©1996 Peter Brush
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Note: This article appeared on The History Net website (www.thehistorynet.com) with url http://www.thehistorynet.com/vn/blwithdrawalfromkhesanh/.
On
May 23, 1968, U.S. Marine Corps Colonel David E. Lownds was invited to the
White House. There, President Lyndon Johnson awarded Lownds' 26th Marine
Regiment the Presidential Unit Citation, the nation's highest unit decoration,
for its bravery at Khe Sanh in 1968. The text noted that because of the unit's
actions, "enemy forces were denied the military and psychological victory
they so desperately sought." An editorial in the Washington Star
took the Marines' accolades even further, claiming that "One day, in fact,
the victory over the siege may be judged a decisive turning point that finally
convinced the enemy he could not win."
Vietnamese Communists view Khe Sanh differently. For them, not only did the Americans not win a victory at Khe Sanh, they were forced to retreat in order to avoid destruction. The Communists claim Khe Sanh was a "stinging defeat from both the military and political points of view."
The
fighting at Khe Sanh during Tet 1968 was widely covered in the U.S. media. As
the battle continued, American military commanders gave frequent explanations
as to why the United States sought a confrontation with Communist forces.
Khe
Sanh had been garrisoned by Americans since 1962. General William Westmoreland,
commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, felt maintaining a presence at Khe Sanh
was critically important. It served as a patrol base for interdiction of the Ho
Chi Minh Trail, as the western terminus for the defensive line along the Demilitarized
Zone (DMZ), and as a barrier to Communist efforts to carry the fighting into
the populated coastal regions of South Vietnam. By early 1968, 6,000 Marines at
Khe Sanh were surrounded by 20,000 North Vietnamese troops. The siege began on
January 21, 1968. In a report dated February 18, the New York Times
explained the importance of Khe Sanh, noting that this area in northwest South
Vietnam provided a base for allied operations against the infiltration by the
Communists of men and supplies into the south. After the North Vietnamese Army
(NVA) surrounded the Marine position at Khe Sanh, allied forces were unable to
inhibit this infiltration; it became too dangerous for the Marines to leave
their base in sufficient numbers to greatly affect the movement of enemy
forces. Although that situation may have reduced the strategic value of Khe
Sanh in any conventional sense of the word, American military commanders
believed the United States would suffer a heavy psychological blow if they
retreated from Khe Sanh.
Unlike
the Americans, the North Vietnamese were unable to hold fixed positions due to
the efficacy of allied firepower. As a result, the Communists concentrated on
harassing and disrupting allied forces. The American military command concluded
that the only way to stop the disruption was to destroy enemy forces in
sufficient numbers. The American commanders hoped that at Khe Sanh they would
be able to kill enemy troops in a ratio of 10 to 1, 20 to 1, or even 30 to 1.
The Americans clung to their belief in the value of a positive kill ratio in
face of compelling evidence showing they were mostly unable to achieve it.
Despite
the fact that Khe Sanh was encircled by enemy troops, the U.S. Defense
Department claimed that the fortress blocked five avenues of infiltration from
Laos into South Vietnam. According to the official view of the situation in
February 1968, if Khe Sanh were abandoned, entire North Vietnamese divisions
could "pour down Route 9 [the major east-west highway below the DMZ] and four
other natural approaches through the valleys and could overrun a chain of
Marine positions; the Rockpile, Con Thien, Dong Ha, and Phu Bai to the
east." This would mean that the North Vietnamese could be in a good
position to seize control of South Vietnam's two northernmost provinces, Quang
Tri and Thua Thien, with grave political and psychological consequences.
This
strategic rationale was secondary to the primary reason for holding onto Khe
Sanh: Washington was unwilling to give its enemy a psychological victory by
giving ground. One official source explained the basis for this reasoning by
recalling the first Battle of Khe Sanh, fought in 1967. "We had to put our
foot down, and for psychological and political reasons, we wouldn't want to
pull back," said the official. "What would the newspapers have
written if we had given up Khe Sanh afterward?"
Another
reason for holding Khe Sanh was its importance as the western anchor of the
McNamara Line, a high-technology barrier designed to impede the flow of Communist
troops and supplies into South Vietnam. The barrier was supposed to stretch
from the South China Sea to the Laotian border. Secretary of Defense Robert
McNamara hoped the barrier would allow the Americans to reduce their reliance
on the bombing of North Vietnam, thereby increasing Washington's flexibility in
seeking a diplomatic settlement to the war.
On
February 25, General Westmoreland expressed doubt that the North Vietnamese
could stand a long war. Responding to a question during an interview in Saigon
about whether his fundamental strategy had been changed by the Tet Offensive,
Westmoreland replied, "Basically, I see no requirement to change our
strategy."
The
key to the defense of Khe Sanh was overwhelming air power. On March 27, senior
Marine officers in Da Nang claimed that the effectiveness of allied airpower
was so great that "they have no plans for pulling the Marines out no
matter how much the enemy might increase his shelling at Khe Sanh." An Air
Force spokesman said that since January 22, allied airmen had dropped 80,000
tons of ordnance around Khe Sanh. "We plan to keep up the pace
indefinitely," he added.
The
same report noted that airpower had limited effectiveness. Even though 80,000
tons of ordnance amounted to more than the nonnuclear tonnage dropped on Japan
throughout World War II, it had not stopped enemy movement around Khe Sanh. On
March 25, a Marine patrol was halted by heavy enemy machine-gun and mortar fire
after traveling only 100 to 200 yards past the camp's barbed wire perimeter.
During the previous week, the enemy had managed to fire 1,500 rocket, artillery
and mortar rounds at the Khe Sanh base.
Other
examples illustrate that the protective aerial umbrella around Khe Sanh was
less that 100 percent effective. On February 8, enemy gunners fired hundreds of
mortar rounds into a Marine position on nearby Hill 64. The NVA assault that
followed the mortar barrage resulted in 21 men killed, 26 wounded and four
Marines missing in action. Only one Marine on Hill 64 was unscathed. Colonel
Lownds, the base commander, however, later described the Marine casualties
resulting from the fighting on Hill 64 as "light."
On
February 25, a two-squad patrol, instructed not to venture farther than 1,000
meters from the base perimeter, vanished. Two weeks later, casualties of the
so-called ghost patrol were established as nine dead, 25 wounded, and 19
missing. A company-size patrol on March 30 had as one of its missions the
recovery of the bodies of the ghost patrol. This second patrol suffered three
dead, 71 wounded and three missing before being ordered to pull back. Only two
bodies from the ghost patrol were recovered at that time.
On
April 5, the 76-day siege was officially declared ended. Since 7,000 North
Vietnamese were still reported to be in the vicinity of Khe Sanh, however, the
end of the siege was more official than real. The North Vietnamese had fired
more than 40,000 artillery, rocket, and mortar rounds into the Marine positions
during the siege.
By
April, the situation had changed in the Khe Sanh area. The New York Times
noted that the North Vietnamese had built several new roads into South Vietnam
from Laos--apparently in an effort to improve their ability to move troops,
heavy weapons and supplies into combat areas. Two of the new roads pushed
across the South VietnamLaos border to the north and south of the Khe Sanh
combat base. No longer would NVA troops have to endure protracted marches along
the Ho Chi Minh Trail. They could be driven closer to the battlefield in
trucks. Heavy weapons and ammunition could be transported to the front more
quickly and in greater quantity.
These
new logistics capabilities had profound implications for American military
commanders. General Westmoreland had built up the Marine force at Khe Sanh to approximately
6,000 men, a figure that represented a balance between the number that could be
effectively supplied and the force level necessary to ensure adequate defense
of the combat base. Since at that time the Marine garrison could only be
supplied by air, any increase in the Communists' ability to launch attacks
against the Marine positions could tip the balance against the Marines.
According
to a New York Times report dated May 24, both President Lyndon B.
Johnson and General Westmoreland felt the decision to defend Khe Sanh was the
proper one. They believed that the defense of the camp not only prevented the
North Vietnamese from opening a major route into South Vietnam's populated
areas, but also greatly strengthened the American initiative toward peace
talks, "for they [the Marine defenders] vividly demonstrated to the enemy
the utter futility of his attempts to win a military victory in the
South," according to the New York Times.
Although
the level of fighting fell off in April, it was not over. On May 30, 600 NVA
attacked Marines in their night defensive positions around Khe Sanh. The attack
was supported by mortar, artillery and rocket fire. Marine losses were 13
killed and 44 wounded. Two days later another battle took place when a large
NVA force attacked Marine positions two miles southeast of Khe Sanh.
Two-hundred-thirty North Vietnamese were reported killed in that battle, in
some of the heaviest fighting in South Vietnam at that time.
In
a June report, New York Times reporter Douglas Robinson described Khe
Sanh as "still a fearsome place of exploding shells and death." North
Vietnamese artillerymen fired 130mm artillery shells from caves or dug-in
positions on the Co Roc massif in Laos. These guns, out of the range of the
largest U.S. artillery, had been firing on Khe Sanh for months. It was
difficult to prepare adequate defenses against them, since even dud rounds
penetrated four feet into the ground. The Americans were unable to destroy
these guns. In early June, the North Vietnamese gunners at Co Roc were still
able to fire more than 100 rounds in a single day into the base at Khe Sanh.
Marine Brig. Gen. Carl W. Hoffman claimed, "The North Vietnamese still
want Khe Sanh and we are still trying to keep them from getting it." The
general described the enemy as being composed of "fresh, well-equipped
troops with new haircuts and good morale, proof we are facing not a rabble but
well-trained force."
In
the six weeks preceding that June report, the Marines had killed about 1,300
North Vietnamese Army regulars within a four-mile radius of Khe Sanh. During
that time, American dead and wounded had flowed in a steady stream to the Khe
Sanh aid station, which was dug deep into the ground. General Hoffman conceded
that the Communists had the ability to keep the Khe Sanh combat base under
pressure for "as long as they wished."
Months
earlier, the Marines had made an effort that, had it been successful, would
have given them means to counter the threat posed by the NVA heavy artillery at
Co Roc. In August 1967, a large supply convoy left Dong Ha for Khe Sanh,
including several U.S. Army 175mm self-propelled guns. General Westmoreland had
wanted to position the guns at Khe Sanh to deal with NVA artillery in Laos.
When the convoy ran into an enemy ambush along Route 9, however, the decision
was made to deploy the large guns at Camp Carroll rather than risk their
destruction at the ambush site. (See "Expend Shells, Not Men" in the
August 1997 issue of Vietnam.)
That
incident caused a change in thinking about resupply for Khe Sanh. Route 9 was
too risky; thereafter, during the period from August 1967 until Route 9 was
reopened in April 1968, Khe Sanh would be resupplied by air. The reopening of
the road was accomplished through Operation Pegasus, a combined Marine and Army
sweep of Route 9 to the combat base.
With
the arrival of the relief column, an Army colonel replaced Colonel Lownds as
base commander. Army troops would replace the Marines, freeing them to go on
the attack. Although ending the siege freed the beleaguered Marines for
offensive operations, it also gave increased flexibility to the enemy forces.
No longer would they have two divisions tied down at Khe Sanh. Even though a
large portion of the NVA force withdrew into Laos near the DMZ, they could
easily be shifted to other battlefields as needed. One American official
claimed the North Vietnamese withdrawal had been prompted by the effectiveness
of the American bombing campaign. The U.S. military command refused to say
definitely whether it planned to keep American troops at Khe Sanh. However,
since the purpose of the base had been to serve as a center for
anti-infiltration activity before the siege, some senior officers hinted that a
continued American presence at Khe Sanh was likely.
The
reopening of Route 9 to convoy traffic did not mean that the supply problem had
been solved. These convoys faced the same threats that they had in 1967.
American units had to be stationed at every bridge and culvert to guard against
ambushes. Steep cliffs lined the roadway, making it possible for the enemy
almost to drop grenades into passing trucks. Supplies moving overland were
threatened by almost nightly ambushes and firefights.
One
June 16, Marines reported a North Vietnamese attack on Marine positions south
of Khe Sanh, in which 168 Communist soldiers were killed. Although the fighting
continued, the U.S. command felt significant changes had taken place around Khe
Sanh. Friendly strength, mobility and firepower, had increased since the Army
forces had arrived, but the extent of the enemy threat had increased due to a
greater flow of replacements and a change in NVA tactics. Consequently, the
base at Khe Sanh was to be abandoned.
Senior
Marine commanders had long felt that maintaining a large force at Khe Sanh was
more of a liability than an asset. They had only garrisoned the place because
of pressure from General Westmoreland. In late 1967, an Army task force was
formed to control activity in this critical sector of South Vietnam;
Westmoreland felt the Marines were unable to adequately direct the battle. In
March, Army Lt. Gen. William B. Rosson took command of the task force. Unknown
to General Westmoreland, Rosson and his Marine counterpart, Lt. Gen. Robert E.
Cushman, decided on their own in April to withdraw American forces from Khe
Sanh.
Naval
gunfire experts and Air Force liaison officers were sent to Khe Sanh to plan
for the destruction of the Marine positions. Marines began packing their
equipment and filling in foxholes. The base chaplain at Khe Sanh noted in his
diary, "The general attitude of people in the base is that it is wrong to
abandon the base after fighting so long for it."
When
Westmoreland found out about Rosson and Cushman's plan, a Marine general on
Westmoreland's staff in Saigon claimed that he "never saw Westy so
mad." The Marines at Khe Sanh were notified that the base would not
be abandoned. They began unpacking their personal gear and started digging in
again.
Marines
would continue to occupy Khe Sanh and various nearby hill positions and engage
in search and destroy missions. Fresh Marine and Army units would replace the
Marines who had spent the siege at Khe Sanh. More than 400 American troops
would be killed and 2,300 wounded in the 10 weeks following the end of the
siege. Those figures were more than two times the casualties sustained by the
Marines in the siege during the period from late January to late March.
On
June 11, 1968, General Westmoreland relinquished his command of U.S. forces in
Vietnam. The Rosson-Cushman plan to abandon the base, previously rejected by
Westmoreland, was to be implemented. This version of the plan was dated the day
after Westmoreland turned control over to his successor, Army General Creighton
W. Abrams. The Marines who had fought at Khe Sanh were furious, with one of the
battalions "almost in open revolt" over the decision.
There
is speculation that the base closing was ordered by President Johnson, who
wanted no more nonsense about defending exposed positions. According to some
sources, Johnson told General Abrams to get out of Khe Sanh as soon as
Westmoreland was gone from Vietnam and before he could become fully established
as Army chief of staff in Washington.
It
is clear that President Johnson took a great personal interest in the fighting.
Earlier, the New York Times had noted that the ultimate command post for
the battle of Khe Sanh was the White House in Washington, D.C. There, Johnson
asked "tense and urgent" questions of his commanders in the field,
probing "policy, tactics, preparations, morale," according to the Times.
The responses these questions evoked "adds up to the largest volume of
messages and reports ever gathered by the White House for a tactical engagement
in the war."
General
Abrams ordered the base closing to be kept secret for as long as possible. When
it was finally made public, only a minimum amount of detail and explanation
were provided. The decision was met with "incredulity and
bewilderment" when the news reached the United States. National Security
Adviser Walt W. Rostow noted, "I believe we have a serious
problem--perhaps of substance, certainly of public relations." Rostow
pointed out that intelligence estimates on the enemy order of battle still
placed about 40,000 NVA troops in the DMZ area. "If it was good to pin
down two divisions with 6,000 men, then why not now?" he asked. The
Pentagon acknowledged the base closing announcement caused a "difficult
public relations task."
The
U.S. command in Saigon claimed the base closing was a result of a changed
military situation around Khe Sanh. "When the situation changes, you ought
to change your tactics," explained an unnamed general on the Saigon
command staff. The Marine presence at Khe Sanh had been established to inhibit
infiltration. Explaining the logic of the decision, the unnamed general said
that the construction of additional infiltration routes by the NVA into South
Vietnam meant Khe Sanh had become less valuable as a means to check this
infiltration. Khe Sanh had long served as a logistical center for the supply of
the nearby hill positions. Now the general claimed that it did not make sense
to maintain even a reduced garrison to defend Khe Sanh in order to use it as a
supply base for servicing troops who would be conducting mobile operations in
the area. "Khe Sanh was in the way; it was tying us down," the
general explained.
Displaying
a flawed grasp of geography that paralleled his convoluted logic, the general
claimed the supply function of Khe Sanh could be taken over by other
installations in the area, such as Camp Stud. This base, "unlike Khe Sanh,
is beyond the 17-mile range of the enemy's artillery in the demilitarized zone
at the border between North Vietnam and South Vietnam," said the nameless
general. In reality, Stud was situated farther north than Khe Sanh, which puts
it closer to the DMZ and not farther away. In any event, it was NVA artillery
in South Vietnam and Laos that fired on the Marines at Khe Sanh, and not
artillery from the DMZ.
An
American colonel claimed he did not think "we ever really planned to have
a base there in the first place." According to this view, the Marines came
into the small Special Forces camp at Khe Sanh. When the NVA surrounded Khe
Sanh, "all of a sudden we had five to six thousand men there." Responding
to the question as to whether it was proper to defend the base at the height of
the fighting there in February and March, the colonel rolled out the kill-ratio
argument, saying: "We killed many, many more of their troops than we lost
ourselves." The colonel claimed, "We showed them that if we wanted to
hold Khe Sanh we could do it."
Although
the vulnerability of Khe Sanh to enemy artillery was a reason given by the
military for abandoning it, one high Army official stated it was unlikely that
seven other bases within the range of enemy artillery in the DMZ would be
abandoned. "Khe Sanh was always different," he said. In reality, the
major difference between Khe Sanh and other bases near the DMZ was simply that
Khe Sanh was the only major American base to be abandoned.
The
actual process of abandoning the Marine base was complicated and dangerous.
Nine allied infantry battalions were operating in the vicinity of Khe Sanh when
the decision to close was made. Those units had to be deployed elsewhere
without advertising the move to the North Vietnamese. Allied forces would be
extremely vulnerable to enemy attack while the base was being dismantled.
The
U.S. command wanted to leave a "completely clean piece of real
estate" at Khe Sanh. Ruined aircraft were cut up and hauled away so they
could not be used for propaganda purposes by the Communists. Nothing would be
left to indicate that the Americans had been forced to withdraw. Eight hundred
bunkers, miles of barbed wire, and acres of metal runway materials were buried,
destroyed, or physically removed.
Communist
gunners continued to fire on the Marine positions as the trench lines were
filled in and sandbags were emptied.
On
July 5, the base was officially closed. Five Marines were killed in fighting
near Khe Sanh that day. The final Marine withdrawal was conducted at night and
was interrupted for several hours when Communist artillerymen scored a direct
hit on a bridge on Route 9. The bridge was finally repaired, allowing the
Marines to move down Route 9 to the east.
Fighting
continued in the Khe Sanh area even after the base closing was complete. On
July 9, Marines on Hill 689 near Khe Sanh "vowed to hold the peak until
the last attacking North Vietnamese had been killed." The Americans
claimed 350 North Vietnamese died in this round of fighting. Echoing the
rationale that brought the Marines to Khe Sanh in the first place, and
seemingly unaware of the change in policy, the 3rd Marine Division commander,
Maj. Gen. Raymond Davis, said, "We are going to move off this hill, but
not until we have defeated the North Vietnamese." That same day a Marine
spokesman denied a Hanoi radio report claiming that a Viet Cong flag had been
raised on the recently abandoned Khe Sanh combat base.
As
predicted, North Vietnam was quick to exploit the propaganda benefits of Khe
Sanh's abandonment. In the five-day period beginning on July 7, 1968, Hanoi
radio devoted 70 percent of its broadcast time in all Asian languages to
discussions of the "American defeat" and the "Communist victory"
at Khe Sanh. Hanoi specifically mentioned previous American explanations
regarding the vital contribution of Khe Sanh to its strategy in the Vietnam
war. In a report from Hong Kong, the New York Times noted that Asians
believed the North Vietnamese explanation for the base closing and mostly
rejected the American version that it was due to a changed military situation.
A
clear distinction can be made regarding the merits of closing Khe Sanh between
American military and political leaders on the one hand, and Marines who
participated in the defense of Khe Sanh on the other. Like no other Vietnam
battle, Khe Sanh captured the attention of the media and the American public.
Roughly 25 percent of all Vietnam film reports shown on evening television
newscasts during February and March 1968 were devoted to the situation at Khe
Sanh. In the case of CBS, the figure was 50 percent. By March, supporters of
the war among the American public were outnumbered by those who opposed the
war. Gallup polls indicate nearly one person in five switched from the hawk
position to the dove position between early February and mid-March. The best
way to keep Khe Sanh from causing a negative influence on support for the war
in Vietnam was to close it.
Official
explanations for the closing are inadequate. As has been shown, the situation
around Khe Sanh remained much the same before the siege as after. In May 1968,
four North Vietnamese regiments supported by artillery were reported to be in
the immediate vicinity of the base. According to the commanding general of the
3rd Marine Division, the situation at Khe Sanh at that time was the same as in
late 1967, when Westmoreland had ordered Khe Sanh reinforced. As early as
February 1968, the New York Times reported that civilian officials who
studied Vietnamese history were unwilling to share the level of confidence of
military men that Khe Sanh would prove to be an American victory. These
civilians noted "the North Vietnamese willingness to suffer overwhelming
casualties for the sake of victories with political impact."
General
Westmoreland, always the driving force behind the continued American presence
at Khe Sanh, was unable to grasp this willingness. In his biography,
Westmoreland says of North Vietnamese Army commander General Vo Nguyen Giap,
"A Western commander absorbing losses on the scale of Giap's would hardly
have lasted in command more than a few weeks." Still espousing the value
of a positive kill ratio, Westmoreland claimed Giap's casualties at Khe Sanh
were far in excess of those incurred by the French at Dien Bien Phu. The
Vietnamese Communists, who also compare the two battles, claim that Khe Sanh was
"America's Dien Bien Phu."
The
decision to abandon Khe Sanh is better described as a tactical withdrawal
rather than a forced retreat. The Marines on the ground were willing to
maintain their positions at Khe Sanh if ordered to do so. I was at Khe Sanh
from December 1967, before the fighting began, until April 1968, when the siege
was officially declared ended. There was no sense that we were a defeated
force, and I had no idea the base was scheduled for closing. My Marine unit was
told that we would remain at Khe Sanh until another mortar battery could
replace us. When that happened we relocated to the east and continued
operations against the North Vietnamese.
The
aggressive spirit of the encircled Marine garrison at Khe Sanh is exemplified
by a comment made by a Marine commander who found his unit in a similar
position during the Korean War. Told his regiment was surrounded by Communist
forces near the Chosin Reservoir on November 28, 1950, General (then colonel)
"Chesty" Puller said, "that simplifies our problems of finding
these people and killing them." Intelligence personnel of the 26th Marine
Regiment at Khe Sanh were well aware of Communist tactics at Dien Bien Phu.
Initially, the Marines at Khe Sanh had tried to keep the North Vietnamese from
getting too close to the base. Massed artillery fired could have accomplished
this. With the overland route to Khe Sanh closed, it proved impossible to
deliver sufficient massed artillery fires from a logistics standpoint--aerial
resupply simply could not deliver the volume of artillery rounds needed. When
that became evident, the Marines decided to let the North Vietnamese move in
close to the base in order to simplify the problem of locating and destroying
them. The Marines did just that until they were ordered elsewhere.
Since
the Communists did not share the American belief in favorable kill ratios, it
is necessary to use different criteria to determine who achieved a favorable
outcome at Khe Sanh. In the long run, who had use of the combat base? In March
1973, American officials in Saigon reported that North Vietnamese troops had
rebuilt the old airstrip at Khe Sanh and were using it for courier flights into
the south. That was the first time North Vietnamese airplanes had flown into
South Vietnam.