Hell in An Loc Page 5

  By March 1972, the three regular divisions under General Minh’s command were deployed as follows: the 25th Division, headquartered at Cu Chi, was responsible for tactical operations in the provinces of Tay Ninh, Hau Nghia, and Long An; the 18th Division, headquartered at Xuan Loc, was responsible for the provinces of Bien Hoa, Long Khanh, Phuoc Tuy, and Binh Tuy; the 5th Division, headquartered at Lai Khe, was responsible for the central provinces of Binh Duong, Binh Long, and Phuoc Long.

  The 5th Division was the offspring of various Nung infantry battalions that withdrew from North Viet Nam following the partition of Viet Nam under the 1954 Geneva Agreement. (The Nung were an ethnic minority living near the Chinese border.) A new Army Reorganization Plan dated July 1, 1955, called for a new effective force of 155,677 men and the creation of the following units:

  - 4 field infantry divisions

  - 6 light infantry divisions

  - 1 Airborne brigade

  - 1 Marine brigade

  - 4 armored regiments

  - 11 artillery battalions

  - 13 regional regiments

  - 6 religious sect infantry regiments

  The light infantry divisions were later deactivated and were replaced by regular divisions. The 3rd Field Division became the 5th Infantry Division. (After the overthrow of President Ngo Dinh Diem in November 1963, with increased communist activities in the South, three new infantry divisions and new ranger and armored units were created. The Marine and Airborne Brigades were upgraded and became the Marine and Airborne Divisions.)

  Like other infantry divisions, the 5th Division consisted of the following organic units:

  - 3 regiments (7th, 8th, 9th)

  - 1 armored squadron (1st Armored Squadron)

  - 3 105mm artillery battalions

  - 1 155mm artillery battalion

  - 1 combat engineer battalion

  - 1 signal battalion

  - 1 logistical battalion

  - 1 medical battalion

  - 1 reconnaissance company

  - 1 intelligence company

  - 1 transportation company

  Under the Vietnamization program, the 5th Division was slated to assume the tactical responsibility of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division. Its main mission consisted of controlling the three strategic corridors of infiltration toward Saigon from Cambodia: the Song Be River, the Saigon River, and RN13.

  Within the 5th Division tactical area, the 9th Regiment (less one battalion located in Phuoc Long province), supported by two 105mm batteries, was positioned at Loc Ninh. The 7th Regiment, minus one battalion, and a composite battery consisting of two 155mm and four 105mm howitzers, occupied what was called “Fire Base 1,” about six kilometers northwest of An Loc; one battalion was defending the Quan Loi airstrip, about six kilometers east of An Loc. The remaining regiment, the 8th, was located at Dau Tieng (Tri Tam district), about thirty kilometers northwest of Lai Khe. Dau Tieng, located on the bank of the Saigon River, was previously the base of a brigade of the 1st U.S. Infantry Division. When the above brigade withdrew from MRIII, Tri Tam subsector was unable to take over the base; it was subsequently destroyed for lack of occupants. When the 8th Regiment arrived at Dau Tieng in early 1972, the 1/8 Battalion discovered various types of ammunition and over 2,000 brand-new M-72 rocket launchers still under wraps; this cache of ammunition and weapons was stored in numerous bunkers around the base. Col. Mach Van Truong, 8th Regiment commander, distributed the M-72s to his battalions down to squad level and trained his units on the use of this important antitank weapon. He gave the excess ammunition to Tri Tam subsector.13

  On March 1, 1972, President Thieu, himself a former 5th Division commander, and Gen. Cao Van Vien, Chairman of ARVN/JGS, came to the headquarters of the 5th Division at Lai Khe, to preside over the ceremony marking the thirteenth anniversary of the division. On this occasion, the president awarded decorations and promotions to officers and men of the division. He also elevated Col. Le Van Hung, the 5th Division commander, to the rank of brigadier general.

  In any event, for the North Vietnamese communist rulers, the spring of 1972 may be the time they had been waiting for: the overextension of the South Vietnamese Army resulting from the U.S. troop drawdown, coupled with a growing antiwar movement in the United States, seemed to offer a good opportunity for a new offensive to capture South Viet Nam by force. If there was a lesson they had learned from the 1968 Tet Offensive, it was that the traditional Communist strategy of guerilla warfare, followed by conventional warfare, and culminating in a popular uprising did not work, because the population in the South was loyal to the Saigon government. The only remaining option for North Viet Nam (NVN) was to hurl its regular divisions across the DMZ and fight a conventional war similar to the Korean War.

  At the Party Central Committee meeting in March 1971, General Giap and Le Duan, First Secretary of the Party, successfully argued for their case to launch an all-out offensive in 1972. Afterward, Le Duan went to Moscow and Beijing to request military assistance. As a result, the North Vietnamese received massive quantities of modern military hardware, including missiles, tanks, trucks, long-range artillery guns, and sophisticated surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft weapons.

  The North Vietnamese named the new offensive the “Nguyen Hue Campaign” in honor of one of Viet Nam’s most celebrated heroes who soundly defeated the Chinese in the historic battle of Dong Da, near Hanoi, on the fifth day of the calendar Year of Binh Ty in 1789.14 In planning for the Nguyen Hue Campaign, it seems, however, that Hanoi didn’t expect a full victory. Although there were no credible post-war accounts of Hanoi’s decision-making process—the Communists have a tendency to distort history to fit their purposes—it is reasonable to believe that the Communist rulers originally wanted to occupy as much territory as possible—preferably a few capital cities—to weaken the American and South Vietnamese position at the Paris Peace Talks.

  With regard to the timing of the attack, one might ask why Hanoi didn’t wait until the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Viet Nam. It is probable that, in the view of Hanoi’s rulers, by early 1972 a military intervention was urgently needed to reverse the success of the government pacification efforts in the South and also to save the Viet Cong (VC) from possible extermination because over one-half of the VC forces had been destroyed in their ill-fated 1968 Tet Offensive. Their political and administrative infrastructure was almost entirely rooted out by the increasingly efficient government pacification program. Moreover, Hanoi considered the U.S. disengagement irreversible and a victory over the South Vietnamese army could also be claimed as a victory over the United States. A North Vietnamese victory, in Hanoi’s view, would also hasten the withdrawal of the U.S. troops, upset the Vietnamization program and even influence the 1972 U.S. presidential elections.

  On the other hand, new developments on the international front were causes for concern: President Nixon not only announced in the summer of 1971 that he would travel to China in early 1972, but he was also making overtures toward Moscow. The Vietnamese Communist leaders were obviously unsettled by these new geopolitical realignments and decided to act to put their patrons in a fait accompli situation.

  To allow for strategic flexibility, Giap devised a three-pronged attack: Quang Tri and Thua Thien in MRI, Kontum in MRII, and Binh Long in MRIII. Each attack would be carried out by three to four divisions supported by artillery and armored regiments. These simultaneous assaults on three different fronts would sow confusion within the South Vietnamese JGS as to the main direction of the invasion; it would also induce it to commit prematurely all its strategic reserves (Airborne and Marine Divisions), and consequently to leave Saigon defenseless in the face of a possible blitzkrieg conducted by an army corps supported by an artillery division and two armored regiments massed on the other side of the Cambodian border.

  Map 5: NVA Nguyen Hue Campaign, 1972

  Thus, in Hanoi’s view, any successful prong would be exploited and, if possible reinforced with VC local uni
ts—such as the Binh Long VC Division in MRIII—or with units from other successful fronts, in order to capture as much territory as possible, to install a Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) in occupied areas, and even, in the best case scenario, to proceed toward the final conquest of South Viet Nam.

  In the northern front, the fall of Quang Tri, defended by the overextended and untested South Vietnamese 3rd Division, would open the gates toward the Imperial City of Hue whose capture would constitute an irreversible blow to the morale of the South Vietnamese troops. A successful attack on the Central Highlands would entrap the southern provinces of MRI with a large pincer movement in coordination with the northern prong; or reinforce the southern prong in case of a successful NVA attack in Binh Long province. In III Corps, the capture of the weakly defended city of An Loc would allow Hanoi to install their puppet PRG in that city to influence the outcome of the Paris Peace Talks and possibly to launch a blitzkrieg toward the capital of South Viet Nam.

  Increased NVA build-up on the other side of the Cambodian border toward the end of 1971 caused III Corps staff to believe that some kind of invasion was in the making; but as in other Military Regions, and based on past experience, they expected that it would take place during the Tet holidays. When it failed to materialize, U.S. and South Vietnamese intelligence officers increased their efforts to read the enemy intention and predict the timing and thrust of the coming attack.

  In January 1972, ARVN intelligence agencies reported the presence of the NVA 5th Division at Snoul, a Cambodian city about thirty kilometers northwest of Loc Ninh on Route 13. The 7th and 9th Divisions were also reported in the vicinity of the Cambodian plantations of Dambe and Chup. Gen. Do Cao Tri, the former III Corps commander, had planned to conduct search and destroy operations in the above areas, but his death in a helicopter accident had put a stop to these planned invasions. Gen. Nguyen Van Minh, his replacement, preferred to adopt a defensive strategy along the border in lieu of offensive operations to destroy enemy secret bases within Cambodian territories.

  During the months of February and March, ARVN units patrolling along the Cambodian border detected increased enemy activities in the Fishhook area. Captured documents and prisoners revealed the presence of the NVA 5th Division in the Cambodian area bordering the northern region of Binh Long province. On March 13, a III Corps mechanized task force operating in Base Area 354 (in the Parrot’s Beak area) and Base Area 708 (in the Fishhook area) discovered a huge enemy depot consisting of many thousands of rifles and machine guns and a large quantity of rockets, mortar rounds, and anti-aircraft ammunition. The discovery of this important cache was compelling evidence of a major enemy offensive in MRIII, but because Tay Ninh was situated between the two subject base areas, it appeared to be the logical objective of the impending invasion.

  On March 16, elements of ARVN 25th Division operating northwest of Tay Ninh near the Cambodian border captured three NVA soldiers while on a routine patrol. One of the prisoners turned out to be the executive officer of the 272nd Regiment of the NVA 9th Division. The officer carried documents indicating that the 9th Division had prepared bases east of the Saigon River and west of An Loc; these bases would be occupied by the 9th Division units on March 24.15

  On March 27, a deserter from the reconnaissance company of the 7th Division disclosed that his unit was surveying a portion of a road between Tay Ninh and Binh Long in preparation for the division’s next move.16

  Furthermore, a document captured by the end of March during an operation in Tay Ninh province indicated that the 9th NVA Division had occupied Base Area 708 and that Regiment 272 of the 9th Division was moving to an area west of Binh Long to replace Regiment 95C/9th Division, whose destination was undisclosed. The captured document also disclosed that the 9th Division would coordinate future actions with the 7th NVA Division. More important, according to the above document, the units of the 9th Division had received training in combat in urban areas and the 272nd Regiment had been trained in the attack on a specifically chosen objective.17 (It should be noted that the training in the technique of urban combat had been discontinued since 1969, after the failed VC Tet Offensive.)

  Finally, on April 1, the 7th Regiment/5th ARVN Division, operating in an area west of An Loc, captured a number of prisoners. Some of them belonged to a signal unit whose mission was to establish telephone lines in support of a large-scale operation in the area. Among the prisoners were also members of an artillery forward observer team who were preparing preplanned fire missions along Route 13.18

  Map 6: Binh Long Province

  Thus, although III Corps and U.S. intelligence agencies knew a major enemy campaign was in the making, the consensus was that Tay Ninh province, the traditional enemy invasion route, was to be again the objective of the new offensive. Indeed, Saigon, the capital city of South Viet Nam, could be attacked from three different directions: the enemy could launch an invasion from the Iron Triangle, west of Bien Hoa, using both Route 13 and the Saigon River; it could cross the Cambodian border to attack Tay Ninh and rush their mechanized units toward Saigon via Route Nationale 1; the enemy could also launch their offensive from the Parrot Beak, west of Tay Ninh, to capture Hau Nghia and Long An provinces, immediately northwest and southwest of Saigon respectively. Although the Hau Nghia-Long An route was the shortest invasion route from Cambodia, in the past, the enemy preferred to attack Tay Ninh because that city, being surrounded from three sides by the VC’s secret bases of War Zone C, Iron Triangle and Parrot’s Beak, was more vulnerable to an attack. And this was the reason III Corps intelligence officers predicted that the NVA would use the same traditional invasion route in their new Easter offensive.

  To reinforce that perception, on April 2, the VC 24th Independent Regiment attacked ARVN Fire Support Base (FSB) Lac Long about thirty-five kilometers northwest of Tay Ninh on the Cambodian border. The base was defended by one battalion of the 49th Regiment, 25th Division. For the first time in MRIII, the enemy used tanks to support their ground assault. By noon the base was overrun and the battalion suffered moderate casualties.

  In his memoir, VC Gen. Tran Van Tra, commander of the troops of the Front for the Liberation of South Viet Nam (FLSVN), described the Communist diversion in the Lac Long attack as follows: “In coordination with Quang Tri and the offensive and uprising on the entire South, on April 1, 1972, only one day after Quang Tri, the Nguyen Hue campaign of the regular forces in the East had opened an auxiliary front, which was also a diversionary front, to attract the enemy forces on Road 22 in Tay Ninh. With old enemy tanks (one operable but the gun mounted on the tank was unusable, one usable but it stopped dead in the barbed wire), but the sound of the gun and the roaring of the tanks strongly impacted the enemy morale, actively supported the powerful infantry assault causing heavy losses to the enemy’s two task forces and destroying the enemy defense system along border Road 22 Tay Ninh-Cambodia. In the meantime, the Joint General Staff of the Saigon army moved two general reserve units to cope with the Tay Ninh front; on April 5, our regular troops moved on the newly opened road in secret and launched a surprise attack on Loc Ninh, a defensive base of over 500 enemies, most of them regular troops and armored units.”19

  Although all indications seemed to point toward Tay Ninh as the main objective of the enemy new offensive, to be on the safe side, General Minh, the III Corps commander, decided to occupy the Hung Tam compound, situated about ten kilometers northwest of An Loc and two kilometers west of the junction of Inter-Provincial Route (IPR)17 and Route Nationale 13, with the newly created Regimental Task Force (TF) 52. TF-52, named after Regiment 52, consisted of one battalion from the 52nd Regiment, one battalion from the 48th Regiment, one 105mm howitzer battery and one 155mm howitzer platoon. Both regiments belonged to the 18th Division, which was operating in Long Khanh province. The Hung Tam base consisted of FSB North and FSB South, located immediately north and south of IPR17. TF-52, commanded by Lt.-Col. Nguyen Ba Thinh, moved north on March 28 and was put under the op
erational control of the 5th Division. It would conduct operations around the Hung Tam base. It main mission was to block enemy movement toward Loc Ninh and An Loc in Binh Long province and to protect the right flank of Tay Ninh in case of an enemy attack in that direction.

  Amid intelligence reports of an impending major enemy campaign, President Thieu remained optimistic. He was confident that, with the U.S.’s continued financial and military support, the South Vietnamese Army could beat back any enemy offensive and eventually win the war through the success of the pacification program. U.S. officials in Saigon, in fact, were equally upbeat about the situation in Viet Nam in the post-Tet Offensive era; they also believed that the war was almost won in the early 1972. Lewis Sorley quoted the late John Paul Vann, a former senior official in the pacification program and subsequently the U.S. senior advisor to II Corps during the Easter Offensive, as telling his friends in January 1972 that “we are now at the lowest level of fighting the war has ever seen. Today there is an air of prosperity throughout the rural areas of Viet Nam, and it cannot be denied. Today the roads are open and the bridges are up, and you run much greater risk traveling any road in Viet Nam today from the scurrying, bustling, hustling Hondas and Lambrettas than you do from the Viet Cong.” And added Vann, “this program of Vietnamization has gone kind of literally beyond my wildest dreams of success.”20