Centered on the defense of Saigon, Westmoreland's concept of operations in the III Corps area had a clarity of design and purpose that was not always apparent elsewhere in South Vietnam.
A typical search and destroy mission using armored personnel carriers.
Nearly two years would pass before U.S. forces could maintain a security belt around the capital and at the same time attack the enemy's bases. But Westmoreland's ultimate aims and the difficulties he would encounter were both foreshadowed by the initial combat operations in the summer and fall of 1965.
Map of South Vietnam: III and IV Corps 1967 (very slow: 343K)
Joined by newly arrived Australian infantrymen, the 173d Airborne Brigade during June began operations in War Zone D, a longtime enemy base north of Saigon. Though diverted several times to other tasks, the brigade gained experience in conducting heliborne assaults and accustomed itself to the rigors of jungle operations. It also established a pattern of operations that was to grow all too familiar.
Airmobile assaults, often in the wake of B-52 air strikes, were followed by extensive patrolling, episodic contact with the Viet Cong, and withdrawal after a few days' stay in the enemy's territory. In early November the airborne soldiers uncovered evidence of the enemy's recent and hasty departure- abandoned camps, recently vacated tunnels, and caches of food and supplies. However, the Viet Cong, by observing the brigade, began to formulate plans for dealing with the Americans.
First Significant Contact
On 8 November, moving deeper into War Zone D, the brigade encountered the first significant resistance. A multi-battalion Viet Cong force attacked at close quarters and forced the Americans into a tight defensive perimeter. Hand-to-hand. combat ensued as the enemy tried to "hug" American soldiers to prevent the delivery of supporting air and artillery fire. Unable to prepare a landing zone to receive reinforcements or to evacuate casualties, the beleaguered Americans withstood repeated enemy assaults. At nightfall the Viet Cong ceased their attack and withdrew under cover of darkness. Next morning, when reinforcements arrived, the brigade pursued the enemy, finding evidence that he had suffered heavy casualties. Such operations inflicted losses but failed either to destroy the enemy's base or to prevent him from returning to it later on.
Like the airborne brigade, the 1st Infantry Division initially divided its efforts. In addition to securing its base camps north of Saigon, the division helped South Vietnamese forces clear an area west of the capital in the vicinity of Cu Chi in Hau Nghia Province. Reacting to reports of enemy troop concentrations, units of the division launched a series of operations in the fall of 1965 and early 1966 that entailed quick forays into the Ho Bo and Bol Loi woods, the Michelin Rubber Plantation, the Rung Sat swamp, and War Zones C and D. In Operation MASTIFF, for example, the division sought to disrupt Viet Cong infiltration routes between War Zones C and D that crossed the Bol Loi woods in Tay Ninh Province, an area that had not been penetrated by government forces for several years.
But defense of Saigon was the first duty of the "Big Red One" as well as of the 25th Infantry Division, which arrived in the spring of 1966. The 1st Division took up a position protecting the northern approaches, blocking Route 13 from the Cambodian border. The 25th guarded the western approaches, chiefly Route 1 and the Saigon River. The two brigades of the 25th Division served also as a buffer between Saigon and the enemy's base areas in Tay Ninh Province. Westmoreland hoped, however, that the 25th Division would loosen the insurgents' tenacious hold on Hau Nghia Province as well.
Here American soldiers found to their amazement that the division's camp at Cu Chi had been constructed atop an extensive Viet Cong tunnel complex. Extending over an area of several miles, this subterranean network, one of several in the region, contained hospitals, command centers, and storage sites. The complex, though partially destroyed by Army "tunnel rats," was never completely eliminated and lasted for the duration of the war.
The 25th Division worked closely with South Vietnamese Army and paramilitary forces throughout 1966 and 1967 to foster pacification in Hau Nghia and to secure its own base. But suppressing insurgency in Hau Nghia proved as difficult as eradicating the tunnels at Cu Chi.
Corp Structure
As the number of Army combat units in Vietnam grew larger, Westmoreland established two corps-size commands, I Field Force in the II Corps area and II Field Force in the III Corps area. Reporting directly to the MACV commander, the field force commander was the senior Army tactical commander in his area and the senior U.S. adviser to ARVN forces there. Working closely with his South Vietnamese counterpart, he co-ordinated ARVN and American operations by establishing territorial priorities for combat and pacification efforts.
Through his deputy senior adviser, a position established in 1967, the field force commander was able to keep abreast both of the activities of U.S. sector (province) and subsector (district) advisers and of the progress of Saigon's pacification efforts. A similar arrangement was set up in I Corps, where the commander of the III Marine Amphibious Force was the equivalent of a field force commander. Only in IV Corps, in the Mekong Delta where few American combat units served, did Westmoreland choose not to establish a corps-size command. There the senior U.S. adviser served as COMUSMACV's representative; he commanded Army advisory and support units, but no combat units.
Although Army commanders in III Corps were eager to seek out and engage enemy main force units in their strongholds along the Cambodian border, operations at first were devoted to base and area security and to clearing and rehabilitating roads. The 1st Infantry Division's first major encounter with the Viet Cong occurred in November as division elements carried out a routine road security operation along Route 13, in the vicinity of the village of Bau Bang.
Trapping convoys along Route 13 had long been a profitable Viet Cong tactic. Ambushed by a large, well-entrenched enemy force, division troops reacted aggressively and mounted a successful counterattack. But the road was by no means secured; close to enemy bases, the Cambodian border, and Saigon, Route 13 would be the site of several major battles in years to come.
Roads were a major concern of U.S. commanders. In some operations, infantrymen provided security as Army engineers improved neglected routes. Defoliants and the Rome plow -- a bulldozer modified with sharp front blades -- removed from the sides of important highways the jungle growth that provided cover for Viet Cong ambushes. Road-clearing operations also contributed to pacification by providing peasants with secure access to local markets.
In III Corps, with its important road network radiating from Saigon, ground mobility was as essential as airmobility for the conduct of military operations. Lacking as many helicopters as the airmobile division, the 1st and 25th Infantry Divisions, like all Army units in South Vietnam, strained the resources of their own aviation support units and of other Army aviation units providing area support to obtain the maximum airmobile capacity for each operation. Nevertheless, on many occasions the Army found itself road bound.
Security
Road and convoy security was also the original justification for introducing Army mechanized and armor units into South Vietnam in 1966. At first Westmoreland was reluctant to bring heavy mechanized equipment into South Vietnam, for it seemed. ill suited either to counterinsurgency operations or to operations during the monsoon season, when all but a few roads were impassable. Armor advocates pressed Westmoreland to reconsider his policy. Operation CIRCLE PINES, carried out by elements of the 25th Infantry Division in the spring of 1966, successfully combined an infantry force and an armor battalion. This experience, together with new studies indicating a greater potential for mechanized forces, led Westmoreland to reverse his original policy and request deployment of the Hth Armored Cavalry Regiment, with its full complement of tanks, to Vietnam.
Arriving in III Corps in the last half of 1966, the regiment set up base at Xuan Loc, on Route I northeast of Saigon in Long Khanh Province. In addition to assuming an area support mission and strengthening the eastern approaches to Saigon as part of Westmoreland's security belt around the capital, squadrons of the regiment supported Army units throughout the corps zone, often "homesteading" with other brigades or divisions.
Route security, however, was only the first step in carving out a larger role for Army mechanized forces. Facing an enemy who employed no armor, American mechanized units, often in conjunction with airmobile assaults, acted both as blocking or holding forces and as assault or reaction forces, where terrain permitted. "Jungle bashing," as offensive armor operations were sometimes called, had its uses but also its limitations.
The intimidating presence of tanks and personnel carriers was often nullified by their cumbersomeness and noise, which alerted the enemy to an impending attack. The Viet Cong also took countermeasures to immobilize tracked vehicles. Crude tank traps, locally manufactured mines (often made of plastic to thwart discovery by metal detectors), and well-aimed rocket or recoilless rifle rounds could disable a tank or personnel carrier. Together with the dust and tropical humidity, such weapons placed a heavy burden on Army maintenance units. Yet mechanized units brought the allies enhanced mobility and firepower and often were essential to counter ambushes or destroy an enemy force protected by bunkers.
As Army strength increased in III Corps, Westmoreland encouraged his units to operate farther afield. In early 1966 intelligence reports indicated that enemy strength and activity were increasing in many of his base areas. In two operations during the early spring of 1966, units of the 1st and 25th Divisions discovered Viet Cong training camps and supply dumps, some of the sites honeycombed with tunnels. But they failed to engage major enemy forces.
As Army units made the deepest penetration of War Zone C since 1961, all signs pointed to the foe's hasty withdrawal into Cambodia. An airmobile raid failed to locate the enemy's command center, COSVN. (COSVN, in fact, was fragmented among several sites in Tay Ninh Province and in nearby Cambodia.) Like the 173d Airborne Brigade's operations, the new attacks had no lasting effects.
By May 1966 an ominous build-up of enemy forces, among them NVA regiments that had infiltrated south, was detected in Phuoc Long and Binh Long Provinces in northern III Corps. U.S. commanders viewed the build-up as a portent of the enemy's spring offensive, plans for which included an attack on the district town of Loc Ninh and on a nearby Special Forces camp. The 1st Division responded, sending a brigade to secure Route 13.
But the threat to Loc Ninh heightened in early June, when regiments of the 9th Viet Cong Division took up positions around the town. The arrival of American reinforcements apparently prevented an assault. About a week later, however, an enemy regiment was spotted in fortified positions in a rubber plantation adjacent to Loc Ninh. Battered by massive air and artillery strikes, the regiment was dislodged and its position overrun, ending the threat. Americans recorded other successes, trapping Viet Cong ambushers in a counterambush, securing Loc Ninh, and spoiling the enemy's spring offensive. But if the enemy still underestimated the mobility and firepower that U.S. commanders could bring to bear, he had learned how easily Americans could be lured away from their base camps.
Second Phase
By the summer of 1966 Westmoreland believed he had stopped the losing trend of a year earlier and could begin the second phase of his general campaign strategy. This entailed aggressive operations to search out and destroy enemy main force units, in addition to continued efforts to improve security in the populated areas of III Corps. In Operation ATTLEBORO he sent the 196th Infantry Brigade and the 3d Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, to Tay Ninh Province to bolster the security of the province seat. Westmoreland's challenge prompted COSVN to send the 9th Viet Cong Division on a "countersweep," the enemy's term for operations to counter allied search and destroy tactics.
Moving deeper into the enemy's stronghold, the recently arrived and inexperienced 196th Infantry Brigade sparred with the enemy. Then an intense battle erupted, as elements of the brigade were isolated and surprised by a large enemy force. Operation ATTLEBORO quickly grew to a multi-division struggle as American commanders sought to maintain contact with the Viet Cong and to aid their own surrounded forces. Within a matter of days, elements of the 1st and 25th Divisions, the 173d Airborne Brigade, and the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment had converged on War Zone C. Control of ATTLEBORO passed in turn from the 196th to the 1st Division and finally to the II Field Force, making it the first Army operation in South Vietnam to be controlled by a corps-size headquarters.
With over 22,000 U.S. troops participating, the battle had become the largest of the war. Yet combat occurred most often at the platoon and company levels, usually at night. As the number of American troops increased, the 9th Viet Cong Division shied away, withdrawing across the Cambodian border. Then Army forces departed, leaving to the Special Forces the task of detecting the enemy's inevitable return.
As the threat along the border abated, Westmoreland turned his attention to the enemy's secret zones near Saigon, among them the so-called Iron Triangle in Binh Duong Province. Harboring the headquarters of Military Region IV, the Communist command that directed military and terrorist activity in and around the capital, this stronghold had gone undisturbed for several years. Westmoreland hoped to find the command center, disrupt Viet Cong activity in the capital region, and allow South Vietnamese forces to accelerate pacification and uproot the stubborn Viet Cong political organization that flourished in many villages and hamlets.
Operation CEDAR FALLS began on 8 January 1967 with the objectives of destroying the headquarters, interdicting the movement of enemy forces into the major war zones in III Corps, and defeating Viet Cong units encamped there. Like ATTLEBORO before it, CEDAR FALLS tapped the manpower and resources of nearly every major Army unit in the corps area. A series of preliminary maneuvers brought Army units into position. Several air assaults sealed off the Iron Triangle, exploiting the natural barriers of the rivers that formed two of its boundaries. Then American units began a series of sweeps to push the enemy toward the blocking forces.
At the village of Ben Suc, long under the sway of the insurgents, sixty helicopters descended into seven landing zones in less than a minute. Ben Suc was surrounded, its entire population evacuated, and the village and its tunnel complex destroyed. But insurgent forces had fled before the heliborne assault. As CEDAR FALLS progressed, U.S. troops destroyed hundreds of enemy fortifications, captured large quantities of supplies and food, and evacuated other hamlets. Contact with the enemy was fleeting. Most of the Viet Cong, including the high-level cadre of the regional command, had escaped, sometimes infiltrating through allied lines.
By the time Army units left the Iron Triangle, MACV had already received reports that Viet Cong and NVA regiments were returning to War Zone C in preparation for a spring offensive. This time Westmoreland hoped to prevent Communist forces from escaping into Cambodia, as they had done in ATTLEBORO. From forward field positions established during earlier operations, elements of the 25th and 1st Divisions, the 196th Infantry Brigade, and the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment launched JUNCTION CITY, Moving rapidly to establish a cordon around the war zone and to begin a new sweep of the base area. As airmobile and mechanized units moved into positions on the morning Of 21 February 1967, elements of the 173d Airborne Brigade made the only parachute drop of the Vietnam War-and the first combat airborne assault since the Korean War-to establish a blocking position near the Cambodian border. Then other U.S. units entered the horseshoe-shaped area of operations through its open end.
Despite the emphasis on speed and surprise, Army units did not encounter many enemy troops at the outset. As the operation erittred its second phase, however, American forces concentrated their efforts in the eastern portion of War Zone C, close to Route 13. Here several violent battles erupted, as Communist forces tried to isolate and defeat individual units and possibly also to screen the retreat of their comrades into Cambodia.
On 19 March a mechanized unit of the 9th Infantry Division was attacked and nearly overrun along Route 13 near the battered village of Bau Bang. The combined firepower of armored cavalry, supporting artillery, and close air support finally caused the enemy to break contact.
A few days later, at Fire Support Base GOLD, in the vicinity of Soul Tre, an infantry and artillery battalion of the 25th Infantry engaged the 272d Viet Cong Regiment. Behind an intense, walking mortar barrage, enemy troops breached GOLD's defensive perimeter and rushed into the base. Man-to-man combat ensued. A complete disaster was averted when Army artillerymen lowered their howitzers and fired, directly into the oncoming enemy, Beehive artillery rounds that contained hundreds of clartlike projectiles. The last major encounter with enemy troops during JUNCTION CITY occurred at the end of March, when elements of two Viet Cong regiments, the 271st and the 70th (the latter directly subordinate to COSVN) attacked a battalion of the 1st Infantry Division in a night defensive position deep in War Zone C, near the Cambodian border. The lopsided casualties--over 600 enemy killed in contrast to 10 Americans--forcefully illustrated once again the U.S. ability to call in overwhelmingly superior fire support by artillery, armed helicopters, and tactical aircraft.
Thereafter, JUNCTION CITY became a pale shadow of the multi- division effort it had been at its outset. Most Army units were withdrawn, either to return to their bases or to participate in other operations. The 196th Infantry Brigade was transferred to I Corps to help replace Marine forces sent north to meet a growing enemy threat near the demilitarized zone. Contacts with enemy forces in this final phase were meager. Again a planned Viet Cong offensive had been aborted; the enemy himself escaped, though not unscathed.
In the wake of JUNCTION CITY, MACV's attention reverted to the still critical security conditions around Saigon. The 1st Infantry Division returned to War Zone D to search for the 271st Viet Cong Regiment and to disrupt the insurgents' lines of communications between War Zones C and D. Despite two major contacts, the main body of the regiment eluded its American pursuers. Army units again returned to the Iron Triangle between April and July 1967, after enemy forces were detected in their old stronghold. Supplies and documents were found in quantities even larger than those discovered in CEDAR FALLS.
Once again, however, encounters with the Communists were fleeting. The enemy's reappearance in the Iron Triangle and War Zone D, combined with rocket and mortar attacks on U.S. bases around Saigon, heightened Westmoreland's concern about the security of the capital. When the 1st Infantry Division's base at Phuoc Vinh and the Bien Hoa Air Base were attacked in mid-1967, the division mounted operations into the Ong Dong jungle and the Vinh Loi woods. Other operations swept the jungles and villages of Bien Hoa Province and sought once again to support pacification in Hau Nghia Province.
These actions pointed up a basic problem. The large, multi-division operations into the enemy's war zones produced some benefits for the pacification campaign; by keeping enemy main force regiments at bay, Westmoreland impeded their access to heavily populated areas and prevented them from reinforcing Viet Cong provincial and district forces. Yet when American units were shifted to the border, the local Viet Cong units gained a measure of relief. Westmoreland faced a strategic dilemma: he could not afford to keep substantial forces away from their bases for more than a few months at a time without jeopardizing local security.
Unless he received additional forces, Westmoreland would always be torn between two operational imperatives. By the summer of 1967, MACV's likelihood of receiving more combat troops, beyond those scheduled to deploy during the latter half of the year and in early 1968, had become remote. In Washington the administration turned down his request for an additional 200,000 men.
Meanwhile, however, the 9th Infantry Division and the 199th Infantry Brigade arrived in South Vietnam. Westmoreland stationed the brigade at Bien Hoa, where it embarked on FAIRFAX, a year-long operation in which it worked closely with a South Vietnamese ranger group to improve security in Gia Dinh Province, which surrounded the capital. Units of the brigade "paired off' with South Vietnamese rangers and, working closely with paramilitary and police forces, sought to uproot the very active Viet Cong local forces and destroy the enemy's political infrastructure. Typical activities included ambushes by combined forces; cordon and search operations in villages and hamlets, often in conjunction with the Vietnamese police; psychological and civic action operations; surprise road blocks to search for contraband and Viet Cong supporters; and training programs to develop proficient military and local self- defense capabilities.
Likewise, the 9th Infantry Division set up bases east and south of Saigon. One brigade deployed to Bear Cat; another set up camp at Tan An in Long An Province, south of Saigon, where it sought to secure portions of Route 4, an important north-south highway connecting Saigon with the rice-rich lower Delta. Further south, the 2d Brigade, 9th Infantry Division, established its base at Dong Tam in Dinh Tuong Province in IV Corps. Located in the midst of rice paddies and swamps, Dong Tam was created by Army engineers with sand dredged from the My Tho River. From this 600-acre base, the brigade began a series of riverine operations unique to the Army's experience in South Vietnam.
To patrol and fight in the inundated marshlands and rice paddies and along the numerous canals and waterways crossing the Delta, the Army modernized the concept of riverine warfare employed during the Civil War by Union forces on the Mississippi River and by the French during the Indochina War. The Mobile Riverine Force utilized a Joint Army-Navy task force controlled by a ground commander. In contrast to amphibious operations, where control reverts to the ground commander only after the force is ashore, riverine warfare was an extension of land combat, with infantry units traveling by water rather than by trucks or tracked vehicles.
Aided by a Navy river support squadron and river assault squadron, infantrymen were housed on barracks ships and supported by gunships or fire support boats called monitors. Howitzers and mortars mounted on barges provided artillery support. The 2d Brigade, 9th Infantry Division, began operations against the Cam Son Secret Zone, approximately 10 miles west of Dong Tam, in May 1967.
Seasonal War
Meanwhile, the war of main force units along the borders waxed and waned in relation to seasonal weather cycles, which affected the enemy's pattern of logistical activity, his ability to infiltrate men and supplies from North Vietnam, and his penchant for meticulous preparation of the battlefield. By the fall of 1967, enemy activity had increased again in the base areas, and sizable forces began appearing along South Vietnam's border from the demilitarized zone to III Corps. By the year's end, American forces had returned to War Zone C to screen the Cambodian border to prevent Communist forces from re-entering South Vietnam.
Units of the 25th Infantry Division that had been conducting operations in the vicinity of Saigon moved to the border. Elements of the 1st Infantry Division had resumed roadclearing operations along Route 13, but the division soon faced another major enemy effort to capture Loc Ninh. On 29 October Viet Cong units assaulted the CIDG camp and the district command post, breaching the defense perimeter. Intense air and artillery fire prevented its complete loss. Within a few hours, South Vietnamese and U.S. reinforcements reached Loc Ninh, their arrival made possible by the enemy's failure to capture the local airstrip.
When the build-up ended, ten Army battalions were positioned within Loc Ninh and between the town and the Cambodian border. During the next two days allied units warded off repeated enemy attacks as Communist forces desperately tried to score a victory. Tactical air support and artillery fire prevented the enemy from massing though he outnumbered allied forces by about ten to one. At the end of a ten-day battle, over 800 enemy were left on the battlefield, while allied deaths numbered only 50. Some 452 close air support sorties, eight B-52 bomber strikes, and 30,125 rounds of artillery had been directed at the enemy. Once again, Loc Ninh had served as a lightning rod to attract U.S. forces to the border. The pattern of two wars--one in the villages, one on the border--continued without decision.
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