THE BATTLE OF AN LOC: SAVING SAIGON

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1 THE BATTLE OF AN LOC: SAVING SAIGON Charles Riley HIST 298 May 10, 2017

2 Abstract The Vietnam War has many battles to study. The Battle of An Loc is not a well-known engagement of the Indochina conflict. However, it was one of the most pivotal battles and a brutal struggle for a small town in a relatively insignificant place. It exemplified the Army of the Republic of Vietnam s fighting capability when coupled with American air support during Richard Nixon s withdrawal program called Vietnamization. The battle was significant to saving South Vietnam from capitulating to the North Vietnamese general offensive of 1972.

3 1 On April 3, 1972, North Vietnamese tanks and infantry rolled over the South Vietnamese border attempting to defeat the South in one large assault which would become known as the Easter Offensive. This attack resulted in the largest clash in Vietnam since the 1968 Tet Offensive. In the pivotal province of Binh Long, 90 miles north of the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and its American ally would thwart the North Vietnamese drive down highway QL-13 at the town of An Loc. The result of the decisive engagement was due to ARVN s stubborn defense of the city, American air support, and tactical failure of North Vietnamese units. An Loc was more than just the deciding engagement of the Easter Offensive. It had repercussions across all participants including foreign policy decisions of the United States, the military strategy of North Vietnam, and the existence of South Vietnam as a country. The Easter Offensive was not the first or the last large-scale conventional invasion of South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. The first came in 1968 with the Tet Offensive which surprised the South Vietnamese and American military. Although the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and its southern Viet Cong (VC) ally found initial success in places like Hue near the North-South border, they were driven back and forced out of their gains. Although it was a complete tactical failure for the attackers, it was a propaganda victory for the North. The widespread and vicious fighting of the Tet Offensive signaled to Americans that the war was not close to being won after several years of conflict. As a result, when Richard Nixon was elected president of the United States in November 1968, he formulated a plan called Vietnamization. Vietnamization was intended to slowly withdraw American ground forces while placing the main combat role in the hands of the ARVN forces. By 1972, there were almost no American combat ground forces in Vietnam. However, there were still American many military advisors, and more

4 2 importantly, the American air force still had a strong presence over the Vietnamese skies. By attacking again in 1972, the North Vietnamese gained the advantage of having to deal with no American ground troops, but they miscalculated the significance of the American air force. The attack was launched partly as a result of Operation LAM SON This offensive operation was an ARVN failure and boosted the North s confidence in attacking ARVN in Once again, the NVA and VC forces would be defeated, and there would be significant impact outside the battlefield. The 1972 offensive, designed by North Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap, centered on three locations in South Vietnam. The northern-most region of South Vietnam along the North/South border of the 17th parallel. The Central Highlands in military region two, and the area north of Saigon in the southern region of South Vietnam. In the region closest to Saigon, the NVA poured over the Cambodian border to drive toward Saigon. The NVA made a plan that centered on highway QL-13 which was a major road that led straight to Saigon. If this crucial highway could be secured, NVA forces could swiftly penetrate to Saigon and effectively end the war after seizing the capital. The communist forces were relying on their infantry and armor to punch through defenses along QL-13 after crossing the border. The opening stages of the offensive in the southern-most region did not immediately result in the engagement at An Loc. The NVA was able to make some initial gains in the town north of An Loc called Loc Ninh. The town of Loc Ninh was overrun by April 8, despite stubborn resistance by ARVN ground forces and American attack aircraft. All seven American advisors in the area became missing in action, and only around fifty ARVN troops made their 1 James Willbanks, The Battle of An Loc (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005), This operation took place in Cambodia and it featured no American advisor support.

5 3 way south to An Loc, the capital of Binh Long province, after the communist forces prevailed. 3 The next target for the NVA and VC was An Loc, only twenty miles south. The ARVN forces in the An Loc battle were of diverse units. The main fighting unit was the ARVN 5th Division. This outnumbered 7,500 garrison at An Loc included ARVN soldiers from the 7th and 8th regiments, 1st Airborne Brigade, 3rd Ranger Battle Group, troops retreating from Loc Ninh, and smaller ARVN units. The communist forces included the 9th Division, 7th Division, 5th Division, 70th Artillery Division, 202nd Armored Division, 203rd Armored Division, and smaller units to make up a force of over 21,000 men. The armor the North Vietnamese possessed, such as Soviet T-54 tanks and other vehicles, would be vital in the opening attack if they were to swiftly win. The primary commanders for the South Vietnamese and American forces were General Le Van Hung and General James Hollingsworth, respectively. American advisors were also physically present at An Loc such as Colonel William Miller who assisted the ARVN 5th Division. The territorial South Vietnamese forces were commanded by Colonel Tran Van Nhut. The overall commander for the NVA and VC forces in the area was General Tran Van Tra. The first phase of the offensive at An Loc began with artillery strikes against the town. Since the town was encircled, civilians and ARVN troops had no easy way out. The bombardment took the whole night of April 12 and early morning of the next day and about 4,000-5,000 NVA rounds of all calibers 82 mm mortars, shells from 122 mm and 130 mm howitzers were lobbed toward An Loc. 4 An Loc was a town of only about two square kilometers so the effect was concentrated and terrifying to the people there. 3 James A. Willbanks, Thiet Gap! The Battle of An Loc (Pickle Partners Publishing, 1993), Van Nguyen Duong and Nghia M. Vo., Inside An Loc: The Battle to Save Saigon; April-May 1972 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2016), 87.

6 4 After the artillery, on the morning of the thirteenth, the NVA launched their first infantry and armored assault on the airstrip in the northeastern area of the town named Dong Long. Despite resistance from ARVN troops at the airfield, the NVA attack was successful and provided more locations to set up artillery and anti-aircraft batteries. The NVA also punched through the western sector defended by the ARVN 7th Regiment. The NVA infantry and tanks, after securing much of the outer perimeter for An Loc, moved into the town itself. As NVA tanks pierced into the town the ARVN troops, specifically the 8th regiment, met the armored enemy with the M-72 rocket launcher anti-tank weapon. This American-made shoulder-fired launcher could penetrate the T-54s armor and it would be responsible for most of the tanks the ARVN destroyed. After the first tank was disabled, the ARVN troops rallied despite many having seen enemy armor for the very first time.

7 5 The NVA used tanks miserably in their opening attack on An Loc. The tanks drove into the town with no infantry coordination and failed to grasp the necessary combined arms tactics that could have helped them break the ARVN defense. The NVA infantry forces were under separate command from the tanks which were under the Central Office for South Vietnam (COVSN), so the infantry did not follow the tanks into the town. 5 The North s armored forces 5 Lam Quang Thi, Hell in An Loc: The 1972 Easter Invasion and the Battle That Saved South Vietnam (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2009), 93.

8 6 were unfocused and did not expect fierce resistance. 6 As a result, the tanks were relatively easily taken out by infantry concealed in the town and had no friendly infantry near them for protection. The NVA had little to no experience with armor, and despite having Soviet-trained crews, they still needed experience. The ARVN s had lost its armor in the beginning of the fighting which meant the main non-infantry support would have to come from the air. The ARVN not having any armor also allowed allied aerial forces to easily discern enemy armored locations and vehicles without having to check with the ground. The aerial forces of the United States and the South Vietnam were effective for warding off enemy attacks. The arsenal for the Americans included the devastating AC-130 gunship, Cobra attack helicopters, and B-52 bombers capable of carrying seventy-thousand pounds of bombs. 7 Dealing out extraordinarily large amounts of firepower, these weapons could also place their ordinance with excellent accuracy which provided protection even when enemy formations were extremely close to ARVN troops. After the failure to capture the town on April 13 and 14, the NVA and VC forces tried again on April 15 with three attacks consisting of infantry and armor. All three were beaten back by the ARVN ground defense and the aerial coverage provided by the United States. However, the communist forces managed to gain a foothold in the northern area of the town and had a large portion of the northern-half of the town. Reinforcements of ARVN Airborne troops, such as the 1st Airborne Brigade, arrived around the times of the attacks and countered to retake Hill 169 and Windy Hill southeast of the town which had been taken by the NVA in the opening attacks. 6 Ibid., B-52 strikes were referred to as ARC LIGHT in Vietnam. The bombing runs carried out were directed by forward air controllers (FAC) which designated a target box area, rather than a specific target, for the ordnance to drop on.

9 7 By April 16, the first phase of the Battle of An Loc was over. The first assaults on the town by the NVA and VC managed to push ARVN lines from the outskirts of the town, but they did not successfully overrun the stout defense. The ARVN still strongly held the Southern half of the city. Time correspondent David DeVoss reported on the situation in American command after the opening fight: The optimism was bolstered by U.S. Major General James F. Hollingsworth, who dropped from the sky in his chopper (code name: Dynamite Six). The North Vietnamese are trying to get back to Cambodia now, he said. We are going to kill 'em all before they get there. These NVA are like mice in a haystack. 8 The effectiveness of anti-tank weapons on the ground and destructive aerial units left the NVA and VC forces reeling. The North Vietnamese had lost 23 tanks, and the losses exemplified both the carelessness in usage of the armor by the North and the effectiveness of allied anti-tank countermeasures. 9 The Cobra gunship was particularly effective against the tanks, and the M-72 launcher helped the ARVN troops fend off armor that had managed to get into their sector of the city. The first attacks by tanks had come very close to the headquarters of the 5th ARVN Division where General Le Van Hung was located, but they were all destroyed or forced to retreat. 10 The ARVN were still in the fight after April 16, but they had lost many men and a large quantity of supplies. This was stressed further by having to deal with civilians in the town needing food and shelter. The United States airforce undertook the operations for resupply until the end of the siege by using airdrops from C-130 planes. The initial drops resulted in around 70 percent of supplies falling into enemy hands David DeVoss, On Highway 13: The Long Road to An Loc, Time, April 24, 1972, Duong and Vo. Inside An Loc, Thi, Hell in An Loc, Thi, Hell in An Loc, 114.

10 8 The poor percentage was partly due to the ring of anti-aircraft batteries the NVA had set up around the town and the difficulty of dropping supplies on a small target while moving. Because of this poor supply success rate, later in the siege the Americans developed the High Altitude Low Opening (HALO) system. The HALO system was responsible for the besieged ARVN garrison s recovering about 90% of supplies dropped after it was adopted in May Hanoi was overconfident that An Loc could be taken by April 20, and was so confident about its victory in An Loc that they proclaimed An Loc would become the seat of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam. 13 With the urgency of this timeline, the COSVN conducted an attack again on April 19, which targeted the hills the ARVN possessed. These were being used as artillery nests and strong defensive barriers overlooking the city itself. The ARVN forces, namely the 5th and 8th airborne regiments as well as the 1st Airborne Brigade, were driven off Hill 169 and the high ground to the south of the city. 14 The 9 th VC Division attacked An Loc again and was repulsed. One of the last advantages in terrain the South Vietnamese troops had was taken away. By April 22, the NVA, clearly off their timetable, settled in again to recoup from devastating air attacks and elected to use artillery as a primary means of attack once again. The idea of strangulating the ARVN defenders was a tactic that was better than the conventional assaults the NVA had been trying. On April 25, An Loc s hospital was destroyed which made the medical debacle worse since no one could be evacuated. The lull in the heavy fighting and stability in the tactical situation would last until May 10, Ibid. 13 Duong and Vo. Inside An Loc, Dale Andrade, Trial by Fire: The 1972 Easter Offensive; America s Last Vietnam Battle (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1994) Ibid., 463.

11 9 At 12:35AM on May 11, 1972, the NVA began bombarding the 1,000 by 1,500 meter ARVN perimeter at An Loc. The NVA shelled the position for four hours and 7,000 rounds (or one shell every 5 seconds) fell on the ARVN positions. 16 The barrage would renew at 5:00AM and it would last for twelve hours while the NVA ground forces assaulted ARVN held An Loc from all sides, with focus on the north, west, and north-west. 17 Tanks preceded infantry in two prongs and once the tanks had broken through the plan was for the infantry to increase the gaps and link up to encircle ARVN units. On this attack, NVA command had realized that it would never be successful without utilizing overwhelming anti-aircraft firepower. The attacking forces employed armaments such as 23mm, 37mm, and 57mm guns and heat-seeking launchers which were closely supporting the tanks and infantry from deadly aircraft which up this point had been the main cause of NVA casualties. 18 The defense of the city became so desperate that American aircraft carried all types of ordnance available and the American forward air controlling advisors made use of all munitions regardless of the situation or danger of friendly fire. General Hung, realizing the NVA was trying to separate ARVN forces, sent the 5th Airborne Battalion from the south to the north which blunted the NVA advances there. Once the penetrations were stopped, the Air Force (both U.S. and VNAF) went to work reducing the western salient. says An Loc veteran James Willbanks 19 Exemplifying the variety of available air support, AC-130 gunships could, with 40mm and 105mm cannons, accurately engage enemy units that were too close to friendly troops to use bombs. The participation of American air forces was immense. There were 16 Willbanks, Thiet Gap!, Ibid., During the fighting the heat seeking launchers, called Strela-2s, were responsible for at least one shot down Cobra helicopter. 19 Ibid.

12 sorties of tactical air support flown over An Loc on May 11. Around 260 sorties were flown on each of the following four days. As a testament of the defense on May 11, all forty of the tanks involved in the morning attack were dead on the battlefield. 20 It was apparent that the main NVA attack had failed by May 12. By May 15, the NVA had exhausted its forces against the stubborn defenders and slaughter of bombs. The NVA high tide had made small bulges in the north and west of the ARVN lines in the southern half of the city but could not sustain the attack. Its attempts to take the city had failed once again, and the ARVN had managed to counterattack and gain lost ground. While these assaults on An Loc were happening, a vain attempt to reach the defenders by the ARVN 21st Division was conducted. The 21st Division had been at Lai Khe on April 12 with the objective to secure QL-13 to the village of Chon Tahnh which was thirty kilometers south of An Loc. They ran into resistance and did not reach Chon Tahnh until April 29. Just north of Chon Tahnh, the 21st ran into the 7th NVA division and was hit by other NVA assets which resulted in an extremely slow pace of sometimes only fifty meters a day. 21 The 21st Division ultimately failed to break the NVA encirclement but was instrumental in tying down a NVA division and distracting part of it. At the end of May, the fighting was nearly over. NVA assaults had ceased, and there was only sporadic fighting and artillery fire. ARVN intelligence estimated ten-thousand casualties for the NVA 5th, 7th, and 9th Divisions that participated in the fight along QL The bombing decreased enemy presence and anti-aircraft support by late May so aerial resupply was easier and 20 Andrade, Trial by Fire, Willbanks, Thiet Gap!, Ibid., 55.

13 11 reinforcements were lifted in. The ARVN forces slowly began to probe outwards and by 8 June, ARVN units had cleared the center of the city of most enemy resistance and greatly expanded the area controlled by friendly units. 23 By mid-june, fresh ARVN units had fully arrived, and they retook the heights to the south of the city and used those hills to target the remnant enemy forces left in the An Loc vicinity. The siege was lifted in mid-june although there were still sporadic engagements. The large-scale artillery strikes, tank assaults, and massive engagements were over in An Loc. The exhausted ARVN units in An Loc were replaced by fresh troops and sent away to rest. The ARVN forces had taken 5,400 casualties. The battle had decided who held the ruined town of An Loc, but its effects were felt outside of the rubble. The Battle of An Loc was important to stifling the communist offensive directed at Saigon itself. It stopped the part of the Easter Offensive that was the most threatening and saved South Vietnam in Although An Loc does not remain in modern memory as well as the Khe Sanh, Tet, or Dien Bien Phu, it had significant impact on the Vietnam conflict in its closing years. The defense stopped the establishment of a provisional communist government in the South. The victory secured Republic of South Vietnam s President Nguyen Van Thieu s political position and gave a superb psychological victory to the South in the first massive attack that had to be stopped without American ground support. The ARVN forces had shown they were a force to be taken seriously. The An Loc siege also took a toll on non-combatants and showed many South Vietnamese the North was not exactly the kind liberators their propaganda made them out to be. The North Vietnamese troops targeted civilians attempting to escape An Loc. This was carried out to keep the ARVN occupied with civilians to take care of: almost every time a large 23 Ibid.

14 12 group of refugees tried to escape from the heavy combat, the NVA s artillery forward observers targeted the fleeing columns and devastated these innocents. 24 The success in the fight was due primarily to American air support combined with the steadfast defense on the ground by the stellar ARVN units. However, the North Vietnamese were responsible for their own failure as well. The Easter Offensive resulted in General Vo Nguyen Giap being stripped of his command by the government in Hanoi. The communist forces simply did not correctly estimate the effect of American air power. It was likely that COSVN and NVA leaders, such as General Vo Nguyen Giap in Hanoi, were too focused on the fact that there were no American ground troops opposing them and forgot that American airpower was the deadliest conventional element in the Vietnam War. The poor use of armor also affected their chances of winning. Even North Vietnamese military participants noted their blunders and the devastation of the American airpower. 25 The beginning attacks showed that tanks were effective psychological weapons that could drive right into the town. Had there been better planning, infantry from the NVA divisions could have pushed forward with the tanks as one unit. The communist infantry could protect the tanks from hiding ARVN soldiers while the tank could breach any bunkers halting the infantry. The lack of coordination was not helped by the continual firepower being rained down from the sky. When commenting on the aggressiveness of the NVA in the beginning of the offensive, author and ARVN veteran Van Nguyen Duong concluded, The communist plan of attack by General Tran Van Tra, by being too conservative, prevented the NVA from overrunning An Loc Ibid., Willbanks, The Battle of An Loc, Duong and Vo. Inside An Loc, 91.

15 13 On the American side of post-battle events, the Nixon administration lauded the An Loc battlefield as an example of Vietnamization working excellently despite the close call and the necessity of American air support. Military historian, and veteran, James Willbanks asserts that An Loc became one of the underlying rationales for pressing on with Vietnamization and complete U.S. withdrawal. 27 Colonel William Miller, who was an American advisor to the ARVN 5th Division, argued to the U.S. government, after the Easter Offensive, that a U.S. presence was still necessary in Vietnam due to the necessity of American support at An Loc. Finally, the ARVN troops still should be given credit in their fight and commitment to the cause. They had engagements where they defeated NVA formations with no air support directly during the fight. The victory at An Loc helped push the idea, both in South Vietnam and the U.S., that the ARVN was fine by itself. In early 1973, the U.S. had made its peace and withdrawn almost every American from Indochina. The communist forces would recuperate from 1972 and launch another conventional offensive in 1975 that would last only fifty-five days and result in the capitulation of the entire South Vietnamese nation. An Loc s stellar defense by coalition forces was an important victory in a lost war. 27 Willbanks, Thiet Gap!, 55.

16 14 Bibliography Andrade, Dale. Trial by Fire: The 1972 Easter Offensive; America's Last Vietnam Battle. New York: Hippocrene Books, DeVoss, David. On Highway 13: The Long Road to An Loc. Time, April 24, Accessed February 22, Academic Search Complete. Duong, Van Nguyen, and Nghia M. Vo. Inside An Loc: The Battle to Save Saigon; April-May Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Thi, Lam Quang. Hell in An Loc: The 1972 Easter Invasion and the Battle That Saved South Vietnam. Denton: University of North Texas Press, Willbanks, James A. The Battle of An Loc. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, Willbanks, James A. Thiet Gap! The Battle of An Loc, April Pickle Partners Publishing, 1993.

UNDERGROUND COMPLEXES

UNDERGROUND COMPLEXES TET OFFENSIVE Morale among U.S. soldiers remained generally high from 1965-1968. Many battlefield successes. Johnson Admin. reported that the war was all but won. Temporary ceasefire