Strategically, however, the withdrawal meant little. On January 14, Marines from Company B, 3rd Recon Battalion, were moving up the north slope of Hill 881 North, a few miles northwest of Khe Sanh Combat Base. One headquarters would allocate and coordinate all air assets, distributing them wherever they were considered most necessary, and then transferring them as the situation required. The link-up between the relief force and the Marines at KSCB took place at 08:00 on 8 April, when the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment entered the camp. Its main objectives were to inflict casualties on US troops and to isolate them in the remote border regions. Over 100,000 tons of bombs were dropped by US aircraft and over 158,000 artillery rounds were fired in defense of the base. The Marines at KSCB credited 40% of intelligence available to their fire-support coordination center to the sensors. January 30 marked the first day of the Vietnamese lunar new year celebration, called Tet. [164] He cited the fact that it would have taken longer to dislodge the North Vietnamese at Hue if the PAVN had committed the three divisions at Khe Sanh to the battle there instead of dividing its forces. Operation Pegasus: ~20,000 (1st Air Cavalry and Marine units), U.S. losses:At Khe Sanh: 274 killed2,541 wounded (not including ARVN Ranger, RF/PF, Forward Operation Base 3 US Army and Royal Laotian Army losses)[15]Operation Scotland I and Operation Pegasus: 730 killed2,642 wounded,7 missing[15]Operation Scotland II (15 April 1968 July 1968):485 killed2,396 wounded[1]USAF:5 ~ 20 killed, wounded unknown[1]Operation Charlie for the final evacuation:At least 11 marines killed, wounded unknown[1] Shortly after midnight on February 7, a large NVA force, reinforced with tanks, attacked the camp. A decision then had to be made by the American high command to commit more of the limited manpower in I Corps to the defense of Khe Sanh or to abandon the base. Westmoreland planned on Khe Sanh being relieved and then used as the jump-off point for a "hot pursuit" of enemy forces into Laos. [170][140], One argument that was then leveled by Westmoreland and has since often quoted by historians of the battle is that only two Marine regiments were tied down at Khe Sanh, compared with the several PAVN divisions. [153][154] The gradual withdrawal of US forces began during 1969 and the adoption of Vietnamization meant that, by 1969, "although limited tactical offensives abounded, US military participation in the war would soon be relegated to a defensive stance. The PAVN would try to take Khe Sanh, but if could not, it would occupy the attention of as many American and South Vietnamese forces in I Corps as it could, which would facilitate the Tet Offensive. On Easter Sunday, April 14, the 3rd Battalion, 26th Marines (3/26), assaulted Hill 881 North in order to clear the enemy firing positions. [125] The 325C Divisional Headquarters was the first to leave, followed by the 95C and 101D Regiments, all of which relocated to the west. Battle of Khe Sanh The attack finally came on January 21, 1968, when PAVN forces began a massive artillery bombardment of Khe Sanh, hitting the base's main store of ammunition and destroying. U.S. reconnaissance forces continued to monitor the Ho Chi Minh Trail. [56], At positions west of Hill 881 South and north of Co Roc Ridge (163340N 1063755E / 16.561N 106.632E / 16.561; 106.632), across the border in Laos, the PAVN established artillery, rocket, and mortar positions from which to launch attacks by fire on the base and to support its ground operations. After failing to respond to a challenge, they were fired upon and five were killed outright while the sixth, although wounded, escaped. The adoption of this concept at the end of February was the turning point in the resupply effort. "[103] The Bru were excluded from evacuation from the highlands by an order from the ARVN I Corps commander, who ruled that no Bru be allowed to move into the lowlands. [53] Two divisions, the 304th and the 325th, were assigned to the operation: the 325th was given responsibility for the area around the north, while the 304th was given responsibility for the southern sector. Armies and Commanders Allies General William Westmoreland Colonel David Lownds Approx. For additional reading, see: Valley of Decision: The Siege of Khe Sanh, by John Prados and Ray W. Stubbe; and the official Marine Corps history, The Battle for Khe Sanh, by Moyers S. Shore II. [33], The heaviest action took place near Dak To, in the Central Highlands province of Kon Tum. [79] On an average day, 350 tactical fighter-bombers, 60 B-52s, and 30 light observation or reconnaissance aircraft operated in the skies near the base. [98] The Marines continued to oppose the operation until Westmoreland actually had to issue an order to Cushman to allow the rescue operation to proceed. The fighting was heavy. The monumental Battle of Khe Sanh had begun, but the January 21 starting date is essentially arbitrary in terms of casualty reporting. Of the 4953 Navy and Air Force casualties, both officer and enlisted, 4, 736 or 96% were white. The NVA continued shelling the base, and on July 1 launched a company-sized infantry attack against its perimeter. The pallet slid to a halt on the airstrip while the aircraft never had to actually land. Battlefield boundaries extended from eastern Laos eastward along both sides of Route 9 in Quang Tri province, Vietnam, to the coast. Amid heavy shelling, the Marines attempted to salvage what they could before destroying what remained as they were evacuated. According to this history, originally classified as secret, the battle deaths for all major NVA units participating in the entire Highway 9Khe Sanh Front from January 20 until July 20, 1968, totaled 2,469. The exact number of casualties suffered by both sides during the Khe Sanh battle is very difficult to ascertain, given that in many cases the two warring factions provided their own disparate counts. On the morning of 22 January Lownds decided to evacuate the remaining forces in the village with most of the Americans evacuated by helicopter while two advisers led the surviving local forces overland to the combat base. [121] Casualties from the bombardment were 10 killed and 51 wounded. The monumental Battle of Khe Sanh had begun, but the January 21 starting date is essentially arbitrary in terms of casualty reporting. The fighting around Khe Sanh began January 21, 1968, and concluded around April 8, 1968. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. In 1970, the Office of Air Force History published a then "top secret", but now declassified, 106-page report, titled The Air Force in Southeast Asia: Toward a Bombing Halt, 1968. This, however, did not prevent the Marine tanks within the perimeter from training their guns on the SOG camp. Construction on the line was ultimately abandoned and resources were later diverted towards implementing a more mobile strategy. Battle of Khe Sanh : American Casualties We have 535 casualty profiles listed in our archive. McNamara wrote: "because of terrain and other conditions peculiar to our operations in South Vietnam, it is inconceivable that the use of nuclear weapons would be recommended there against either Viet Cong or North Vietnamese forces". "[28], As far as Westmoreland was concerned, however, all that he needed to know was that the PAVN had massed large numbers of troops for a set-piece battle. The site was first established near the village and later moved to the French fort. The enemy by my count suffered at least 15,000 dead in the area.. During the 1968 Tet Offensive, as many as 30,000 Communist Vietnamese forces surrounded roughly 6,000 U.S. marines defending a combat base on .. Week of February 21 Had the plane been shot down departing Khe Sanh, the casualties would have been counted. A historian, General Dave Palmer, accepted that rationale: "General Giap never had any intention of capturing Khe Sanh [it] was a feint, a diversionary effort. 528 of them include images. Tolson was not happy with the assignment, since he believed that the best course of action, after Tet, was to use his division in an attack into the A Shau Valley. At dawn on 21 January, it was attacked by a roughly 300-strong PAVN battalion. Lownds also rejected a proposal to launch a helicopter extraction of the survivors. The United States Marines gave the actual body count of the NVA troops killed to be 1,602, but estimates show that the total number of NVA troops . Westmoreland believed that the latter was the case, and his belief was the basis for his desire to stage "Dien Bien Phu in reverse. The PAVN infantry, though bracketed by artillery fire, still managed to penetrate the perimeter of the defenses and were only driven back after severe close-quarters combat. A limited attack was made by a PAVN company on 1 July, falling on a company from the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, who were holding a position 3km to the southeast of the base. "[84], Meanwhile, an interservice political struggle took place in the headquarters at Phu Bai Combat Base, Saigon, and the Pentagon over who should control aviation assets supporting the entire American effort in Southeast Asia. On June 28, a Communist spokesman claimed the Americans had been forced to retreat and that Khe Sanh was the gravest tactical and strategic defeat for the U.S. in the war. [86] The command and control arrangement then in place in Southeast Asia went against Air Force doctrine, which was predicated on the single air manager concept. The village of Khe Sanh was the seat of government of Hng Hoa district, an area of Bru Montagnard villages and coffee plantations about 7 miles (11km) from the Laotian frontier on Route 9, the northernmost transverse road in South Vietnam. Indeed, had enemy forces not been at Khe Sanh, they could have joined the NVA and VC who occupied Hue, a much more important strategic target. [81] The sensors were implanted by a special naval squadron, Observation Squadron Sixty-Seven (VO-67). Time magazine, in an April 12, 1968, article titled Victory at Khe Sanh, reported General William Westmoreland, commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, after flying into Khe Sanh by helicopter, declaring: We took 220 killed at Khe Sanh and about 800 wounded and evacuated. Military History Institute of Vietnam, pp. Twenty-five USAF personnel who were killed are also not included. The strike wounded two more Strike Force soldiers and damaged two bunkers. However, North Vietnamese sources claim that the Americans did not win a victory at Khe Sanh but were forced to retreat to avoid destruction. Fighting around Khe Sanh was continuous. The Twenty-fifth United States Infantry Regiment was one of the racially segregated units of the United States Army known as Buffalo Soldiers.The 25th served from 1866 to 1957, seeing action in the American Indian Wars, Spanish-American War, Philippine-American War and World War II. today! Additionally, Shore argued that the "weather was another critical factor because the poor visibility and low overcasts attendant to the monsoon season made such operations hazardous. [38], Westmoreland won out, however, and the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment (1/3 Marines) was dispatched to occupy the camp and airstrip on 29 September. With a view to gain the eventual approval for an advance through Laos to interdict the Ho Chi Minh Trail, he determined that "it was absolutely essential to hold the base." [80] Westmoreland had already ordered the nascent Igloo White operation to assist in the Marine defense. [43] Lieutenant General Robert E. Cushman Jr. relieved Walt as commander of III MAF in June. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for The Hill Fights: The First Battle of Khe Sanh by Murphy, Edward F. (mass_market) at the best online prices at eBay! For most of the battle, low-lying clouds and fog enclosed the area from early morning until around noon, and poor visibility severely hampered aerial resupply. Listen Now. Sunday marked the 50th anniversary of the start of the war's most famous siege, a 77-day struggle for a rain-swept plateau in central Vietnam that riveted the U.S. in 1968, and opened a year of . 535 Results : page 1 of 54. "[52], Brigadier General Lowell English (assistant commander 3rd Marine Division) complained that the defense of the isolated outpost was ludicrous: "When you're at Khe Sanh, you're not really anywhere. [25], Marino stated that "by 1966, Westmoreland had begun to consider Khe Sanh as part of a larger strategy." The platoon withdrew following a three-hour battle that left six Marines dead, 24 missing, and one taken prisoner. [133] The Marines would be accompanied by their 11th Engineer Battalion, which would repair the road as the advance moved forward. However, the PAVN committed three regiments to the fighting from the Khe Sanh sector. The Marines at Khe Sanh Combat Base broke out of their perimeter and began attacking the North Vietnamese in the surrounding area. Battle of Hamburger Hill The 29 th North Vietnam Army had entrenched themselves on Hamburger Hill in South Vietnam; a joint US-South Vietnamese force was ordered to remove them. On 18 January, Westmoreland passed his request for Air Force control up the chain of command to CINCPAC in Honolulu. This is the battles end date from the North Vietnamese perspective. The dead men have been described as wearing Marine uniforms; that they were a regimental commander and his staff on a reconnaissance; and that they were all identified, by name, by American intelligence. The NVA 304th Divisions history notes that on 9 July 1968, the liberation flag was waving from the flag pole at Ta Con [Khe Sanh] airfield. On July 13, 1968, Ho Chi Minh sent a message to the soldiers of the Route 9Khe Sanh Front affirming our victory at Khe Sanh.. Ray Stubbe has published a translation of the North Vietnamese history of the siege at Khe Sanh. Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. "[168][Note 7], Marine General Rathvon M. Tompkins, the commander of the 3rd Marine Division, pointed out that had the PAVN actually intended to take Khe Sanh, PAVN troops could have cut the base's sole source of water, a stream 500 m outside the perimeter of the base. MACV therefore initiated an operation to open Route 9 to vehicle traffic. And it had accomplished its purpose magnificently. Of the 500 CIDG troops at Lang Vei, 200 had been killed or were missing and 75 more were wounded. PAVN forces were driven out of the area around Khe Sanh after suffering 940 casualties. The ground troops had been specially equipped for the attack with satchel charges, tear gas, and flame throwers. [41], To prevent PAVN observation of the main base at the airfield and their possible use as firebases, the hills of the surrounding Khe Sanh Valley had to be continuously occupied and defended by separate Marine elements. When an enemy rocket-propelled grenade killed 2nd Lt. Randall Yeary and Corporal Richard John, although these Marines died before the beginning of the siege, their deaths were included in the official statistics. Although the camp's main defenses were overrun in only 13 minutes, the fighting lasted for several hours, during which the Special Forces men and Bru CIDGs managed to knock out at least five of the tanks. [87], Heated debate arose among Westmoreland, Commandant of the Marine Corps Leonard F. Chapman Jr., and Army Chief of Staff Harold K. Johnson. In the aftermath, the North Vietnamese proclaimed a victory at Khe Sanh, while US forces claimed that they had withdrawn, as the base was no longer required. [25], In the winter of 1964, Khe Sanh became the location of a launch site for the highly-classified Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Studies and Observations Group. [96], The Marines at Khe Sanh had a plan in place for providing a ground relief force in just such a contingency, but Lownds, fearing a PAVN ambush, refused to implement it. Marine Khe Sanh veteran Peter Brush is Vietnam Magazines book review editor. Battle of Khe Sanh (21 January - 9 April 1968) Max Hastings wrote a bestseller on Vietnam, and Dan met him to discuss Domino theory, whether it was possible for the US to win the war and the effect the war had on those who fought in it. This caused problems for the Marine command, which possessed its own aviation squadrons that operated under their own close air support doctrine. [172], On 30 January 1971, the ARVN and US forces launched Operation Dewey Canyon II, which involved the reopening of Route 9, securing the Khe Sanh area and reoccupying of KSCB as a forward supply base for Operation Lam Son 719. [173][174], After the ARVN defeat in Laos, the newly-reopened KSCB came under attack by PAVN sappers and artillery and the base was abandoned once again on 6 April 1971.[175][176]. They too were left out of the official Khe Sanh casualty count. by John Prados. Operation Scotland II continued until the end of the year, resulting in the deaths of 72 more Marines. Aug 23, 2013. According to Ray Stubbe, a U.S. Navy chaplain during the siege and since then the most significant Khe Sanh historian, the 205 figure is taken only from the records of the 26th Marine Regiment. Free shipping for many products! Siege at Khe Sanh: ~17,200 (304th and 308th Division), Defense at Route 9: ~16,900 (320th and 324th Division), This page was last edited on 1 March 2023, at 15:52. The official North Vietnamese history claimed that 400 South Vietnamese troops had been killed and 253 captured. However, even if Westmoreland believed his statement, his argument never moved on to the next logical level. During the 66-day siege, U.S. planes, dropping 5,000 bombs daily, exploded the equivalent of five Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs in the area. WALKI NA WZGRZU: PIERWSZA BITWA KHE SANH Edwarda F. Murphy'ego - twarda okadka w bardzo dobrym stanie | Books & Magazines, Books | eBay! This time period does not particularly coincide with the fighting; rather, it dates from before the siege began and terminates before the siege (and the fighting) ended. While suffering less significant casualties (around 10,000 dead), ARVN units had only turned back the attacking PAVN forces with massive American air support. [27][28] The Marines' defensive system stretched below the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) from the coast, along Route 9, to Khe Sanh. It was a bad beginning to a long 77-day siege. [142], Lownds and the 26th Marines departed Khe Sanh, leaving the defense of the base to the 1st Marine Regiment. The 26th Marine Regiment (26th Marines) is an inactivated infantry regiment of the United States Marine Corps. The report continues to state, "this prompted Air Force chief of staff, General John McConnell, to press, although unsuccessfully, for JCS (Joint Chiefs of Staff) authority to request Pacific Command to prepare a plan for using low-yield nuclear weapons to prevent a catastrophic loss of the U.S. Marine base. After a ten-day battle, the attackers were pushed back into Cambodia. [44], On 14 August, Colonel David E. Lownds took over as commander of the 26th Marine Regiment. Khe Sanh is a village located near the Laotian border and just south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that separated North and South Vietnam. Only nine US battalions were available from Hue/Phu Bai northward. The Marines and their allies at Khe Sanh engaged tens of thousands, and killed thousands, of NVA over a period of many weeks. [42], In the wake of the hill fights, a lull in PAVN activity occurred around Khe Sanh. "[160] That has led other observers to conclude that the siege served a wider PAVN strategy by diverting 30,000 US troops away from the cities that were the main targets of the Tet Offensive. In 1964 an Ohio woman took up the challenge that had led to Amelia Earharts disappearance. Ten more Marines and 89 NVA died during this period. Let me caution everyone not to be confused. During the darkness of January 20-21, the NVA launched a series of coordinated attacks against American positions. Naval aircrews, many of whom were redirected from Operation Rolling Thunder strikes against North Vietnam, flew 5,337 sorties and dropped 7,941 tons of ordnance in the area. The Marines found a solution to the problem in the "Super Gaggle" concept. On April 20, Operation Prairie IV began, with heavy fighting between the Marines and NVA forces. On April 6, a front-page story in The New York Times declared that the siege of Khe Sanh had been lifted.
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