessary to deploy units from different corps and divisions into areas under attack.

  In the interim, the 21st Division’s initial inactivity allowed the enemy to quickly shift forces to deal with the new front to the south in an effort to defeat ARVN’s attempt to link up with An Loc. The NVA 7th Division immediately dispatched the 101st Regiment and a sapper battalion to occupy blocking positions about ten miles north of Lai Khe. On April 22, NVA troops fired B-40 rockets on a civilian bus at Bau Bang, six kilometers south of Chon Thanh, killing four and wounding twenty civilians.2

  Finally, on April 23, General Nghi was ready to act. He directed the 32nd and 33rd Regiments to attack from Chon Thanh and Lai Khe, respectively, in an effort to destroy the enemy blocking forces in a coordinated pincer movement. The southern column, supported by a tank unit from the 5th Armored Squadron, ran into heavy resistance fifteen kilometers north of Lai Khe. It took the 21st Division five days of tough fighting to annihilate the enemy blocking force and by April 29, the South Vietnamese controlled the portion of Route 13 between Lai Khe and Chon Thanh. A 21st Division after-action report indicated that the 101st NVA Independent Regiment and the attached sapper battalion left around 600 bodies on a fou
r-kilometer stretch of the railway running parallel to Route 13. The 32nd and 33rd Regiments suffered over 300 casualties.3

  During that time, the ARVN Joint General Staff, realizing the seriousness of the NVA’s threat to the capital city of South Viet Nam, decided to reinforce III Corps with the 3rd Airborne Brigade. On April 24, while the 21st Division units were battling the NVA 101st Regiment and a sapper battalion north of Lai Khe, the Light Headquarters of the Airborne Division under the command of Colonel Ho Trung Hau was heliborne into Chon Thanh to coordinate the operations of the 1st and 3rd Airborne Brigades.

  III Corps assigned to the Airborne Division (-) the mission of clearing the section of Route 13 from Tau O creek to Xa Cam, just south of An Loc. The 21st Division would be responsible for the territory south of Tau O, including Binh Duong province, and must be ready to provide assistance to any area under attack within its area of responsibility.4

  Only one day after its arrival to Lai Khe, the 3rd Airborne Brigade swung into action. On April 25, the 2nd Airborne Battalion air assaulted into an area northeast of Tau O and another area about one kilometer east of Tan Khai. The first elements immediately received artillery fire upon landing. After regrouping, the battalion established a fire support base named Anh Dung. A 105mm artillery battery was transported by VNAF Chinook helicopters into Anh Dung base to provide fire support to friendly units participating in the road opening operation and also to the garrison of An Loc. On April 26, the 1st Airborne Battalion was heliborne into the Duc Vinh area, about four kilometers north of Tan Khai. Like the 2nd Battalion, the 1st came under artillery fire upon landing but made only light contact with the enemy. However, the next day, NVA troops fired recoilless rifles directly at the artillery battery at Anh Dung base, heavily damaging three howitzers.