by Peter Brush
From
The Tet Offensive edited by Marc Jason Gilbert and William Head.
Copyright © 1996 by Marc Jason Gilbert and William Head. Reproduced with
permission of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc., Westport, CT.
In late 1967, U.S. commander General
William Westmoreland and People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) commander General Vo
Nguyen Giap deployed the forces under their commands to Khe Sanh. Giap's and Westmoreland's own tactical and
strategic goals, combined with their perception of each others intentions, led
them into combat at this particular time and place.
The controversy surrounding this battle
has lasted long after the silencing of the guns. Westmoreland was convinced that the Communists were attempting a
repetition of their triumph over the French at Dien Bien Phu. Giap, on the other hand, claimed that Khe
Sanh itself was not of importance, but only a diversion to draw U.S. forces
away from the populated areas of South Vietnam. Both sides claimed victory at Khe Sanh, fueling a debate that
continues today‑‑was Khe Sanh a territorial imperative or a bait
and switch?
It was Indochina's geography that made
Khe Sanh important. The Ho Chi Minh
Trail had been used as a communications link between north and south since the
fighting began between the French and Viet Minh in the First Indochina War.1 This series of trails and roads began in
North Vietnam and entered Laos through various mountain passes. Several branches of the Trail penetrated
South Vietnam while other branches continued into Cambodia. Khe Sanh was located where North Vietnam,
South Vietnam, and Laos came together. For the Communists the region around Khe
Sanh was a major avenue for their entry into Northern South Vietnam. For the Americans a physical presence at Khe
Sanh would allow them to observe traffic on the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
It was in July, 1962, that the Americans
began to arrive at Khe Sanh, when a U.S. Army Special Forces detachment moved
into an old French fort near the village of Khe Sanh. Also at this time, a Vietnamese engineer unit constructed the
first airstrip at Khe Sanh. In 1962 and
1963, U.S. Marine Corps helicopter units were deployed around Khe Sanh to
support operations by U.S. Special Forces and the Army of the Republic of
Vietnam (ARVN). In April 1964, the
Marines sent a communications intelligence unit to the area to monitor Viet
Cong and PAVN radio communications.
General Westmoreland visited Khe Sanh for the first time during the
period of these early intelligence‑ gathering operations.2
Westmoreland felt the "critical
importance" of Khe Sanh was readily apparent. It would serve as a patrol base for the interdiction of enemy
personnel and supplies coming down the Ho Chi Minh Trail from Laos into
Northern South Vietnam; a base for covert operations to harass the Communists
along the Trail; an airstrip for aerial reconnaissance of the Trail; the
western terminus for the defensive line along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ)
separating North and South Vietnam; and a jump‑off point for invading
Laos by land in order to cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail. According to the General, abandoning the U.S. military presence
at Khe Sanh would allow the PAVN the ability to carry the fight into the populated
coastal regions of Northern South Vietnam.3
In the spring of 1966, Giap began to
deploy large numbers of PAVN forces within the DMZ, in Laos, and in the
southern panhandle of North Vietnam. According to Giap, the purpose of these
deployments was to frustrate U.S. pacification efforts by pulling the Americans
away from the populated areas of South Vietnam.4 By opening a new front away from central I
Corps (the northernmost military region of South Vietnam) the Communists would
have shorter supply lines, their movements would be harder for the Americans to
detect, while the less‑accessible terrain would reduce the efficacy of
the Americans' supporting arms.
The U.S. military command considered this
buildup of enemy forces a precursor to a major attack across the DMZ.5 The Marines responded by moving units
further north. During the remainder of
1966 and early 1967, fighting along the DMZ between the PAVN and Marines
increased in intensity. U.S. sources
claimed the Communists lost 3,492 confirmed killed in action (KIA) while the
Marines lost 541 KIA.6
According to the official U.S. Marine Corps history of the battle at Khe
Sanh, these casualties were unacceptable for the PAVN. The PAVN response was to infiltrate South
Vietnam by an end‑run around the DMZ.
The Khe Sanh area was the logical avenue of entry.7
In March, 1967, only one company of
Marines was assigned to the Khe Sanh area.
At this time the Americans did not have the helicopter assets, troop
strength, or logistical bases in the region to adopt a mobile type of defense.
Consequently, the troops at Khe Sanh stayed in relatively static positions with
an emphasis on patrolling, aerial and artillery interdiction of enemy
infiltration routes, and occasional reconnaissance‑in‑force
operations to break up enemy infiltration attempts.
In April 1967, the PAVN stepped up
offensive activity against the Marine base at Khe Sanh. The overland supply route into the base
along Route 9 was cut by Communist demolition teams. A PAVN regiment moved into positions around the base. Other PAVN units launched diversionary 1,200‑round
rocket, artillery, and mortar barrages at Marine fire support bases and
helicopter facilities in I Corps.8
The main thrust was an attack designed to overrun the Khe Sanh Combat
Base and capture the airfield. A
successful secondary attack was launched against the nearby Special Forces camp
at Lang Vei. The Marines airlifted two
battalions of infantry to Khe Sanh.
Several days of bitter fighting allowed the Marines to defeat the PAVN
attack and end the first PAVN attempt to take Khe Sanh. With this immediate threat over, Marine
forces in the Khe Sanh area were reduced.
By mid‑1967, the war related
hardships were increasing for the Communists; especially in the North. The U.S. bombing of the North, although
unable to halt infiltration, was taking a severe toll. The U.S. still seemed convinced of its
ability to achieve a military victory in the South. A Maoist‑style rural struggle alone was not likely to
defeat the Americans. There was concern in Hanoi that the U.S. was planning an
invasion of North Vietnam. After much
discussion the Communists decided that the time had come to implement a
different strategy. This new strategy
was designed to end the achievements of the U.S. pacification program, expand
their control in the countryside, end any U.S. plans to invade the North,
destroy U.S. faith in its ability to achieve a military victory, and nudge the
Americans in the direction of negotiations.
Moreover, this new strategy would bring the war, for the first time, to
the cities of South Vietnam.
In October 1967, Giap ordered men and
material sent down the Trail to be infiltrated across the border in the
vicinity of Khe Sanh. PAVN units
included the 304th Division, the first large regular formation of the People's
Army to enter South Vietnam. The 304th
had fought at Dien Bien Phu and came to Khe Sanh supported by attached
artillery and antiaircraft units. The other major units in this siege force
were the 325‑C and 320th Divisions.
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) concluded that the Communists
had stockpiled enough supplies for a sixty-ninety day-engagement. Experts estimated that all totalled PAVN
military forces at Khe Sanh came to 22,000.9 Supporting troops in nearby Laos and the
central DMZ pushed the total forces facing the Americans to between 35,000 and
40,000.10
By the fall of 1967, U.S. strength at Khe
Sanh was one Marine infantry battalion reinforced with Marine and Army
artillery and tanks. In December and
January three more Marine battalions plus one ARVN Ranger battalion were
airlifted to Khe Sanh. By the time the
U.S. build‑up at the Khe Sanh Combat Base and surrounding fortified hill
positions was complete on January 27, allied strength numbered 6,053--a
reinforced regiment.
Control of the prominent terrain features
to the north and northwest of the combat base was felt to be crucial to its
defense. Approximately half of the
Marine forces were deployed outside the base perimeter. These positions were named for the height of
the hills in meters: Hill 558, Hill
861, Hill 861 A or Alpha, Hills 881 North and South, and Hill 950. The base at Khe Sanh was constructed on a slight
plateau while the hill positions provided observation of enemy infiltration
routes from the northwest and west. The
hill positions were heavily fortified with infantry, light artillery, mortars,
recoilless rifles, and tracked anti-tank weapons.11
In addition to the Marines at Khe Sanh,
Westmoreland sent his best Army units north into I Corps matching the PAVN
buildup. The 1st Cavalry Division and
the 101st Airborne Division, plus other U.S. and ARVN units, were situated
within striking distance of Khe Sanh.
Clearly Giap's attempts to draw U.S. forces away from the populated coastal
areas were successful. In response to
this Communist buildup in I Corps, the U.S. military command had deployed fifty
percent of all its maneuver battalions in Vietnam to the region, realizing that
by doing so it would be hard pressed to meet all potential enemy threats
directed at other targets in the South.12 The U.S. was so convinced of the severity of the threat to Khe
Sanh that it was willing to strip the rest of the country of adequate military
reserves, curtail its ability to go on the offensive, and risk tactical
reverses in other areas of South Vietnam.13
U.S. military leadership in Vietnam soon
informed the Marines at Khe Sanh that they were surrounded by thousands of
North Vietnamese. They were instructed
to quickly improve their positions to the greatest extent possible‑‑to
"dig in" in order to be prepared for a forthcoming ground attack.14 By mid-January, evidence of a strong NVA
presence around the combat base became overwhelming. On January 17, a U.S. reconnaissance patrol was ambushed by a
PAVN force near one of the Marine hill positions around Khe Sanh. Near daybreak on January 20, Company I, 3rd
Battalion, 26th Marines under the command of Captain William H. Dabney, set out
to find the ambush site of the reconnaissance patrol in order to recover
classified communications information.
Dabney's men initiated their march from their position on Hill 881
South, the westernmost U.S. position in South Vietnam. As they marched north, they ran into a
heavily-fortified enemy defensive line constructed on an east-west axis. Elements of an NVA battalion opened fire on
the advancing Marines with small arms, heavy machine guns, and grenade
launchers. Heavy fighting continued for
hours. Eventually, Colonel David
Lownds, overall Marine commander at Khe Sanh, fearing an enemy attack on the
entire base, ordered the Marines to break off the battle and return to their
defensive positions on Hill 881 South.15
On January 21, the Communists began a
hundred-round mortar and rocket attack against the base. Several helicopters were destroyed, a
messhall was flattened, several trucks were riddled with shrapnel, and the base
commander's quarters were destroyed. At
about 5:15 a.m., one or more NVA shells scored a direct hit on the main
ammunition dump at Khe Sanh. This
attack set off an explosion that resulted in the destruction of 16,000
artillery shells, a large supply of C.S. tear gas which spread over the entire
base, and, about five hours later, a sizeable quantity of C-4 plastic and other
explosives. In fact, due to the
incessant fire caused by the original explosions the ammunition supplies
continued to set off smaller subsequent explosions or, as the Marines described
it, to "cooked off" in the flames for the next 48 hours. This
spectacular event soon became headline news throughout the U.S. and the Western
World. It helped make the situation at
Khe Sanh a cornerstone of most national evening news casts over the next
several weeks.16
To assure the efficient use of the
remaining shells, senior artillery officer, Major Roger Campbell, measured the
enemy artillery craters in order to target the distance and direction of the
enemy guns. The immediate crisis was
overcome that afternoon, when C-124s and C-130s began aerial resupply efforts
to make up for the lost ordnance. This
resupply effort grew throughout the siege.
Later, as the enemy began to effective target the landing strip,
resupply was carried out by helicopter drops.
One indication of just how seriously the U.S. leaders took this battle
came on January 23, when a cargo plane unloaded four large crates addressed to
"Fifth Graves Registration Team, Khe Sanh." They were filled with 4,000 pounds of body bags.17
Was it a diversion or a serious attempt
to seize the combat base? General Westmoreland was convinced it was no
diversion. On the contrary, given the
existence of the large build‑up of PAVN forces in the vicinity of Khe
Sanh and the DMZ, Westmoreland felt it would be much more logical for the
Communists to stage diversionary attacks elsewhere in Vietnam
"while concentrating on creating something like Dien Bien Phu at Khe Sanh
and seizing the two northern provinces [of South Vietnam]."18 Westmoreland's intelligence officer, General
Philip Davidson, calls the notion that Giap viewed Khe Sanh as a strategic
diversion to cover his attacks against the cities of South Vietnam during Tet a
"myth... with no factual basis."19
No matter the intentions of his enemy,
Westmoreland was more than willing to shift his assets to Khe Sanh. His great frustration in waging war in
Vietnam was the inability of U.S. forces to locate and close with large enemy
units on the battlefield in order to destroy them with massive firepower. Indeed, Westmoreland felt the Viet Cong were
"... uncommonly adept at slithering away."20 Westmoreland wanted the enemy to meet him on
the battlefield at Khe Sanh; it was the perfect place for a decisive
engagement. Khe Sanh was reinforced gradually by the U.S. military so as to not
scare the enemy away. The area was
considered to be uninhabited by civilians21 and held few South
Vietnamese government facilities, thereby minimizing coordination problems with
the ARVN. Most important of all was the
fact that the NVA seemed willing to fight at Khe Sanh. Westmoreland hoped that U.S. firepower would
turn Khe Sanh into a killing ground for the North Vietnamese. The process by which this would be
accomplished was described by the base target selection officer, Major Mirza Baig:
Our entire philosophy [is] to allow the
enemy to surround us closely, to mass about us, to reveal his troop and
logistic routes, to establish his dumps and assembly areas, and to prepare his
siege works as energetically as he desires.
The result [will be] an enormous quantity of targets...ideal for heavy
bombers.22
For the U.S. military command, the
Marines at Khe Sanh were bait; chum liberally spread around the Khe Sanh
tactical area to entice large military forces of North Vietnam from the depths
of their sanctuaries to the exposed shallows of America's high technology
killing machine. Many Marine commanders
did not care for this role that had been assigned to them by their U.S. Army
superiors. The Marines thought Khe Sanh
was too isolated and too hard to support.
The assistant commander of the 3rd Marine Division summed up the
feelings of the Marines regarding the importance of the base by saying,
"When you're at Khe Sanh, you're not really anywhere. You could lose it, and you really haven't
lost a damn thing." Third Marine
Division commander General Rathvon M. Thompkins felt that General Westmoreland
was particularly sensitive about Khe Sanh, perhaps because the nearby Special
Forces camp at Lang Vei had been overrun in 1967 (and would be overrun again by
the PAVN during the fighting around Khe Sanh in 1968).23
When Hanoi began sending its forces to
Khe Sanh the Communists were hoping to divert U.S. military assets away from
the populated areas; it is not reasonable to think Giap would tie up an entire
army corps with the mission of overrunning a single battalion of
Americans. To the extent both sides
sought to bait one another by their presence around Khe Sanh, both the U.S.
military and Vietnamese Communists were successful. The tens of thousands troops facing one another at Khe Sanh
represented the largest concentration of military forces on a single
battlefield during the Second Indochina War.
There is evidence, however, to support
the notion that the Communists planned on overrunning the base at Khe
Sanh. On January 2, 1968 a sentry dog
at a listening post near the combat base signaled the Marines that there was
activity nearby. A squad of Marines was
sent to investigate this sighting. Although no friendly patrols were reported
to be in the area, the squad detected six men in Marine Corps uniforms. The squad leader challenged these men in
English. When the challenge went
unanswered, the Marines opened fire. Five of the six trespassers were killed. The dead were North Vietnamese, and among
them was a PAVN regimental commander, his operations officer, and
communications officer. For the PAVN
commanders to conduct such a close personal reconnaissance indicated to the
Marines that their intentions were serious.
The PAVN would have no need to get so close to the combat base if they
were only engaged in a diversion.24
On January 20, Marines guarding the
eastern end of the airstrip at Khe Sanh saw a PAVN soldier entering the base
carrying a white flag. The PAVN soldier
surrendered to a Marine fire team sent to investigate the sighting. This
soldier turned out to be PAVN Senior Lieutenant La Thanh Tonc, commander of the
PAVN 14th Antiaircraft Company of the 325‑C Division. Tonc was full of information and was willing
to share it with the Marines. Counter-
intelligence experts were suspicious of Tonc's eagerness to talk and the
quality of his information. The base
commander, Colonel Lownds, however, felt there was nothing to lose and much to
gain by regarding Tonc's information as accurate. Marine intelligence realized that deception and spreading
dis-information were trademarks of the PAVN but Tonc's revelations were
supported by other intelligence information.
If Tonc was legitimate it would be the biggest intelligence coup of the
war. Tonc was too important to be
ignored.
Lieutenant Tonc claimed he had
surrendered because he was disgruntled over being passed over for promotion,
tired of being told things by his superior officers that he knew not to be
true, and demoralized by the casualties inflicted on his men by the Americans. According to Tonc, the PAVN attack on the
base was planned to begin that very evening, commencing with an infantry
assault on a nearby outpost, Hill 861 (all hills were designated according to
their height in feet). When Hill 861
had been overrun, two PAVN regiments would attack the base from the northeast
and from the south. PAVN infantry and
mortar units would interdict helicopters sent to resupply the base, fire at the
Marine heavy weapon positions, and bombard the airstrip to close it to incoming
aircraft. According to Tonc, the PAVN
had tanks in reserve north of the DMZ which could support the attack. This campaign was to be the most important
PAVN effort against the U.S. since the Americans intervened in South
Vietnam. The purpose of the campaign was
to gain bargaining leverage at the negotiating table by the conquest of the
U.S. bases along the DMZ, resulting in the liberation of Quang Tri
Province. The campaign was being
conducted by General Giap personally.
In late 1967, Robert Brewer, the CIA officer
for Quang Tri, received a Communist party document from a North Vietnamese
double agent. This document explicitly
referred to an upcoming attack, in early 1968, on Khe Sanh and other bases in
the northern provinces. This earlier
intelligence report seemed to confirm Tonc's revelations.25 Intelligence obtained from U.S. radio
intercepts also substantiated the deserter's information. Tonc had predicted that the attacks would
begin on January 20. The Marines were
ordered to a heightened state of readiness but nothing happened. Then a few minutes after midnight on the
21st, hundreds of enemy rockets, mortar rounds, and rocket‑propelled
grenades pounded Hill 861. Shortly
thereafter 250 PAVN soldiers attacked the hill position, thereby validating the
information provided by the deserter.
By the time of the attack on Hill 861,
General Giap had successfully effected a diversion of U.S. military assets from
the heavily populated coastal regions to northern I Corps. But the size of the Communist forces surrounding
the Khe Sanh Combat Base suggests that a diversion was not all that he hoped to
accomplish. The PAVN force included
three infantry divisions, a fourth infantry division nearby in a support role,
tanks, and two artillery regiments with antiaircraft capabilities. A diversion could have been achieved with
less of a troop deployment than this.
According to General Davidson, as of January 20, Giap "obviously
intended to overrun Khe Sanh and its marine defenders."26
At Dien Bien Phu the Communists achieved
victory by successfully attacking the French outposts that surrounded the base,
effectively isolating it. At Khe Sanh,
the Communists launched five battalion‑sized attacks against surrounding
outposts. These actions are consistent
with siege warfare tactics which call for the attacking force to seize the high
ground and cut the lines of communication leading to a fortified position. But unlike the circumstances at Dien Bien
Phu, the Communists were unable to capture the Marine outposts ringing Khe
Sanh. Only the Special Forces base at
Lang Vei and Khe Sanh village were successfully assaulted.
The Marines at Khe Sanh had vastly
superior air and artillery assets than did the French at Dien Bien Phu. The area around Khe Sanh had been liberally
seeded with remote sensors to track the movements of the PAVN. U.S. firepower, alerted by these sensors and
reconnaissance patrols, was able to break up formations of PAVN soldiers
whenever they tried to mass for assaults on the base and the hill positions.
Giap faced a dilemma at Khe Sanh he did
not encounter at Dien Bien Phu. Marine defenses around Khe Sanh were too strong
to succumb to small and medium‑sized PAVN ground attacks. A successful attack on Khe Sanh required the
PAVN to mass their forces for an overwhelming assault. Yet, whenever the PAVN attempted to mass
their forces, they provided rich targets for U.S. firepower and were
decimated.
Perhaps the best example of this
situation occurred at the end of February, 1968. Sensors placed along Route 9 between the base and the Laotian
border began sending large numbers of signals to monitors at Khe Sanh. By
computing the length of the column of soldiers from sensor readouts, the
commander at Khe Sanh became convinced that a PAVN regiment was attempting to
close on the base. B‑52 bombing
runs and artillery attacks from within the base broke up the attempted
attack. Only one company out of this
PAVN regiment was able to reach the base, and this company was destroyed by the
South Vietnamese Ranger battalion positioned on the southeast corner of the
base perimeter.27
General Davidson, Westmoreland's
intelligence officer, feels that Giap's primary goal at Khe Sanh was to overrun
the base. When this proved impossible,
according to Davidson, Giap changed his plans, and gave up his attempt to turn
Khe Sanh into another Dien Bien Phu.
Cecil Currey, a retired U.S. Army colonel and professor of military
history, says that Giap's primary intention was to stage a diversion, and that
the notion of overrunning the base was secondary.28 Both Davidson and Currey allow that the PAVN
had dual motives at Khe Sanh. Their
different interpretation seems to be one of emphasis.
One bit of evidence that Davidson offers
in support of his position is the possible presence of General Giap himself in
the vicinity of Khe Sanh. Radio signal intelligence detected the presence of a
major PAVN headquarters in caves just north of the DMZ. Aerial reconnaissance indicated significant
vehicular activity in this area.
Numerous radio antennae were observed there, and PAVN prisoners of war
reported that Giap himself was directing PAVN operations in the region. Davidson notes that at Dien Bien Phu, Giap
set up headquarters nearby and directed operations from this command post. Further, an intelligence report indicates
that Giap was not seen in Hanoi between September 2, 1967, and February 5,
1968. Davidson feels the "best
guess" is that Giap was in this forward headquarters planning the battle
for Khe Sanh.
Peter McDonald, on the other hand, in his
biography of General Giap, states that Giap "... was not there" [near
Khe Sanh]. McDonald notes that the PAVN
did not have the helicopter assets that would allow a quick move to the front
and that he could not have afforded to be away from the center of military
control in Hanoi. McDonald does not
otherwise account for Giap's absence from Hanoi during this period, and
certainly the lack of PAVN helicopters does not preclude the possibility of
Giap's presence in the vicinity of Khe Sanh.
Robert J. O'Neill, believes it is most
unlikely that Giap personally directed the battle at Khe Sanh. Hanoi was the only headquarters from which
all the activities of the entire NVA could be controlled. Issues of reputation and status were at
stake. Westmoreland was willing to
leave tactical battlefield decisions in the hands of local Marine commanders at
Khe Sanh. Had the PAVN suffered a clear
defeat at the hands of the U.S., Giap would have sacrificed much of his reputation. In any event, the cave headquarters was
bombed repeatedly by the U.S. Air Force and while it remained in operation for
several weeks, its tactical importance faded over time.29
No matter how we define the intentions of
the PAVN regarding Khe Sanh, the fact is that they had diverted large amounts
of U.S. military assets to its vicinity by the time the fighting began. Most of the Communist military forces sent
into attack during the 1968 Tet Offensive were soldiers of the People's
Liberation Armed Force (PLAF), the military arm of the National Liberation
Front (NLF). Only in I Corps did the
Communists commit large numbers of their regular army troops. This assignment of PAVN units reflects the
special determination of the Communists to inflict severe and permanent
military damage upon the South Vietnamese government in the northern
provinces. If Khe Sanh was only meant
to be a ruse by the Communists to divert U.S. forces, then why did the
Communists continue their attacks on Khe Sanh after a diversion had been
accomplished?
In addition to Khe Sanh, Hue was another
place where the Communists committed large numbers of their regular army forces
to battle during Tet 1968. On January
30, seven to ten battalions of PLAF and PAVN forces struck Hue City. Their goal was to capture this important Vietnamese
cultural and political center, destroy the Saigon administration there,
establish a revolutionary administration, and hold the city for as long as
possible.30
In support of this goal, on about
February 10, the Communists shifted some of their military forces from Khe Sanh
to Hue. This deployment supports the
notion that, at least by this stage of the fighting during Tet, 1968, the
Communists had important priorities for their Khe Sanh forces in addition to
the capture of the Marine base. After bitter
fighting, the Communists were unable to hold Hue, and on February 25, the enemy
forces there had either fled or been killed.
Yet, during the night of February 29‑March 1, the PAVN staged
their largest massed attack upon the Khe Sanh Combat Base. This regimental‑ sized strike was
broken up after sustaining overwhelming casualties at the hands of U.S.
firepower. An attack of this magnitude,
although not large enough to be effective, does not lend itself to the notion
that the Communists only planned a diversion at Khe Sanh. Giap shifted five infantry battalions from
Khe Sanh to Hue. Had he shifted more
troops it could have had an important effect on the fighting around Hue. In effect, Giap left too few troops at Khe
Sanh to overrun it, and shifted too few troops from Khe Sanh to Hue to effect
the outcome of the fighting there.31
At Dien Bien Phu the Viet Minh
constructed trenches to within a few meters of the French positions. On February 25, a U.S. aerial observer noted
a PAVN trench running only twenty‑five meters from the combat base
perimeter. This represented an addition to an existing trench network and added
700 meters of trenching in a single night.32 As the PAVN dug ever closer, the U.S. tried
a variety of means to neutralize the trenches, including napalm, one ton bombs,
and huge amounts of artillery fire. In earlier battles such as Ia Drang and Con
Thien, the PAVN concluded that this tactic of "hugging the belts" of
the Americans would make the U.S. reluctant to employ their massive firepower
due to fear of causing casualties among their own forces. The U.S. response was to employ all manner
of firepower against these close‑proximity targets, including B‑52
strikes. To be sure, the willingness of
the Communists to construct positions at the very edge of the combat base is
not consistent with the idea of only staging a diversion.
By early March, it appeared as if the
North Vietnamese were giving up on Khe Sanh.
On March 9, General Westmoreland reported to President Lyndon Johnson
that enemy forces in the vicinity of Khe Sanh had fallen to between 6,000 and
8,000 men. On March 10, it was reported
that the enemy had stopped repairing their trench system. The fighting was winding down. After succeeding in creating a diversion but
failing to overrun the base at Khe Sanh, why would the Communists leave the
battlefield at that particular time?
General Davidson feels that one reason
the Communists withdrew their forces from the Khe Sanh area was the fear of
nuclear weapons. Senior members of the
U.S. military command had been comparing Khe Sanh to Dien Bien Phu. The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of
Staff asked Westmoreland if there were targets in the vicinity of Khe Sanh that
lent themselves to nuclear strikes and asked if contingency nuclear planning
would be appropriate. Westmoreland replied that if the situation in the DMZ
were to change dramatically he could "visualize that either tactical
nuclear weapons or chemical agents should be active candidates for
employment." Davidson notes that
the issue of the use of nuclear weapons was leaked to the press which published
reports that Westmoreland had asked for permission to use nuclear weapons at
Khe Sanh.33
Davidson speculates that Giap was aware
of the nuclear weapons issue. Giap must
have known that the U.S. considered using nuclear weapons against Viet Minh
forces besieging Dien Bien Phu. If the
U.S. had been willing to consider the use of nuclear weapons in support of the
French, there existed an even greater possibility that the U.S. would use
atomic bombs to protect the Marines at Khe Sanh. Davidson notes that the possibility of the use of nuclear weapons
must have frightened the North Vietnamese Politburo and thoroughly alarmed the
Soviets and the Chinese. Davidson's
conclusion is that the North Vietnamese did not consider Khe Sanh to be a goal
of sufficient tactical importance to risk World War III. Davidson notes it may have been more than
just coincidental that PAVN attacks against the Marine outposts in the vicinity
of Khe Sanh ceased at the same time as nuclear weapons were being considered
for use in the area.
It seems that Davidson has over‑emphasized
the importance of the nuclear weapons issue at Khe Sanh. If it is correct to assume that the North
Vietnamese believed Khe Sanh was not worth the risk of a general nuclear war
between the superpowers, then the same logic must hold for the United States.
President Johnson was unwilling to mine North Vietnamese ports, strike at lines
of communication near the Vietnam‑China border, or bomb North Vietnamese
civilian population centers for fear of risking a confrontation with the USSR
or China. Certainly the use of nuclear
weapons in Vietnam would be viewed as a greater provocation by the Russians and
Chinese than the other actions which President Johnson was unwilling to
implement.34
Davidson feels that due to lack of
sufficient information it is impossible to explain some of the reasoning behind
North Vietnamese tactics at Khe Sanh.
Surely, current evidence strongly suggests that on or about February 10,
the Communists decided not to overrun Khe Sanh. Yet, on February 23, the base received 1,307 rounds of incoming
rockets, artillery, and mortar rounds‑-a record amount of incoming fire
for one day.35 It seems to
me that the best explanation for this heavy shelling incident is one of
logistics. PAVN forces had gone to
considerable efforts to stockpile these munitions in the Khe Sanh area. By February 23, the diversion had been
accomplished and attempts to seize the base had proved unsuccessful. Rather than move this ammunition back into
Laos under the constant threat of U.S. airstrikes, the Communists chose to fire
it at the Marine positions.
The regimental‑sized attack of
February 29 is also inexplicable to Davidson.
The attacking force was not sufficiently large to have any possibility
of success and was launched after the North Vietnamese had been withdrawing
from the region. Again, its purpose may
have been to exploit media coverage of the battle; it occurred two days after CBS
reporter Walter Cronkite prophesied the fall of Khe Sanh to the American
public.36
Thomas L. Cubbage II, a former U.S. Army
intelligence analyst during the Vietnam War, claims that the attack on Khe Sanh
was an attempt to achieve a decisive victory in the war. According to Cubbage, Hanoi's Tet offensive
failed because the attack on Khe Sanh failed.
Khe Sanh was meant to be another Dien Bien Phu and was unsuccessful
because the Dien Bien Phu model was out of date. That is to say that the new technologies of warfare represented
by overwhelming American firepower was something the Communists were unable to
overcome. The capture of Khe Sanh was a
major component of Hanoi's General Offensive‑General Uprising. The attack was launched ten days before the
attacks on the cities with the purpose of clearing the way for PAVN forces to
move from the border areas to the coastal plain. Success at Khe Sanh would have allowed the PAVN to seal Hue's
fate and put Danang in grave danger. According to Cubbage, Khe Sanh was not an
attempt to bait the Americans. It was a
serious attempt to create another Dien Bien Phu.
Cubbage says that Westmoreland knew about
the intentions of the Communists due to good intelligence information. When the attack on Khe Sanh failed, Hanoi's
whole Tet Offensive was weakened and eventually failed in a military
sense. Cubbage feels that Khe Sanh was
of such overwhelming strategic importance that its capture could have allowed
Hanoi to achieve its military goals during the Tet Offensive and caused an
earlier end to the U.S. involvement in Vietnam.37
In fact, a decisive victory, which
Cubbage feels was the true goal of the PAVN at Khe Sanh, was possible; they
could have forced the Americans out of Khe Sanh, but they never realized the
means by which this could have been achieved.
Concerns over the ability of the US to
successfully defend Khe Sanh were manifest at the highest levels of
government. President Johnson, his
national security advisor, the advisor's military assistant, and the National
Security Council staff representative for Vietnam were all kept abreast of the
developing situation around Khe Sanh.
The President summed up his feelings regarding Khe Sanh while the
fighting was in progress; "I don't want any damn Dinbinphoo."38 Both General Earl G. Wheeler, Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General Westmoreland assured the President that
preparations for the defense of Khe Sanh were adequate and that the base would
be successfully supplied.39
Indeed, support for the defense of Khe Sanh received priority over all
other operations in Vietnam.40
The job of supplying the Marine base at
Khe Sanh fell to various Marine Corps and US Air Force aviation units. This airlift would have been a massive
operation even under ideal circumstances.
The purely logistical problems were compounded by poor visibility that
fell below minimum requirements for airfield operations 40 percent of the
time. The PAVN added to the difficulty
by directing a heavy volume of antiaircraft and artillery fire at incoming
aircraft.41
The resupply process suffered a sharp
setback on February 10 when PAVN gunners shot up a Marine C‑130, fully
laden with fuel bladders, while it was attempting a landing at the Khe Sanh
airstrip. As a result of this incident
and fire damage sustained by other aircraft already on the ground, C‑130
landings were temporarily suspended during February. At the beginning of March this suspension was made
permanent. Consequently, during these
periods, the Marines were denied the use of the best heavy‑lift aviation
assets in their inventory. Most
supplies thereafter were delivered by parachute. According to the official
Marine Corps history of the battle of Khe Sanh, these parachute drops "...
were sufficient for bulk commodities such as rations and ammunition."42 However, certain supplies, such as
replacement troops, medical evacuations and medical supplies, could only be
delivered by aircraft that made actual landings on the runway at Khe Sanh.
This official assessment of the success
of U.S. supply capabilities regarding rations was overly optimistic. A hot meal was defined as heated C‑rations;
the Marines at Khe Sanh sometimes went weeks without hot meals. Rations were
routinely limited to two meals per man per day. One Marine reported that he went several days with only one C‑ration
meal per day.43 A company
commander on Hill 861, located about two miles northwest of the combat base,
reported his men were forced to go for days without water.44 Another reported that his water ration was
one half canteen cup of water per day, which had to suffice for drinking,
shaving, and brushing teeth.45
Water is an extremely difficult commodity
to deliver to a besieged garrison. It
is heavy, it must be handled in special containers that cannot be used for the
delivery of other liquids, and water containers are vulnerable to incoming
artillery attacks. One helicopter crew
attempting to deliver water to Hill 861 was rattled by PAVN fire, panicked, and
released its cargo from a height of two hundred feet. The parched Marines watched the water containers burst apart in
mid‑air.46
Had the Communists realized the
vulnerability of the Marine water supply, they might well have been able to
force the Marines to abandon their combat base high above Khe Sanh. The Marines occupied various hilltop
positions surrounding Khe Sanh. These
positions, initially supplied from the combat base itself, were later
provisioned by helicopters flying from the 3d Marine Division Forward base at
Dong Ha. Water for the combat base came
from the small Rao Quan River which flowed through hills to the north occupied
by the PAVN.
Even though the combat base was not
dependent on air‑lifted water as the hill positions were, water was,
nevertheless, often a scarce commodity.
The water point itself was located about 150 meters outside the northern
sector of the base perimeter. There was
a small hill and tall grass that obscured visual contact with the water point. The water was lifted ninety feet over an 800‑foot
span by pumps. A dirt dam twenty‑five
meters wide caused the formation of a reservoir six feet deep. During the extensive rains of September and
October, 1967, the dam broke. U.S. Navy
E01 (Equipment Operator First Class) Rulon V. Rees led a detail to repair the
dam in the fall of 1967 using old scrapped Marston matting from the
airstrip. This detail blasted a crater
in the river bed about thirty feet in front of the dam to act as a reservoir in
case the river level fell and Marston matting was placed on the face of the
dam.
No patrols went out to get the
water. It was pumped inside the
perimeter and went to a large black rubber water tower container. This reservoir was frequently punctured
during the siege, causing temporary lack of water on the base.47
Had the PAVN realized how vulnerable the
Marines' water supply was, they could have interdicted it by diverting the Rao
Quan River or contaminating it, thereby forcing the Marines to attempt a
breakout.48 However, General
Giap, who achieved victory at Dien Bien Phu in part due to his meticulous
battlefield planning, seems to have not realized the vulnerability of the
Marines' water supply. Nor did the
local PAVN commander. General Westmoreland
did not become aware of the magnitude of the potential water problem until the
base was surrounded by the North Vietnamese.
By that time, a successful evacuation was not possible.49
The concept of an overland evacuation of
a reinforced regiment, fighting its way through two or three PAVN divisions
that held every tactical advantage, presented a problem of such magnitude that
Westmoreland was reluctant to consider it.
The Joint Chiefs refused to consider it.
General Tompkins, commander of the 3rd
Marine Division, latter asserted that had the PAVN succeeded in interdicting
the combat base's water supply, that it would have been impossible to provision
Khe Sanh with water in addition to its other resupply requirements.50 However, at the time, in a letter to General
Davidson, General Tompkins stated that water could have been added to the
provisions already being supplied to support the base. By examining the supply requirements and the
logistical capabilities of the Americans it is possible to determine which of
these contradictory statements is correct.
The III Marine Amphibious Force (III MAF)
headquarters established the official supply requirement for Khe Sanh at 235
tons per day. The Americans were hard
pressed to meet these requirements. The
airstrip was completely closed on various occasions due to the weather or
damage sustained from enemy fire.
During the month of February alone, the combat base had a deficit of
1,037 tons of supplies actually delivered compared to scheduled deliveries. The
air delivery problems were compounded when the use of the large C‑130
cargo planes was curtailed due to hostile fire. Passenger requirements were met by the use of C‑123
aircraft. The smaller capacity of the C‑123's
necessitated a five‑fold increase in landings. More landings meant more targets. Maintenance personnel of one aircraft upon its return to Da Nang
found 242 holes before they gave up counting.
In the first month of the siege four major aircraft were lost to hostile
fire. The most serious loss occurred on
March 6 when a C-123 transport was attempting to land at Khe Sanh. Forty-eight U.S. military personnel were
killed when the plane crashed after being hit by PAVN anti-aircraft fire.51
Helicopters were widely used as resupply
vehicles. Only helicopters could reach
the hilltop positions, whose supply requirements were 32,000 pounds per day. Helicopters were stationed at the combat
base at the beginning of the fighting.
These aircraft became so vulnerable to hostile fire that they had to be
kept constantly in the air whether they had missions to perform or not. Indeed, at the height of the siege U.S.
helicopters were being lost at a rate faster than they could be replaced. Thus, eventually losses became so great that
this unit was deployed away from Khe Sanh.
No less than thirtythree helicopters were destroyed or permanently
disabled between the beginning of the siege and the end of March 1968.52
These losses were sustained without the
implementation of an additional requirement for water delivery. According to the relevant U.S. Army field
manual, the water supply requirement for drinking, personal hygiene, food
preparation, laundry, and medical treatment is six pounds of water per man per
day. These levels provide enough water
to support continuous combat operations for extended periods.53 The implementation of this requirement would
have added 158 tons per day, an additional load of 67 percent over the supply
requirement without water. Unlike
ammunition and food rations, which could be palletized and delivered by
parachute without the need for special containers, water was difficult to
stockpile during the periods when resupply was possible, for use when landings
were not permitted due to weather or hostile fire. The official optimism of U.S. commanders regarding resupply at
Khe Sanh notwithstanding, the Americans would not have been able to provide the
base with water under the existing tactical conditions.
By March the PAVN began withdrawing from
the Khe Sanh area, and in April the Marine regiment was replaced, allowing it
to withdraw via the recently reopened Route 9.
The primary goal of the American forces at Khe Sanh was to destroy large
numbers of North Vietnamese soldiers.
In this they were successful.
Although the official body count of enemy soldiers killed at Khe Sanh
was 1,602, the U.S. command placed the total number of North Vietnamese at
between 10,000 and 15,000 killed in action.
American deaths sustained in the siege itself, plus mobile operations in
the Khe Sanh tactical area after the siege, totaled approximately 1,000 KIA.54 In a war that focused on kill ratios and
body counts as a measure of success, Khe Sanh was placed in the win column by
the American military.
As with the Americans at Khe Sanh, the
French garrisoned Dien Bien Phu as "bait" for the Vietnamese
Communist forces. An American observer
there reported that the French base could "withstand any kind of attack
the Viet Minh are capable of launching."55
The commander of French forces in
Indochina, General Henri Navarre, believed that French forces would carry the
day due to their superiority in ground and air firepower. When the Viet Minh knocked out the airfield
at Dien Bien Phu, resupply became impossible and the French became isolated and
vulnerable. On May 7, 1954, after
sustaining heavy losses, the French were forced to surrender. The very next day the Indochina phase of the
Geneva Conference began. France's loss
at Dien Bien Phu led directly to their withdrawal from Indochina.56
Victory in combat, however defined, often
hangs by a tenuous thread. Even with the claim of victory by the U.S. at Khe
Sanh and during the Tet 1968 fighting in general, the psychological victory of
the Vietnamese Communists during this period led to the beginning of the end
for the United States in Vietnam. It was
during the 1968 Tet Offensive that opposition in the U.S. to the war in
Vietnam, in terms of regarding involvement as a mistake, first rose above 50
percent and exceed the level of support.
Approximately one fourth of all the television film reports on the
evening news programs in the U.S. during February and March, 1968, were devoted
to portraying the situation of the Marines at Khe Sanh.57 Had the North Vietnamese simply interdicted
the water supply of the Marines at the Khe Sanh Combat Base in 1968, thereby
forcing the Marines to evacuate and inflicting heavy casualties upon them in
the process, the United States could have easily have met a fate similar to
that of the French.
In February 1969, General Giap was
specifically asked if the fighting at Khe Sanh was meant to achieve another
Dien Bien Phu for the Communists. Giap
replied that Khe Sanh was not meant to be, nor could it have been, a replay of
the earlier Communist victory. The
evidence shows, however, that too many of the tactics employed by the
Communists at Khe Sanh were inconsistent with this simplistic explanation, on
the part of General Giap.58
Neither the diversionary model alone nor
the notion that Khe Sanh was only meant to be another Dien Bien Phu adequately
explain the events that transpired there. It is necessary to ignore much
evidence to make either of those explanations fit the facts.
The conclusion that the primary motive of
the North Vietnamese was to overrun the base, and that a diversion was only
secondary, is refuted by the fact that when the Communists began to deploy
their forces to Khe Sanh there were insufficient U.S. forces there to make the
effort of an assault worthwhile. If
Giap's priority had been to capture the base, he would not have needed the
22,000 men he deployed to Khe Sanh in the fall of 1967. He could have overwhelmed the few hundred
American defenders with only a fraction of that number of troops.
Giap, if he had access to sufficient
intelligence information, could very well have concluded that the Americans
would be likely to reinforce the base in response to a massive deployment of
PAVN forces, pulling men from other areas in Vietnam to do so. What he may not have known is that there was
a disagreement between the Army and the Marines regarding the value of sending
large numbers of reinforcements to Khe Sanh.
If Giap did have intelligence regarding this, he had no way of knowing
what the outcome of the conflict between the two services would be. Had the Marine position against sending
reinforcements and advocating abandonment of the base prevailed, Khe Sanh would
have been but lightly garrisoned or abandoned when Giap's units arrived, and
his strategy would have been for naught.
His army, instead of creating a diversion, would have diverted nothing,
since the Americans would not have deployed troops to a base they had decided
to abandon.
The best explanation is that Giap's
primary motivation at Khe Sanh was to divert large numbers of U.S. forces away
from the heavily‑populated coastal areas. In this he was successful.
But the desire to achieve a victory over the Marines there must have
been a major consideration. Giap's
forces stayed on the battlefield too long, fought too hard, and sustained too
many casualties to justify the explanation that the creation of a diversion was
the only concern.
Even with the claim of victory by the
U.S. at Khe Sanh and during the Tet 1968 fighting in general, the psychological
victory of the Vietnamese Communists during this period led to the beginning of
the end for the United States in Vietnam.
It was during the 1968 Tet Offensive that opposition in the U.S. to the
war in Vietnam, in terms of regarding involvement as a mistake, first rose
above 50 percent and exceeded the level of support. Approximately one fourth of
all the television film reports on the evening news programs in the U.S. during
February and March, 1968, were devoted to describing the situation of the
Marines at Khe Sanh.59
Having achieved his diversion, Giap had little to lose by seeking a
victory for the North Vietnamese. While
the fighting at Khe Sanh was still in progress, U.S. President Johnson
remarked, "The eyes of the nation and the eyes of the entire world ‑
the eyes of all of history itself ‑ are on that little brave band of
defenders who hold the pass at Khe Sanh."60 Giap knew this, and an agonizing defeat for
the U.S. at Khe Sanh could have forced history to repeat itself. Giap had
successfully achieved his diversion and had nothing to lose by continuing the
fight with the intent of overrunning the Khe Sanh Combat Base.
In April 1968, the Marine regiment at Khe
Sanh was relieved and its units were assigned elsewhere throughout I
Corps. In June the U.S. command in
Vietnam decided to abandon the base at Khe Sanh. The Marine positions were bulldozed flat, the airstrip was
removed, and the bunkers were destroyed.
No physical presence remained due to fear that the Communists would take
propaganda pictures of the combat base.
In July the last Marine departed Khe Sanh. Although both sides claimed victory, Khe Sanh provided neither
clear victory nor definite defeat for either adversary. Both sides withdrew and Khe Sanh once again
became merely unimportant.
No understanding of the significance of
the battle at Khe Sanh is possible if the fighting there is considered in isolation. Khe Sanh was a part of the Tet Offensive,
which itself was part of the target year long Communist Winter‑Spring
Offensive. For the Americans Khe Sanh
was meant to be the best opportunity to implement the strategy of attrition, to
destroy Communist military forces at a rate above which they could be replaced.
At Khe Sanh the U.S. achieved its most satisfying
body counts and kill ratios of American deaths to enemy deaths. At the end of the campaign, the total enemy
body count stood at 1,602. However,
General Tompkins, upon hearing that only 117 individual and 39 crew-served
weapons had been captured in the fighting around Khe Sanh, termed the official
body count "false."61 Even so, Colonel Lownds, the Marine
commander at Khe Sanh, was convinced that the U.S. destroyed two entire North
Vietnamese army divisions. Westmoreland's
staff estimated that between 10,000 and 15,000 PAVN soldiers were lost (considering
recent evidence a dubious number).62
The official casualty figures for U.S.
forces was place at 205 KIA, 1,668 WIA, and one MIA. These official figures are both erroneous and misleading, and
reflect only U.S. casualties sustained at the combat base and hill
positions. Ray Stubbe, a Navy Chaplain
attached to the Marine forces at Khe Sanh, put the total U.S. military
personnel killed in the fighting around Khe Sanh at 476. This still does not account for allied
troops deaths which included: 219
killed at Lang Vei, about 25 killed at Khe Sanh village, 125 killed in the
relief of Khe Sanh called Operation Pegasus, and 52 killed in plane crashes,
ambushes, etc. All totalled, the allied
casualty toll for fighting at Khe Sanh, the relief operation and operations
immediately after the siege were approximately 1,000 KIAs and 4,500 WIAs.63
No matter what the number of enemy
casualties, the Marines and their allies delivered massive volumes of firepower
against the Communist forces. The
artillery battalion at the base camp alone fired 158,891 rounds in direct support
of Marine forces, thus living up to the Fire Support Coordination Center's
motto--"Be Generous."64
In addition, 7th Air Force fighter-bombers flew 9,691 sorties, dropping
14,223 tons of bombs and rockets.
Marine aircraft added 7,078 sorties and 17,015 tons of ordnance, while
Navy aviators flew 5,337 sorties and dropped 7,491 of bombs. Moreover, Air Force B-52s flew 2,548 sorties
and unleashed a staggering 59,542 tons of munitions around Khe Sanh. These B-52 ARCLIGHT raids delivered the
equivalent of a 1.3 kiloton nuclear device every day of the siege. Putting PAVN force estimates at around
30,000, the U.S. expended over five tons of artillery and aerial munitions for
every NVA soldier at Khe Sanh.65
But, in the larger scheme of things,
these impressive ordnance tonnages and body counts, even if close to reality,
made little difference. The Vietnamese
Communists were willing to absorb losses of this magnitude in order to
continue, and win, their struggle.
If the siege of Khe Sanh was meant to be
only a Communist ruse then it was a successful one. Large amounts of U.S. military assets were diverted to this
isolated area of South Vietnam.
Nevertheless, in a strictly military sense, this diversion had little
effect on the outcome of the fighting during Tet 1968 The goals of the
Communists, as presented before the fighting began, remained largely
elusive. The huge psychological victory
of the Communists was largely unintentional and represented an unexpectedly
positive consequence of the fighting.
If Khe Sanh was meant to be another Dien Bien Phu, it was a strategic
failure on the Communist side. All in
all, Khe Sanh had little impact on the outcome of the Vietnam War. Seen in this context, and given the intentions
of the participants at the beginning, Khe Sanh was an overall failure for both
sides.
One final point must be made regarding
the intentions of the Communist forces at Khe Sanh. Today, at the site of the former Marine combat base, there is a
masonry monument erected by the Vietnamese.
The text on the monument explicitly refers to the fighting at Khe Sanh
as another Dien Bien Phu. Thus, the
Communists appear to regard the battle of Khe Sanh as the victory that enabled
them to win the war in Indochina, or at least prefer to have it remembered that
way.66
In 1994, journalist Malcom W. Browne of
the New York Times visited the former Khe Sanh Combat Base. Browne noted that there are 72 graveyards
for Communist troops in Quang Tri Province alone. An official of the local People's Committee near Khe Sanh village
looked across a vast field of grave markers and remarked, "We paid dearly
for this land."67 Of
that there can be no doubt.
1. The fighting in
Vietnam continued from the beginning of Vietnam's war for independence from
France in 1946 until after 1975 when Vietnam was unified by the Vietnamese
Communists. The fighting between the
Vietnamese and the French is referred to as the First Indochina War. The Vietnamese war with the Americans is termed
the Second Indochina War, and the fighting between Vietnam and its neighbors
after 1975 is known as the Third Indochina War.
2. For the early
history of the U.S. involvement at Khe Sanh, see John Prados and Ray W. Stubbe,
Valley of Decision (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1991), pp. 13‑24,
[hereafter Valley].
3. General William C.
Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports (Garden City, NY: 1976), p. 336,
[hereafter A Soldier].
4. Giap made these
remarks in a series of articles published in September 1967, in North Vietnam's
armed forces newspaper, Quang Doi Nhan Dan, quoted in Edwin H. Simmons,
"Marine Corps Operations in Vietnam, 1967," The Marines in
Vietnam, 1954‑1973 (Washington, DC: History and Museums Division,
Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1985), p. 97.
5. General Willard
Pearson, The War in the Northern Provinces 1966‑1968 (Washington,
DC: Department of the Army, 1975), p. 6.
6. Captain Moyers S.
Shore II, The Battle for Khe Sanh (Washington, D.C.: History and Museums
Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1969), p. 6, [hereafter Battle].
7. Ibid., pp.
5‑6.
8. Ibid., p.
11.
9 Prados &
Stubbe, Valley, pp. 270‑271.
10. Peter McDonald, Giap: The Victor in Vietnam (New York: W.W. Norton, 1993), p. 279, [hereafter Giap].
11. Robert Pisor, The End of the Line: The Siege of Khe Sanh (NY: Ballantine
Books, 1982), p. 112, [hereafter End of the Line].
12. The number of maneuver battalions was a measure of U.S.
tactical offensive capability in Vietnam.
A maneuver battalion is a combat battalion that can be maneuvered, such
as infantry, mechanized infantry, and armor.
It is contrasted with support battalions such as artillery, engineering,
and aviation units. See Westmoreland, A
Soldier, p. 128n, for this distinction.
13. New York Times, The Pentagon Papers (NY: Bantam
Books, 1971), pp. 616‑617.
14. Personal recollection of the author from late December
1967.
15. Shore, Battle, pp. 33-42.
16. Ibid., pp. 42-45; Prados & Stubbe, Valley,
251-255.
17. New York Times, January 24, 1968, pp. 1, 3.
18. Westmoreland, A Soldier, p. 316.
19. Lt. Gen. Philip B. Davidson, Vietnam at War, (Novato,
CA: Presidio Press, 1988), pp. 552‑553, [hereafter Vietnam at War].
20. Westmoreland, A Soldier, p. 102.
21. Davidson, Vietnam at War, p. 553. This assertion effectively ignores the Bru
tribesmen who lived in the area around Khe Sanh. In a pamphlet published on Memorial Day, 1985, by the Khe Sanh
Veterans, Inc., the author, Chaplain Ray W. Stubbe, noted that there were 8,930
Bru Montagnards in the area according to a census taken in July, 1967. "ln addition, there were reports from
many sources that many more migrated into the Khe Sanh area from just inside
Laos when the conflict began. There
were also 500 Laotians plus their dependents when the 33rd Laotian Elephant
Battalion was overrun and took refuge in Lang Vei village. Only approximately 5,000 Montagnards made it
safely to the Cam Lo refugee village.
It is therefore a very conservative estimate that over 5,000 Bru
Montagnards were killed during the siege.
See also Pisor, End of The Line, pp. 235-236.
22. Pisor, End of the Line, p. 86.
23. Ibid.,
pp. 72, 78.
24. Don Oberdorfer, Tet!
(NY: Avon Books, 1971), pp. 126‑127, [hereafter Tet!].
25. The CIA officer, Robert Brewer, remained unconvinced as
to the legitimacy of Tonc's information, apparently because the PAVN conducted
some attacks in the Khe Sanh area that Tonc never mentioned. For details on Lt. Tonc, see Prados &
Stubbe, Valley, pp. 231‑233.
26. Davidson, Vietnam at War, p. 562.
27. Paul Dickson, The Electronic Battlefield
(Bloomington, IN: Indiana University, 1976), p. 74.
28. I am indebted to Professor Cecil B. Currey, Professor of
Military History at the University of South Florida and Chaplain (Colonel),
USAR (Ret.), for this interpretation.
Colonel Currey has interviewed and corresponded with Vietnamese Senior
General Vo Nguyen Giap. According to
Currey, Giap planned Khe Sanh primarily as a diversion but also thought the
fighting there could have resulted in a second Dien Bien Phu. Personal communication from Colonel Currey
to the author dated April 11, 1994.
29. Davidson, Vietnam at War, p. 563; McDonald, Giap,
p. 282; Robert J. O'Neill, General Giap (North Melbourne,
Australia: Cassell, 1969), pp. 195-196.
30. D. Gareth Porter, "The 1968 'Hue Massacre'" in
Indochina Chronicle, Vol. 3, (June 24, 1974), p. 8.
31. Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 567‑569
describes this attack as "useless." The only explanation he can offer
is that the attack was meant to cover the withdrawal of PAVN forces from the
vicinity of Khe Sanh, and claims there was no sound tactical reason for it.
32. Prados & Stubbe, Valley, p. 397.
33. Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 564‑565. For a more detailed discussion regarding the
uses of tactical nuclear weapons at Khe Sanh, see Prados & Stubbe, Valley,
pp. 291‑293. Westmoreland's quote
is from Ibid., p. 291. See Pisor,
End of the Line, pp. 261‑262, for detail on the widespread
discussion in the press of the use of nuclear weapons at Khe Sanh.
34. Leslie H. Gelb and Richard K. Betts, The Irony of
Vietnam: The System Worked (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1979), pp. 264‑265.
35. Next to the Marine positions at the Khe Sanh Combat Base
was FOB‑3, a Special Forces position.
A FOB‑3 officer maintained that if the shells hitting their
positions that day were included, the total for February 23 would be over
1,700. The figure of 1,307 is the
official tally. See Prados &
Stubbe, Valley, p. 399.
36. Davidson, Vietnam at War, p. 567. Cronkite is quoted in Oberdorfer, Tet!,
pp. 268-269.
37. Thomas L. Cubbage II, review of The Tet Offensive:
Intelligence Failure in War, in Conflict Quarterly, Vol. XIII, No. 3
(Summer 1993), pp. 78‑79.
38. Time Magazine, February 9, 1968, p. 16.
39. Prados & Stubbe, Valley, pp. 289‑290.
40. Shore, Battle, p. 93.
41. Ibid., p. 74.
42. Ibid., p. 79.
43. Prados & Stubbe, Valley, p. 282.
44. Pisor, End of the Line, pp. 188, 199, and
personal recollection of the author.
45. Prados & Stubbe, Valley, p. 306.
46. Shore, Battle, p. 199.
47. I am indebted to Ray W. Stubbe, Lutheran chaplain of the
1st Battalion, 26th Marines at Khe Sanh, for this description of the water
source. It was taken from Stubbe's
diary written during the siege.
Personal correspondence from Stubbe to the author dated March 21, 1994.
48. Westmoreland's intelligence chief, General Philip B.
Davidson, Jr., USA (Ret.) notes that it was not benevolence on the part of the
PAVN that kept them from poisoning the water supply. According to the Geneva Protocol of 1925, which the North
Vietnamese ratified in 1957, the chemical pollution of a stream is permitted as
long as the stream is only used by military personnel. The Rao Quan served no civilians and legally
could have been poisoned. See Davidson,
Vietnam at War, pp. 568‑569.
49. Davidson, Vietnam at War, p. 570.
50. Prados & Stubbe, Valley, p. 364; Pisor, End
of the Line, p. 202. Pisor's
quotation from General Thompkins is taken from an official Marine Corps Oral
History collection published in 1973.
General Davidson notes that Thompkins felt at the time he wrote to
Davidson and at the time of the siege that the base could have been provisioned
with water by airlift. These
contradictory claims remain inexplicable to this writer. See Davidson, Vietnam at War,
p. 569.
51. Prados & Stubbe, Valley, pp. 373, 374, 375,
390.
52. Ibid., pp. 381, 382, 391.
53. FM 1O1‑10‑1‑1/2, Staff Officers'
Field Manual Organizational, Technical, and Logistical Data Planning Factors,
Vol. 2, (Washington, DC: Headquarters, Dept. of the Army, 1987), pp. 2‑8
& 2‑9.
54. Pisor, End of the Line, p. 237; Prados &
Stubbe, Valley, pp. 451, 454.
55. Report of Special U.S. Mission to Indochina, February 5,
1954, Eisenhower Papers, "Cleanup" File, Box 16, quoted in George C.
Herring, America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950‑1975,
(NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972),
p. 28.
56. Bernard Fall, Hell in A Very Small Place
(Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1967), p.
50.
57. Leslie H. Gelb and Richard K. Betts, The Irony of
Vietnam: The System Worked, (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1979), p. 160;
Oberdorfer, Tet!, p. 258.
58. Oriana Fallaci, Interview With History, (NY:
Liveright, 1976), pp. 85‑86.
59. See Note 57.
60. Quoted in Pisor, End of the Line, p. 207.
61. Ibid., p. 237.
62. Ibid., pp. 233, 237.
63. Prados & Stubbe, Valley, pp. 453-454.
64. Shore, Battle, p. 107.
65. Prados & Stubbe, Valley, p. 297.
66. I visited the site of the Khe Sanh Combat Base in
1993. The English translation of the
Vietnamese text on the monument reads:
"LIBERATED BASE MONUMENT THE AREA OF TACON PONT [sic] BASE BUILT BY
U.S. AND SAI GON PUPPET.
BUILT 1967. AIR
FIELD AND WELL CONSTRUCTED DEFENSE SYSTEM. CO LUONG [town] DONG HA [county]
QUANG TRI [province]. U.S. AND ARMY
PUPPETS USED TO MONITOR THE MOVEMENT AND TRIED TO STOP ASSISTANCE FROM THE
NORTH INTO THE BATTLE OF INDO CHINA (3 COUNTRIES). AFTER 170 DAYS AND NIGHTS OF ATTACK BY THE SURROUNDING LIBERATION
ARMY, TACON (KHE SANH) WAS COMPLETELY LIBERATED. THE LIBERATION ARMY DESTROYED THE DEFENSE SYSTEM FOR THE BATTLE
OF INDO CHINA. 112,000 U.S. AND PUPPET
TROOPS KILLED AND CAPTURED. 197
AIRPLANES SHOT DOWN.
MUCH WAR MATERIAL WAS CAPTURED AND DESTROYED. KHE SANH ALSO ANOTHER DIEN BIEN PHU FOR THE
U.S."
67. Malcolm W. Browne, "Battlefields of Khe Sanh: Still
One Casualty a Day." New York Times, May 13, 1994, pp. A1, A6.