Many were the battles of that blighted war, in jungles, in swamps, on rivers, for isolated posts far from help. Sometimes the fight moved to the cities and district towns, never more so than in 1968, at Tet, the Vietnamese lunar new year. The major offensive launched then by Hanoi, using its Vietnam People's Army (VPA) and the National Liberation Front's People's Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF), reverberated both In Vietnam and America. It is still in dispute whether Hanoi, in an attempt to ensure its own control over the revolution in South Vietnam, loaded the main tasks of the offensive on the shoulders of the PLAF (most familiar to Americans under the name Viet Cong, a pejorative expression actually coined by Saigon government officials), guaranteeing them the lion's share of the casualty lists that would result. In any case, the Tet offensive would be a nationwide affair, with preparations to match. The Americans and their Saigon government allies, the South Vietnamese, would surely become aware of what portended, unless special provisions were made to deceive them. Herein lie the origins of the siege of Khe Sanh, perhaps the largest set piece battle of the Vietnam war. The American command itself made possible the deception at Khe Sanh. General William C. Westmoreland, leading the Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV), had long wanted to mount an Invasion of southern Laos. "Westy," as he was familiarly known, needed Khe Sanh as a platform from which to hurl his battalions across the border and cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail, that provided supplies to the VPA and Viet Cong forces in South Vietnam. Khe Sanh sat astride the only road into Laos for such an Invasion. In addition Westmoreland wanted to shift the focus of fighting in Vietnam away from the lowland population centers along the coast; combat in the sparsely populated Vietnamese borderlands would make it easier to employ the full range of American firepower without risk of unintended civilian losses. Khe Sanh would be a suitable locale for such a firepower intensive battle. In December 1967 and January 1968, weeks before Tet, Westy informed Washington in top secret, eyes only cables of both his desire for a battle of this kind and his plans for an invasion of Laos. Long History Khe Sanh had a long history as a South Vietnamese, and then American base, enabling General Vo Nguyen Giap and the VPA general staff to gradually become aware of its importance in U.S. strategy. At the dawn of the war, when the Ho Chi Minh Trail was first created, teams of People's Army porters had borne their loads of weapons and ammunition right past Khe Sanh, crossing Route 9, the road to Laos, right next to that village. The VPA located one of their campsites nearby, and a South Vietnamese army operation that discovered and captured that camp had provided Saigon with its first concrete evidence Hanoi had begun funneling troops and supplies to the insurgency in South Vietnam. Beginning then, in 1961, the South Vietnamese stationed troops at Khe Sanh. From the summer of 1962 the U.S. stationed a Special Forces (Green Beret) "A" Detachment at Khe Sanh as part of a program to recruit and lead tribal "striker" companies to help screen the Laotian border. Another South Vietnamese army sweep followed that December, and several additional operations would be carried out in 1963 and 1964. United States Marines first came to Khe Sanh in the spring of 1964. This was a specialized unit of radio intelligence experts with some protective infantry, and their actions predated the early 1965 major U.S. ground force deployments to Vietnam. At the time Khe Sanh's garrison, the reinforced 3rd Battalion, 1st Regiment, 1st South Vietnamese Infantry Division, had free run of the area although there were already places where the Vietnamese troops would not venture. By the end of 1965 there were estimates that a superior People's Army force -- up to two regiments of Hanoi's regulars -- had set up shop in the Khe Sanh-Laotian border zone. On January 3, 1966 the U.S. Special Forces camp at Khe Sanh underwent a concentrated shelling from the enemy for the first time. That spring the 1st Battalion, Ist Marine Infantry deployed to Khe Sanh and operated in conjunction with the South Vietnamese. The Marines aborted their most important planned sweeps, however, and marched back down Route 9 toward the coast instead, finding a wild country and a road virtually reclaimed by jungle. Exactly two years later the same Marine battalion would return to Khe Sanh, marching up Route 9 in the opposite direction, involved in a huge maneuver to break the siege of what had become a major base. A combat base is what Khe Sanh became in 1967, and the changed status reflected new U.S. strategy. (The South Vietnamese role diminished steadily, and in fact, Saigon's garrison at Khe Sanh would be withdrawn to the coastal plain as Americans became more active in the borderlands). General Westmoreland visited Washington that spring, going to the White House to make his case for an invasion of Laos directly to President Lyndon B. Johnson. Though the president remained skeptical, refusing Westy the additional reinforcements MACV considered necessary for the invasion, LBJ nevertheless made a decision that affected Khe Sanh. He approved a barrier defense system intended to impede Hanoi's infiltration of South Vietnam. In the coastal lowlands, strongpoints would be built and the system called the "McNamara Line," after secretary of defense Robert S. McNamara, a key advocate. Khe Sanh was to be western terminus of the barrier system, which continued into Laos as an aerial interdiction zone. American sensitivities regarding Khe Sanh would be unmistakably revealed by what became known as the "Hill Fights," in April, just about a month after Westy's Washington visit. At the time Khe Sanh was held by a reinforced Marine company, with the Special Forces camp relocated to a hamlet called Lang Vei. On Hill 861, where Echo Company of the 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines (2/9), on temporary duty at Khe Sanh, had fought a pitched battle with People's Army infantry, the Marines sent in a larger, more heavily armed force. Stumbling into a hornet's nest of VPA, two Marine battalions were summoned before the hills around Khe Sanh could be captured. The ensuing battle also featured a concentrated bombardment of the Marine combat base by VPA 82mm mortars along with recoilless rifles. After the Hill Fights, Khe Sanh's garrison would never again be permitted to fall to less than a reinforced battalion in size. All this transpired while Hanoi buzzed with discussion of what became the Tet offensive. Final approval for that operation came just as the guns fell silent on the hills around Khe Sanh. The necessity for a deception to cover preparations for the high point quickly led to thoughts of Khe Sanh. The rapidity with which the Americans responded to the very first signs of battle action in the Khe Sanh area clearly showed MACVs sensitivity in this sector. The opportunity to mount a threat which might also involve a chance to defeat American, as opposed to South Vietnamese, troops, also proved tempting. The die would be cast for the siege of Khe Sanh at that very moment. Vietnam Climax Siege of Khe Sanh Introduction Approach to Battle Contact The Siege Opening the Road to Khe Sanh Map: North Vietnam's Plan of Attack (slow: 155K) Map: Khe Sanh Village (slow: 140K) Map: Khe Sanh Combat Base Layout (very slow: 247K) Intelligence and Battles Charlie Knocks: We Drop Khe Sanh in Wargames Back to Table of Contents -- Against the Odds vol. 1 no. 2 Back to Against the Odds List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2003 by LPS. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. 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