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<h1 id="reader-title">Vietnam Will Win: Military Realities</h1>
<div id="reader-credits" class="credits">by <span
class="post_author" itemprop="author"><a
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/author/wilfred-burchett/"
rel="nofollow">Wilfred Burchett</a> - February 21, 2018<br>
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<p>By the turn of the year 1967-68, it was clear that
things had developed just as the NLF leadership had
foreseen. And they continued to do so throughout 1968.
At the end of January, on the eve of the Têt offensive,
and with almost 500,000 U.S. troops in South Vietnam,
the U.S.-Saigon command had fewer mobile forces at its
disposal than during the 1965-66 dry season when
Westmoreland had about 200,000 U.S. troops under his
command. Entire divisions were bogged down guarding
bases, bridges and roads in a situation strongly
reminiscent of the 800,000 strong French army in the
latter phases of the Algerian war. Such a high
proportion of French troops were locked up in their
barbed-wire covered “mirador” fortresses guarding bases,
bridges and stretches of roads and railways, that none
were left for offensive operations.</p>
<p>The nearly 1,300,000-man army under Westmoreland had
been pushed into the defensive, the initiative having
passed into the hands of the NLF. Bases, garrisons,
outposts were all encircled by NLF guerrillas, while NLF
main force units launched operation after operation,
starting with the Loc Ninh and Dak To battles in
October-November 1967, and then others that prepared the
ground for the Têt offensive.</p>
<p>During the two-and-a-half years since the first U.S.
Marine units had landed at Da Nang, the NLF guerrilla
and regional forces had increased in numbers and
improved their equipment. These forces concentrated on
thwarting the American dry-season offensives. Most
important, they drew nooses around all U.S. bases,
nibbling away at the perimeters, attacking with commando
raids inside the bases or by rocket and mortar attacks
from their perimeter positions. Because of frequent
ambushes on the roads and the impossibility of moving
all U.S. supplies by air, hundreds of thousands of
American troops were employed solely in trying to
protect bases and bridges and to open roads or keep them
open. The constant danger hanging over these bases can
be judged from a Reuters report of January 12, 1968<a
href="#_edn1" name="_ednref1">[1]</a> from Saigon
stating that 872 U.S. planes and 777 helicopters had
been lost in south Vietnam due to “non hostile action.”
These are official figures which, the U.S. spokesman
explained “include planes and helicopters destroyed on
the ground in Communist attacks.” The same dispatch
stated that “according to an official report the
Communists have downed 222 planes and 465 helicopters”
in south Vietnam. These are extraordinary figures for a
fighting force that has neither planes nor antiaircraft
artillery. NLF figures are much higher. They claim 1,800
planes and helicopters downed or destroyed on the ground
during the latter half of 1967 alone. The NLF claims are
supported by the fact that there had been a marked
falling off in U.S. air activity in south Vietnam,
especially in air response to the innumerable NLF small
and medium-sized actions launched during the 1967
summer-autumn campaigns. Air power in Vietnam has not
increased proportionately to the increase in ground
troops, probably due to a shortage of pilots. In other
words, about the same amount of air power that supported
some 250,000 U.S. troops in 1965-66 had to suffice for
twice as many three years later.</p>
<p>While the regional and guerrilla forces attended to
U.S. bases and outposts, the NLF regular forces
continued their buildup and training exercises for the
major offensive operations they were to launch in the
1967-68 dry season. By then a curious situation had
developed, one that the Pentagon computers could never
have foreseen. The fantastic weight and array of
military technique which had so mesmerized many
observers in the first few months of U.S. intervention
was mostly immobilized in bases encircled by guerrillas.
U.S. forces were shelled in their bases at night,
ambushed if they moved too far and too fast by day, and
they were rarely brought to bear effectively on an
adversary who was everywhere and nowhere at the same
time. If one critically analyzed the facts, it was a
fair assumption that from the beginning of the 1967-68
dry season, no U.S. commander could ever again launch
such large-scale operations as “Junction City” of the
1966-67 dry season in which some 45,000 troops and
almost 1,000 tanks and armored vehicles were employed.
The contrary to what General Westmoreland had predicted
had happened. The NLF had acquired the ability to launch
huge-scale operations, while the U.S. Command had lost
that capacity.</p>
<p>When the NLF opened the 1967-68 dry season offensive at
Loc Ninh on October 28 and Dak To on November 4, 1967,
Westmoreland had only two brigades of mobile reserves at
his disposal: the 101st and 173rd Airborne Brigades.
Taken completely by surprise at Loc Ninh, he had to halt
preparations for operations in the coastal provinces and
north of Saigon and withdraw elements of the U.S. 1st
and 25th Divisions to rush to the battle front. At Dak
To, when elements of the U.S. 1st Cavalry (Airmobile)
and 4th Infantry Divisions – also withdrawn from other
intended assignments – proved incapable of making any
progress, he committed the 173rd Airborne Brigade, half
his mobile reserves. Two of the brigade’s three
battalions were decimated at Dak To; the third was saved
because it was behind guarding brigade headquarters.
Only the 101st Brigade was left and it was up in the 1st
Corps area to help rescue the Marines. The 1st and 25th
Divisions, normally available to protect Saigon, had
been badly mauled and as a panic measure the two
remaining brigades of the 101st Airborne
Division-earmarked for the defense of the United States
itself – were airlifted from the United States to the
Bien Hoa base, 12.5 miles north of Saigon. The defenses
of both Bien Hoa and Saigon had been seriously weakened
by the losses inflicted on the 1st and 25th Divisions
and the removal of other units far north to the 1st
Corps area.</p>
<p>Westmoreland “first operated in divisions, then
regiments, then battalions, companies and finally in
platoons garrisoned in thousands of strong points and
posts, dispersed over the four corners of the theater of
operations. He was thus confronted with this
contradiction: if he did not disperse his troops it was
impossible to occupy the territory invaded; but in
dispersing them he got himself into difficulties. His
scattered units became easy prey for our troops, his
mobile forces were continually reduced and the shortage
of effectives became more marked…”<a href="#_edn2"
name="_ednref2">[2]</a> This was how General Vo Nguyen
Giap, the victor of Dien Bien Phu, described the
situation of the French Expeditionary Forces on the eve
of that historic battle. It is a description that
closely paralleled the situation of U.S. forces in
Vietnam at the beginning of the 1967-68 dry season. But
Westmoreland seemed unaware of that fact. Brigades and
even battalion-sized elements of certain divisions were
trying to hold positions separated by more than a
hundred miles. Smaller units were dispersed in
scattered, often isolated outposts, picked off one after
another, or as at Loc Ninh and Dak To, attacks against
these outposts were used by the NLF as bait to attract
more important U S. units into an area favorable for NLF
forces.</p>
<p>A Reuters dispatch from Da Nang on January 9, 1968,
described some of the difficulties resulting from the
dispersion of U.S. forces:<a href="#_edn3"
name="_ednref3">[3]</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The Vietcong were reported by U.S. military sources
today to have launched a concentrated campaign against
1,000 American Marines scattered in small outposts
throughout the northern five provinces of South
Vietnam…</p>
<p>“Sources here said the 79 village compounds – each
manned by an average of 12 Marines – had apparently
become a prime target of the Vietcong… The units have
reinforced their barbed wire and minefield defense
following a series of attacks since the start of the
year that one U.S. spokesman described as ‘the
toughest test for the pacification program since it
started w 1965.’</p>
<p>“In eight days the Vietcong supported by North
Vietnamese soldiers launched 62 attacks on the
compounds, killing 27 Marines and wounding another
52…”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Three days later, another Reuters account indicated
that U.S. forces on large bases were equally vulnerable
to attack:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Six thousand crack South Korean Marines will help
defend the key U.S. base at Da Nang… The South Koreans
in a previously secret move have moved to a new
headquarters at Hoi An, 20 miles south of Da Nang,
which is the headquarters for 75,000 U.S. Marines. Da
Nang is also a major base for giant U.S. transports
and a take-off point for raids against North Vietnam.
It has come under costly rocket attacks launched by
North Vietnamese and Vietcong regulars from hills
overlooking the coastal base…”<a href="#_edn4"
name="_ednref4">[4]</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>At first it had been pretended that the Marines
themselves arrived only to protect this base. Then South
Vietnamese troops took over the defense as Marines were
used for combat operations. The frequency with which NLF
units penetrated the perimeters caused the Americans to
suspect collusion between the NLF and the Saigon troops,
so the latter were withdrawn and the Marines took over
their own defense. But when the bitter fighting started
around the 17th parallel as a result of Westmoreland’s
blunders, the Marines found that they did not have
enough troops to carry out defensive holding operations
plus their “pacification” program and to guard their own
bases in addition. Every time they called on reserve
units from the bases at Chu Lai and Da Nang to try to
rescue some encircled company, NLF guerrillas struck
within the reduced defense perimeters of the bases. A
regiment of Saigon troops was again sent to help guard
them but they settled down to a happy “no see, no hear,
no act” sort of arrangement with local NLF forces.</p>
<p>A brigade of the U.S. 1st Cavalry (Airmobile) Division
was withdrawn from its base in the Central Highlands and
rushed up to the rescue. The 196th Light Independent
Brigade, originally earmarked for setting itself up in
the Tay Ninh forest, some 50 miles north of Saigon, was
sent to establish its base at Chu Lai instead. The 101st
Airborne Brigade which normally operates in the Saigon
border area was also sent north. Even the newly
constituted 198th Light Independent Brigade was sent to
try to protect the An Hao air base, three miles north of
Chu Lai. (Soon after it arrived the base was attacked –
on the night of October 30-31, 1967 – with the result
that 50 out of 70 planes and helicopters were put out of
action.) On January 10, 1968, NLF units wiped out the
headquarters unit of the 196th Brigade at Que Son, 24
miles south of Quang Nam.</p>
<p>By early 1968, the disastrous situation for the Marines
could no longer be concealed and it was no accident that
two retired marine generals (former Marine Corps
Commandant General David Shoup and Brigadier General
Samuel Griffith) were calling for a military withdrawal
from Vietnam. Three years after their first contingent
landed, the Marines were bogged down in positional
warfare, something for which they were never intended,
unable to protect their own bases, reduced to the
humiliation of calling on the US. Army for help and on
the South Koreans to protect their bases.</p>
<p>This was a far cry from the days of “ink blot”
strategy. The Marines had never been really able to
secure the highway linking their two major bases. In
three years, the best they could do was send heavily
protected convoys over the Chu Lai-Da Nang road in
daylight only.</p>
<p>On September 9, 1967, at Hoi An, the region that South
Korean troops took over in mid-January of 1968, there
was a series of accidents which was unreported in the
Saigon communiqués. On the first three days of
September, nearly 67 Saigon troops, including regulars,
militiamen and Civil Guards, deserted in the Hoi An
area, many of them coming over to the NLF. On September
4, in Hoi An Town itself, elements of the Saigon 51st
Regiment mutinied and killed a number of their officers
who were insisting on their voting the Thieu-Ky ticket
in the presidential elections, and on the 9th, troops of
one of the U.S.-Saigon mixed units at the Co Dinh base,
three miles west of Hoi An, killed their Saigon officers
and 13 Americans in the unit, razed the base and crazed
over to the NLF, bringing all their weapons with them.
One could predict that similar incidents would increase
in number, with large-scale units of the Saigon army
crossing over to the NLF side the latter’s offensives
continued to grow w scope and violence , and
contradictions between the U.S. and Saigon forces
deepened. This is precisely what happened after the NLF
launched its Têt offensive, during the first week of
which some 200,000 Saigon troops deserted. In 11
provinces alone, 169 posts were abandoned, mainly by
regional troops who crossed over to the NLF, bringing
their arms with them. Whole battalions, including one
tank battalion complete with its tanks, changed sides;
other units simply disintegrated, troops going back to
their native villages. Saigon police and troops ordered
into action against an NLF commando group which had
attacked and occupied part of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon
refused, simply turning their backs on the fighting.</p>
<p>The NLF’s Lunar New Year offensive started the
disintegration of the Saigon army, more troops deserting
in one week than in the whole of the previous year.</p>
<p>One after another, the various roles assigned to the
Saigon army by the Pentagon had failed. “Special War,”
with the South Vietnamese troops financed, armed,
trained and finally officered by the Americans, was
dealt a mortal blow at Binh Gia,<a href="#_edn5"
name="_ednref5">[5]</a> as related earlier. In the
first phases after the engagement of U.S. combat units
in “limited war,” the Saigon army was to fight side by
side with U.S. forces, divisions alongside divisions,
regiments alongside regiments and battalions alongside
battalions, under U.S. overall command. This also
failed, the Americans claimed, because Saigon units had
a habit of slipping away from the flanks they were
supposed to be guarding or of simply refusing to
advance. The Saigon troops claim this failed because
they were always given the dirtiest and most dangerous
jobs. (A best seller in Saigon in late 1967 was a book
that described how U.S. troops abandoned Saigon units in
the Plei Me-Ia Drang Valley battle of October-November
1965.)</p>
<p>In numerous sweep operations, U.S. troops often moved
straight ahead in columns while platoons of Saigon
Rangers were dropped in “flea-hopping” operations into
clearings to the right and left of the main thrust like
hunting dogs to “start up” the quarry. If there was any
“quarry,” U.S. troops were supposed to try to encircle
the area while air and artillery strikes were called in,
the Ranger platoons having a better than even chance of
getting their share of the bombs and shells, as the NLF
forces always have shelters at their disposal. After the
first few of these operations, the Rangers tended to
move only a few yards into the jungle and signal back
“no contact,” then squat on their haunches for the
helicopters to pick them up for the next clearing. On
countless occasions, NLF cadres told me, the scouting
units clearly saw “Vietcong” positions but never
reported back.</p>
<p>Saigon troops were then assigned independent operations
and the U.S. press was full of reproaches that they were
not “combative” enough, refusing to advance if they
encountered hostile fire. In early 1967, it was
announced that the Saigon army would be mainly withdrawn
from operations and retrained for “pacification” duties,
which mainly meant they were to “pacify” areas from
which U.S. combat units were supposed to clear out the
NLF.</p>
<p>There were, however, insurmountable flaws in this plan.
Areas “cleared” by U.S. troops were found to be more
violently “Vietcong” than before American operations had
been conducted in them. A standard joke among U.S.
troops is: “If there were no VC when we came here, by
God there will be thousands when we leave.” And the
definition of Americans that a “Vietcong is a dead
Vietnamese” has been changed by the murderous South
Korean troops into the slogan that as far as they are
concerned a “Vietcong is any live Vietnamese” – to be
slaughtered.</p>
<p>“Pacification” following U.S.-South Korean type
“sweeps” became as dangerous a business as combat
operations. Career officers in the Saigon army felt
humiliated by this secondary role and many of the
officers and conscripts were sickened by the massacres
and tortures inflicted on their compatriots, often on
their own relatives, by the invaders. “Pacification” in
many areas turned into a sort of unofficial
“fraternization” exercise. This was particularly so in
the 1st Corps area, that is, the five northern provinces
leading up to the 17th parallel, and the 4th Corps area
in the Mekong Delta.</p>
<p>It was apparent during McNamara’s ninth visit to Saigon
in the summer of 1967 that Westmoreland was short of
mobile reserves, so the Defense Secretary partly
reversed the decisions taken earlier in the year and
demanded that Saigon troops play a more “active” role in
combat operations. In order to overcome “lack of
combativity,” the idea of integrated units was to be
tried, Saigon forces integrated with similar-sized U.S.
units in the proportion of one or two in favor of the
Americans. (It appears that on patrols and in combat,
U.S. troops feel nervous if they have anything less than
the two-to-one ratio.) But the integrated unit did not
work either, as the incident at Hoi An, one of several
such, demonstrated. As far as the Saigon army was
concerned, it was “America’s war, let the Americans do
the fighting and dying.” Moreover, by the end of 1967,
with the NLF dry season offensive in full swing, it was
clear to the officers and men of the Saigon army that it
was a war the United States was losing. Who, even among
those who a year or two previously had been the most
ardent U.S. supporters of the war, wanted to be
identified, until too late, with the losing side? A
handful of top collaborators may later pull out when the
United States withdraws. A certain number of top-level
collaborators with the United States were quietly
selling their extra cars and villas by the beginning of
1968, transferring their money abroad. But the vast
majority of those who have served the Americans will
have to remain in Vietnam where everything connected
with the United States is coming to be hated and
despised. By the turn of the year many officers and
officials at various levels were beginning to make
dispositions accordingly, including open hostility to
U.S. officials and secret contacts with the NLF. <em>New</em>
<em>York Times </em>correspondent R. W. Apple reported
from Saigon on January 1, 1968, that: “American
officials at almost all levels both in Saigon and in the
provinces are reported to be under increasing pressure
from Washington to produce convincing evidence of
progress in the next few months… The latest campaign for
results appears to differ from some of those in the past
in that it is directed more toward the Vietnamese,
military and civilians, than the Americans.</p>
<p>“A well-informed Saigon source said that recent cables
from the State Department and Pentagon have been full of
instructions like these: ‘Get the South Vietnamese Army
moving. Not only the regulars but the militia and
national guardsmen. And get the idea across to the
American public that they are fighting well… Do
something – anything –about government corruption… Get
President Nguyen Van Thieu to demonstrate his commitment
to the war as well as his determination to demand
sacrifices from the public…’ Whether the pressure will
result in action by the Vietnamese is problematical.”</p>
<p>Apple continues: “Already the efforts by Ambassador
Ellsworth Bunker to prod President Thieu into action on
several fronts have produced anti-American speeches in
the legislature and editorial attacks in the
newspapers…”</p>
<p>“Such pressures, especially on the Saigon military, to
accept higher casualties to suit President Johnson’s
electioneering needs of that period, obviously could
only deepen the conflicts between Saigon army units and
their own local commands and between the local
commanders and the U.S.-Saigon high command. One
concrete result of U.S. pressures was the removal in
mid-January 1968 of General Phan Trong Chinh, commander
of the Saigon 25th Division, who had long been an
outspoken critic of American interference in Saigon army
affairs. Chinh’s division had virtually retired from the
war for more than a year, and Westmoreland had been
trying to get the general dismissed for nearly two
years. Commenting on Chinh’s retirement “on sick leave,”
William Tuohy of the <em>Los Angeles Times</em><a
href="#_edn6" name="_ednref6">[6]</a> wrote that
“After years of expecting the ‘soft’ approach from
American advisers, many Vietnamese generals are not now
taking kindly to the current ‘hard’ approach by the U.S.
advisory effort… The irony is that despite Chinh’s
well-known deficiencies as a commander, some Vietnamese
admire him for what they consider his standing up to the
Americans. Anti-Americanism is on the upswing in
Vietnam…” concludes Tuohy, a veteran Saigon
correspondent.</p>
<p>Earlier, Westmoreland had succeeded in removing General
Dang Van Quang, the Saigon commander of the 4th zone
(the Mekong Delta) because the Americans had long
considered him “too passive.” The ouster of General
Quang was to be the prelude to the Americans moving into
the Delta, something which General Quang most
strenuously opposed, as indeed he opposed any
intensification of the war in the 4th zone, where his
units in most areas had established “fraternal”
relations with those of the NLF. As things turned out,
because of the situation around the 17th parallel, the
U.S. forces gradually being encircled in what was to
have been their main forward base at Khe Sanh, the U.S.
units earmarked for the Delta were rushed north. But the
ouster of General Quang at U.S. insistence deepened
resentment within the Saigon military hierarchy.<a
href="#_edn7" name="_ednref7">[7]</a></p>
<p>One of the most extraordinary aspects of official U.S.
reports on casualties, desertions and other factors
claimed to be indicative of a weakening of the NLF
forces, is that they are completely contradicted by
other figures given on total NLF effectives. For
example, a December 23, 1967, dispatch from Washington
of the <em>New York Times </em>states:</p>
<p>“Government officials say privately that they now
estimate enemy military and political manpower in South
Vietnam at 418,000 to 483,000 – much higher than the
figure of less than 300,000 reported in 1966. During his
latest visit to Washington, General William C.
Westmoreland, the American commander in Saigon, reported
‘remarkable progress.’ He presented charts showing a
decline in enemy armed strength from 285,000 in late
1966 to 242,000…</p>
<p>“For one thing, officials say that new intelligence
shows that a year ago they were grossly underestimating
enemy strength, especially the Vietcong political
apparatus and low-level militia forces… Essentially,
administration specialists now conclude that the enemy
organization is – and has long been – numerically much
more formidable than Washington had reckoned…”</p>
<p>While Westmoreland says 242,000, to justify his “body
count” statistics and paper victories, Washington
inclines to 483,000 NLF effectives. My estimate is a
much higher figure, which would include those “low-level
militia forces” and such units of the NLF regular forces
as Westmoreland overlooked until they suddenly appeared
at Loc Ninh and Dak To. It is useless to make a
distinction between “military and political manpower,”
as the <em>New</em> <em>York Times </em>story
suggests. Every political cadre carries a gun, and every
educational, medical, cultural or economic cadre does
also. So does virtually every able-bodied man and woman
throughout the liberated areas.</p>
<p>There has also been a steady change in quality as well
as quantity in the relation between NLF and U.S.-Saigon
forces. A key factor in comparing the combat quality of
NLF and U.S. troops is that the latter are usually green
troops sent out after a few months of training to serve
one year in a type of warfare which is the most exacting
in its demands on experience, knowledge of the terrain,
adaptation to climate, ability to react to surprise
situations – and virtually every contact with NLF forces
is under such conditions. “Rotation” does not apply to
the NLF troops, who year by year add to their combat
experience, analyzing the results of every encounter and
taking weeks or months off as units to sum up the
experiences of a whole year’s activities. Thus each
individual fighter and combat unit as a whole,
accumulates a wealth of battlefield experience for which
there is no substitute. Inexperienced U.S. troops are
exposed to formidable veterans of jungle warfare and a
people’s war of an intensity and scope the world has
never before known.</p>
<p>Furthermore, there has been a steady deterioration in
the quality of U.S. troops for easily understandable
reasons. The first units to come were elite divisions of
professional soldiers, many of them veterans of the
Korean war and all of them highly trained in jungle
warfare. The 1st and 3rd Marine Divisions, the 1st and
25th Infantry Divisions, and the 1st Cavalry (Airmobile)
Division were the best units the United States had for a
Vietnamese-type war. The 4th and 9th Divisions that came
later were of inferior quality, as were also the 196th
and 198th Light Infantry Brigades. But under the
“rotation” system, veterans of even the elite divisions
were replaced after a year, only an insignificant
proportion volunteering for a second tour of duty.
Another weakness is that the Pentagon has still not been
able to decide on the type of unit it really needs in
South Vietnam, much less develop such a unit.</p>
<p>When the 1st Cavalry (Airmobile) Division was sent out
with its 434 helicopters, American military experts went
into ecstasies over this supposedly “perfect instrument”
for jungle warfare. But the results were meager, to say
the least. It turned out to be an unwieldy instrument,
the complete dependence on helicopters being found to
have its disadvantages. Dumping troops down into an
entirely hostile environment, with no friendly rear or
flanks for maneuvering and no road for retreating when
landing fields came under furious fire, often proved
extremely costly in men and helicopters, especially in
comparison with results achieved. By the end of 1967,
the famous Airmobile Division was not very mobile.
Elements were bogged down near the 17th parallel, others
in guarding roads and bases and one unit was engaged in
the Dak To battle. By mid-1968, troops of the 1st
Aircavalry Division were burrowing for their lives deep
underground at Khe Sanh, trying to put as much earth as
possible between themselves and exploding NLF rockets
and mortar shells. The 1st Aircavalry was no longer a
specialist unit, at least it was no longer able to
exploit its specialty. Another type of U.S. formation
took the field, especially tailored for the war in South
Vietnam.</p>
<p>“The light infantry brigade is the thing now in South
Vietnam,” the <em>Christian Science Monitor </em>reported
on September 29, 1966, hailing the arrival of the 196th
Light Infantry Brigade, the prototype of this new
weapon. “It’s only one-fourth the size of a big American
division – 3,000 to 4,000 men. Helicopter companies work
closely with it when needed.</p>
<p>“The U.S. Army is fast learning its lessons from the
anti-guerrilla war in Asia. The cry is for fighting
units that are smaller and lighter in size and
equipment…</p>
<p>“The now famous 1st Cavalry (Airmobile) Division with
its own 434 ‘copters is not being duplicated – not now
anyhow. Instead the Army is creating a new team – light
brigades matched with helicopter companies. They are
expected to do smaller anti guerrilla jobs faster than a
big cumbersome division of 16,000 men. One such
streamlined light brigade is the 196th, now in South
Vietnam… Two other infantry brigades are shaping up for
combat, the 198th at Fort Banning, the 11th Brigade at
Hawaii…”</p>
<p>It is interesting to note that when the military
experts went into raptures over the 1st Cavalry
(Airmobile) Division with its super mobility and
firepower, they claimed that such big and powerful units
would force the NLF to abandon large-scale units and
revert to smaller formations. Actually it was the
Pentagon which decided to go back to smaller units. Less
than two months after the ecstasies over the 196th,
however, Ward Just, the Saigon correspondent of the <em>Washington
Post, </em>quoted a “senior American field commander”
as saying: “The 196th Light Brigade has gone back to the
drawing boards…”<a href="#_edn8" name="_ednref8">[8]</a>
Between the writing of these two contradictory reports,
the 196th had its baptism of fire in “Operation
Attleboro” in which it was to be the star performer. The
aim was to clear out an NLF base area in the forests of
Tay Ninh, where the 196th was to establish its own base
and “protect” a massive “pacification” operation by the
Saigon troops. In fact, two of the 196th’s three
battalions were wiped out and the third, left behind to
guard the brigade command post, was also badly hit when
the command post itself was attacked. The unit
commander, Brigadier General Edward de Saussure, was
relieved of his command during the battle and reproached
for having handled his units badly. The brigade was
withdrawn from the area and combat activity to be
completely reorganized. Operation “Junction City,”
launched in the same area a couple of months later with
twice as many men, fared no better, the operational
commander also being relieved of his command. The base
areas in Tay Ninh remain firmly in the hands of the NLF.
The 196th later turned up in the 1st Corps area, where
its headquarters unit was wiped out on January 10, 1968.
The 198th has since flown out to the same area and
failed in its first mission to protect the An Hao air
base. As noted above, the 11th was flown out from Hawaii
as part of the emergency measure after the 173rd
Airborne Brigade was put out of action and had not been
involved in combat at the time of writing. But there
have been no further claims that the “light brigade” was
a war-winning weapon in South Vietnam.</p>
<p>The above is a description of “things as they were” in
South Vietnam at the beginning of 1968, a state of
affairs which could have been verified by anyone taking
the trouble to look at facts instead of the communiqués
of the U.S.-Saigon command. The shock of the Têt
offensive on American opinion was simply that of a
reality which had long been successfully obscured by the
optimistic reports of General Westmoreland and top U.S.
officials.</p>
<p>The relation of forces had continuously changed in
favor of the NLF, the U.S. command had completely lost
all operational initiative and the stage was gradually
set for the devastating, nationwide offensive which the
Pentagon later claimed had been expected, yet no steps
had been taken to prepare for it. Whatever else it
proved, one thing was clear. After a long uphill climb,
the Liberation Armed Forces were over the top and
starting to rush down the other side.</p>
<p>“… Our people’s revolutionary armies continued to
intensify and extend guerrilla operations, continued the
task of building up and training regular units. In
battle, during the buildup of our forces, we developed
from autonomous companies to mobile battalions, then
from battalions to regiments and divisions. The first
appearance of our regiments in battles near the frontier
areas marked our first great victory, which only added
to the enemy’s confusion . . .”<a href="#_edn9"
name="_ednref9">[9]</a></p>
<p>One could be excused for thinking that this was Nguyen
Huu Tho describing the building up and appearance of the
NLF main force units in the battles near the Laotian and
Cambodian borders at the start of the 1967-68
operational season. However, these words of Vo Nguyen
Giap are from his account of the development of the
Vietnam People’s Army during the later stages of the
resistance war against France. But it was also the
situation on the eve of the historic Têt offensive and
the second great offensive launched in the first days of
May, 1968. It was the situation which led to the
greatest military defeat the U.S. Command had suffered
in South Vietnam until that time – the abandonment of
the Khe Sanh base in late June,1968, an event of great
ill omen for the whole U.S. military posture in South
Vietnam.</p>
<p>“U.S. Resolved To Hold Khe Sank At All Costs,” read a
headline in the <em>Internationale Herald Tribune </em>of
February 9, 1968. Later it was learned that President
Johnson had extracted written pledges from the generals
responsible that Khe Sanh “could and would be held.” But
less than five months later, U.S. troops started pulling
out of Khe Sanh. On June 28 the same newspaper reported
a U.S. military spokesman in Saigon as saying that “the
move was prompted by a reported large increase in
Communist forces in the area…” Although the siege of Khe
Sanh was given daily front-page headlines, its
abandonment passed almost without comment in the
American and Western press. But the abandonment
(“deactivation” was the term employed by the U.S.-Saigon
Command) marked a turning point in the war. It
represented a strategic, tactical and operational defeat
of decisive importance for the U.S. Command. The
strategy of “search and destroy” on which all U.S.
military planning in South Vietnam was based came to an
end at Khe Sanh. It had been dealt a heavy blow during
the Têt offensive and was virtually finished off during
the second wave of NLF offensive in May. The <em>coup
de grâce </em>was delivered at Khe Sanh despite the
written pledges.</p>
<p>Even more serious from a U.S. viewpoint, the
abandonment of Khe Sanh – vitally important, the
American generals had always maintained, to control
supply and infiltration routes along the western sector
of the demilitarized zone and the frontier areas with
Laos – also meant a very serious first defeat for the
new passive, defensive strategy. During the 171 days of
the siege of Khe Sanh, the role of this base was
transformed. Like Dien Bien Phu, it was originally
intended as an operational base, deep in the NLF rear,
from which U.S. troops would strike out in their famous
“search and destroy” operations, or “find, fix, fight
and destroy the enemy,” as Westmoreland often expressed
it. Also like Dien Bien Phu, because of encirclement and
harassing operations, Khe Sanh gradually had to be
transformed into a passive defense bastion with deep
underground bunkers and connecting trenches, positions
from which the troops rarely dared move out.</p>
<p>Khe Sanh in its later stages was defended by some
40,000 troops stretched out along 25 miles of Highway
No. 9, leading from the main supply base at Cua Viet on
the coast to the Khe Sanh complex, with minor fortresses
every couple of miles along the road to protect the
supply convoys. The base and the airstrip, on which it
often had to depend for supplies, were under constant
artillery fire. In spite of the fantastic firepower at
their disposal, including several B-52 raids per day,
the Americans were never able to silence this artillery.
The equivalent of one-sixth of the bombs used during the
three years of the Korean war was dropped around Khe
Sanh alone, yet the NLF artillery kept firing.</p>
<p>But to understand the deeper reasons for the
abandonment of this much-publicized base, one must
comprehend the significance of the NLF second-wave
offensive in early May of this year. This time the
Americans were not taken by surprise as at the Têt
offensive. Although the exact timing was a surprise, the
U.S. Command knew it was coming and had taken
appropriate defense measures. For instance, they
concentrated some 100 American and Saigon army
battalions in and around Saigon. These included all the
“elite” battalions of the Saigon army – that is,
specially trained, equipped and paid marines, rangers
and parachutists. In spite of official American claims
that the May offensive was much “weaker” than that of
Têt, a far heavier blow was dealt.</p>
<p>The “elite” battalions were torn to pieces, effectives
in the various units being reduced by 50 to 70%,
according to an NLF spokesman who had access to precise
statistics from adversary as well as NLF sources.
Replacements sent from the training camps were raw
recruits who had been in training for a week or less,
and had neither stomach nor aptitude for battle. The
quality and morale of the “elite” units was drastically
reduced.</p>
<p>The Têt offensive had brought NLF military strength to
within easy range of the main U.S. bases and storage
depots. This was fully exploited during the May
offensive when the destruction of military equipment,
especially tanks and vehicles, was tremendous. In a
single two day battle at Trang Bang near Saigon, for
example, 150 tanks were destroyed. Parenthetically, it
is worth noting that the NLF units consider coming to
grips with U.S. tanks as “child’s play” because children
who know all the jungle and rice field paths suitable
for tanks sometimes take part in their destruction. One
can also say that every U.S. bombing raid and artillery
bombardment dooms a few more tanks to destruction, since
most of them are blown up by electrically detonated
mines made from unexploded U.S. bombs and shell.</p>
<p>The fact that the NLF in its May offensive, despite the
massive security measures, could still penetrate the
main cities even more effectively than at Têt and that
U.S.-Saigon forces ended up much weaker than before,
forced another “agonizing reappraisal” of U.S. strategy.
An army is as strong as the mobile reserves which
represent its striking force, and losses during the May
offensive cut deeply into their mobile reserves. There
were no longer mobile reserves for “search and destroy”
operations. Even after the Têt offensive, there were no
longer garrison troops to put “pacification” teams back
into the countryside and protect them. There was
desperate urgency to protect the rear bases and the
towns. Such a “luxury” as the Khe Sanh forward base
could no longer be afforded, especially as it, the posts
protecting the supply route, and the supply route itself
and main supply base were subject to continuous
harassing attacks with a major offensive in sight
against Khe Sanh itself.<a href="#_edn10"
name="_ednref10">[10]</a></p>
<p>What an AP dispatch of July 16 described as a “medieval
strategy of pulling back to defend the approaches to the
cities” was adopted, in spite of “the Allies’ enormous
firepower, the mobility of their helicopters, their
numerical superiority and electronic computers.” In
effect, this was a strategy of retreat, of passive
defense. The endless series of nervous warnings, from
President Johnson on down, of some “imminent” new
“Vietcong” offensive, best symbolizes the degeneration
of the American military position.</p>
<p>This was also symbolized on the ground at Khe Sanh.
Marine troops, whose specialty is swift beach landings
to secure bridgeheads for army troops, were trapped in
positional warfare in the jungle covered mountains in
and around that forward base. The much-vaunted sky
warriors of the 1st Air Cavalry Division were burrowing
underground like rats, hardly ever daring to surface,
let alone take to the skies. It was obviously easier for
the NLF to deal with the Marines at Khe Sanh rather than
at their base at Da Nang and to deal with the Aircav
troops there also rather than at the latter’s
well-protected lair at An Khe. It was also possible to
develop people’s war against all the 40,000 troops
engaged in the Khe Sanh operation. While regular forces
maintained their ceaseless pounding of Khe Sanh and its
satellite posts, the guerrillas and regional troops
carried out night attacks against posts guarding the
supply route, day and nighttime ambushes against the
supply convoys and night raids into the Cua Viet supply
base.</p>
<p>The written pledges to defend Khe Sank given President
Johnson by his top generals should be posted on the
wall. They symbolize the writing on the wall for U.S.
military power in South Vietnam, the shape of things to
come. For if the Americans can be forced out of such a
highly fortified position, despite all the troops at
their disposal, they can be forced out of all other
bases in due time. The withdrawal from Khe Sanh meant
that other advance posts became immediately untenable.
Thus without any publicity, Kham Duc, another key post
to the south of Khe Sanh near the Laotian border, and
other satellite posts in the area were evacuated, as
well as most of those along Highway No. 9 between Khe
Sanh and Cua Viet.</p>
<p>If readers are astounded that such things are possible
given the vast military machine the Americans have
assembled in South Vietnam, then one must recall that it
was the loss of 16,000 troops at Dien Bien Phu,
numerically a tiny proportion of the several hundred
thousand strong Expeditionary Corps, that forced the
French government to see that the game was up. Dien Bien
Phu was, for the French, the sign that their elite
troops with maximum support could be defeated; their
next best units were bottled up in the Red River delta
and all would have been lost when the Vietminh
concentrated their attention there. A game of chess is
usually lost although the loser still has plenty of
pawns on the board. Similarly military defeat is
possible although plenty of troops still remain in the
field. And defeat, military defeat in the most classical
sense of the term, stares the Americans in the face
today in South Vietnam.</p>
<p>Seven years ago, American advisers were helping the Ngo
Dinh Diem dictatorship to try to lock up all South
Vietnamese peasants in some 16,000 “strategic hamlets”
behind barbed-wire fortifications, and to seal off the
frontiers with North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia by
“white zones” cleared of all their vegetation by
defoliant chemicals. Today it is the Americans
themselves who are sealing themselves off behind
barbed-wire fortifications in the cities, their
commanders uttering warnings that the next “Vietcong”
offensive win come this week, next week, next month…
From the outside, they are surrounded by the peasants
who should have been locked up in those 16,000
“strategic hamlets.” From the inside, behind their
backs, they are threatened by the urban workers,
intellectuals and even part of the bourgeoisie outraged
by the American occupation. What a humiliation this is
for the mightiest of the Western imperialists!</p>
<p>American public opinion has been drugged with “we are
winning” fantasies inspired by false propaganda such as
the myth of “body count” of “Vietcong” losses. This myth
was set in true perspective in the July 1968 issue of <em>Army</em>
magazine by an intelligence officer on General
Westmoreland’s staff, Lt. Col. R. McMahon, who wrote:</p>
<p>“Some U.S. combat units really count bodies. Others
probably never do but under pressure from higher up,
report whatever ‘body count’ would be expected… Apart
from the impression we are creating worldwide, that we
are ghouls obsessed with the gruesome stacking and
counting of cadavers, there is a very real danger of
falling victim to our own inflated statistics.”</p>
<p><strong>Notes.</strong></p>
<p><a href="#_ednref1" name="_edn1">[1]</a> <em>International
Herald Tribune</em> (Paris), Jan. 13, 1968.</p>
<p><a href="#_ednref2" name="_edn2">[2]</a> Translated
from <em>Guerre du Peuple, Armée du Peuple</em>,
Foreign Languages Publishing House, Hanoi, 1961, page
175.</p>
<p><a href="#_ednref3" name="_edn3">[3]</a> <em>International
Herald Tribune</em> (Paris), January 10, 1968</p>
<p><a href="#_ednref4" name="_edn4">[4]</a> Same dispatch
from Saigon of Jan. 12, 1968, cited previously.</p>
<p><a href="#_ednref5" name="_edn5">[5]</a> See Chapter
one.</p>
<p><a href="#_ednref6" name="_edn6">[6]</a> <em>International
Herald Tribune</em> (Paris), Jan. 13-14, 1968.</p>
<p><a href="#_ednref7" name="_edn7">[7]</a> It was General
Creighton Abrams’ promise to President Johnson that he
could build up a strong, effective South Vietnamese
Army, which could gradually take over the major share of
combat operations from U.S. troops, that clinched his
appointment as Westmoreland’s successor. But even by the
time he had taken over, resentment against Americans’
contempt for the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam)
was so great, the rise of nationalist feeling so marked,
and internal rivalries within the ARVN hierarchy so
deep-rooted, that Abrams’ promises looked like a bad
joke.</p>
<p><a href="#_ednref8" name="_edn8">[8]</a> <em>International
Herald Tribune</em> (Paris), Nov. 21, 1966.</p>
<p><a href="#_ednref9" name="_edn9">[9]</a> Translated
from <em>Guerre du Peuple, Armée du Peuple</em>, page
176.</p>
<p><a href="#_ednref10" name="_edn10">[10]</a> In fact,
Khe Sanh could have been taken whenever the NLF high
command wanted. They preferred to keep it as a “running
sore,” sapping U.S. strength.</p>
<p><strong>NEXT: Chapter 8 – The Work of Persuasion</strong></p>
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