Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Murtha: Swift-Boating Another Viet Nam Vet

Marvelous Marv · 01-20-2006, 08:44 PM

I wonder how Host used to pull this off.

Quote:

As another part of the NVA deception they opened tentative peace talks with the US military. They hoped to foster the impression of their weakness and also hoped that the US would try to force concessions from the South Vietnam government in response to NVA conditions.

The most significant and costly deception was to offer the US a major threat away from the urbanised south. Two major US bases to the north, near the border, were targeted. With the memories of Diên Biên Phû it was hoped that the attacks on isolated outposts would draw heavy US military (and media) attention. The two bases were at Dak To and Khe Sanh. Dak To was attacked over November and the Khe Sanh attack would begin a few days before the other operations in the south.

The similarities between Diên Biên Phû and Khe Sanh were intended to beguile US advisors. Khe Sanh was near the Ho Chi Minh Trail, only 20 km from the north-south border and 8 km from Laos, in high and difficult terrain resupply could be impossible in poor weather and the base sprawled over a wide area. The nearby Special Forces base at Lang Vei also looked vulnerable. Khe Sanh was defended by two regiments of the USMC commanded by Colonel Lownds and a numerically similar ARVN force.

In the face of all the intelligence the US military response was uneven. The belief that Khe Sanh was about to be a major battle was well established, MACV staff became certain that a decisive clash was imminent. The base was reinforced and thousands of UGSs were scattered in the surrounding jungle in Operation Niagara. US intelligence identified at least 15,000 NVA troops in the vicinity.

The fighting was most intense around Khe Sanh. There were three divisions of NVA regulars around Khe Sanh, possibly 25,000 men. Action began there around ten days before Tet, with probing attacks and exchanges of artillery fire. Two hill positions were captured on January 20, cutting the base from land routes. Attention in MACV and Washington was obsessed with Khe Sanh and other indicators of trouble were overlooked or down-graded. The main assaults did not begin until February 5. Lang Vei was over-run on February 7 and the lines at Khe Sanh were very heavily attacked, the camp only being preserved by massive airstrikes and artillery barrages (over 30,000 sorties were flown in defence of the base). After this the tempo slowed, the battle became more of a siege, although there were further NVA assaults on the 17-18th and the 29th. Khe Sanh was officially relieved on April 6 and fighting ended around April 14. Possibly 8,000 NVA soldiers died around Khe Sanh.

To the south the fighting began on January 29 as a number of NLF units began their attacks prematurely in four provincial towns. The rest of the NLF/NVA attacks began on the night of 30-31st. All but eight provincial capitals were attacked, five of the six autonomous cities, and 58 other major towns. Major attacks were aimed at Ban Me Thuot, Quang Nam, Dalat, My Tho, Can Tho, Ben Tre, Nha Trang, and Kontum. It was only in Hué, the ancient capital, and Saigon that the NVA had any significant success. The hoped for popular uprising (khnoi nghai) almost completely failed to occur, many South Vietnamese demonstrated stronger support for the ARVN.

Hué was attacked by ten battalions, the city was almost completely over-run and thousands of civilians were chosen for execution. The city was not recaptured by the US and ARVN forces until the end of February. The historical and cultural value of the city meant that the US did not apply the air and artillery strikes as widely as in other cities, at least at first. There was a tough street-by-street battle (all caught by the US media), heading towards the Citadel, the imperial palace, which was cleared of NVA troops after four days of struggle. The US and the ARVN had lost 482 men and the NVA around 7,500.

There were a number of attacks in and around Saigon, around five battalions of NLF had infiltrated the city. Tan Son Nhut airbase, the headquarters of the ARVN and MACV, was attacked by around 700 men and there was heavy fighting but only 110 American casualties. Bein Hoa airbase was also attacked and twenty aircraft were destroyed. The Vietnamese casualties in these two assaults and other actions in Saigon were over 1,100 men but they took control of large parts of the city. Fighting lasted almost a week and some sections of the city were badly damaged by US airstrikes and artillery, the suburb of Cholon was very badly damaged as fighting there lasted into mid-February. One especially potent assault was on the US Embassy by twenty NLF commandos, while quickly contained it became a highly symbolic assault producing memorable images.

The NLF and the NVA lost around 35,000 men killed, 60,000 wounded and 6,000 POWs for no military success. The US and ARVN dead totalled around 3,900 (1,100 US). But this was not the conflict as the US public saw it. Without there being an active conspiracy the US media reports were extremely damaging and shocked the American public and politicians. Apparently the depth of the US reaction even surprised the North Vietnamese leadership, as well as delighting them.

The heavy US shelling of Ben Tre produced the famous quote, "it became necessary to destroy the town in order to save it."

Khe Sanh was abandoned by the US on June 23, 1968.