[122] The majority of these were around the southern and southeastern corners of the perimeter, and formed part of a system that would be developed throughout the end of February and into March until they were ready to be used to launch an attack, providing cover for troops to advance to jumping-off points close to the perimeter. No logic was apparent to them behind the sustained PAVN/VC offensives other than to inflict casualties on the allied forces. A Look at the Damage from the Secret War in Laos, How Operation Homecoming Was Sprung into Action to Repatriate American POWs, The Viet Cong Were Shooting Down Americans From a Cave Until This GI Stopped Them, https://www.historynet.com/recounting-the-casualties-at-the-deadly-battle-of-khe-sanh/, Jerrie Mock: Record-Breaking American Female Pilot, When 21 Sikh Soldiers Fought the Odds Against 10,000 Pashtun Warriors, Few Red Tails Remain: Tuskegee Airman Dies at 96. That was accomplished, but the casualties absorbed by the North Vietnamese seemed to negate any direct gains they might have obtained. It was a two-part battle which took place from November 14 to 18, 1965 at the la Drang Valley, South Vietnam. The pallet slid to a halt on the airstrip while the aircraft never had to actually land. [135] The Marines had constantly argued that technically, Khe Sanh had never been under siege, since it had never truly been isolated from resupply or reinforcement. Two days later, US troops detected PAVN trenches running due north to within 25 m of the base perimeter. With Khe Sanh facing a full-scale. They fixed the attention of the American command on the border regions, and they drew American and ARVN forces away from the coastal lowlands and cities in preparation for the Tet Offensive. The opportunity to engage and destroy a formerly elusive enemy that was moving toward a fixed position promised a victory of unprecedented proportions. Cushman was appalled by the "implication of a rescue or breaking of the siege by outside forces. Seven miles west of Khe Sanh on Route 9, and about halfway to the Laotian border, sat the U.S. Army Special Forces camp at Lang Vei. A platoon from Company D, 1/26 Marines was sent from the base but was withdrawn in the face of the superior PAVN forces. Only those killed in action during Operation Scotland, which began on November 1, 1967, and ended on March 31, 1968, were included in the official casualty count. The base was officially closed on July 5. Once the base came under siege, a series of actions were fought over a period of five months. The latest microwave/tropospheric scatter technology enabled them to maintain communications at all times. Operation Pegasus, begun the day after Scotland ended, lasted until April 15. However, the PAVN committed three regiments to the fighting from the Khe Sanh sector. The United States Marines gave the actual body count of the NVA troops killed to be 1,602, but estimates show that the total number of NVA troops . [125] The 325C Divisional Headquarters was the first to leave, followed by the 95C and 101D Regiments, all of which relocated to the west. Unlike the official figures, Stubbes database of Khe Sanh casualties includes verifiable names and dates of death. Among the dead Marines was 18-year-old Pfc Curtis Bugger. [117], Cumulative friendly casualties for Operation Scotland, which began on 1 November 1967, were: 205 killed in action, 1,668 wounded, and 25 missing and presumed dead. [1] He goes on to state that a further 72 were killed as part Operation Scotland II throughout the remainder of the year, but that these deaths are not included in the official US casualty lists for the Battle of Khe Sanh. When an enemy rocket-propelled grenade killed 2nd Lt. Randall Yeary and Corporal Richard John, although these Marines died before the beginning of the siege, their deaths were included in the official statistics. Reinforcements from the ARVN 256th Regional Force (RF) company were dispatched aboard nine UH-1 helicopters of the 282nd Assault Helicopter Company, but they were landed near the abandoned French fort/former FOB-3 which was occupied by the PAVN who killed many of the RF troops and 4 Americans, including Lieutenant colonel Joseph Seymoe the deputy adviser for Quang Tri Province and forcing the remaining helicopters to abandon the mission. Westmoreland echoed this judgment in his memoirs, and, using exactly the same figures, concluded that the North Vietnamese had suffered a most damaging and one-sided defeat. The PAVN claim that during the entire battle they "eliminated" 17,000 enemy troops, including 13,000 Americans and destroyed 480 aircraft. On January 21 at Khe Sanh, 30,000 North Vietnamese troops attacked an air base held by just 6,000 United States Marines. Upon closer analysis, the official figure does not accurately portray even what it purports to represent. 3% were Asian, 7 or . According to this history, originally classified as secret, the battle deaths for all major NVA units participating in the entire Highway 9Khe Sanh Front from January 20 until July 20, 1968, totaled 2,469. [34] The heaviest action took place near Dak To, in the Central Highlands province of Kon Tum. [86] The command and control arrangement then in place in Southeast Asia went against Air Force doctrine, which was predicated on the single air manager concept. [152] The Marines occupied Hill 950 overlooking the Khe Sanh plateau from 1966 until September 1969 when control was handed to the Army who used the position as a SOG operations and support base until it was overrun by the PAVN in June 1971. Operational control of the Khe Sanh area was handed over to the US Army's 1st Air Cavalry Division for the duration of Operation Pegasus. At 0330 hours, soldiers of the NVA 6th Battalion, 2nd Regiment, 325C Division, attacked the Marines on Hill 861. First had been Operation Full Cry, the original three-division invasion plan. The monumental Battle of Khe Sanh had begun, but the January 21 starting date is essentially arbitrary in terms of casualty reporting. On the morning of 22 January Lownds decided to evacuate the remaining forces in the village with most of the Americans evacuated by helicopter while two advisers led the surviving local forces overland to the combat base. The distinctions between Operations Scotland, Pegasus and Scotland II, while important from the command perspective, were not necessarily apparent to individual Marines. If a battle tallied a sufficiently favorable body count ratio, American commanders declared victory, as they did after Khe Sanh. They attacked 36 of 44 provincial capitals, 64 district capitals, five of the six major cities, and more than two dozen airfields and bases. The Marines knew that their withdrawal from Khe Sanh would present a propaganda victory for Hanoi. [26] From there, reconnaissance teams were launched into Laos to explore and gather intelligence on the PAVN logistical system known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail, also known as "Truong Son Strategic Supply Route" to the North Vietnamese soldiers. On Easter Sunday, April 14, the 3rd Battalion, 26th Marines (3/26), assaulted Hill 881 North in order to clear the enemy firing positions. In the 43-day . Minor attacks continued before the base was officially closed on 5 July. The attack on Khe Sanh, however, proved to be a diversionary tactic for the larger Tet Offensive. "[84], Meanwhile, an interservice political struggle took place in the headquarters at Phu Bai Combat Base, Saigon, and the Pentagon over who should control aviation assets supporting the entire American effort in Southeast Asia. The Marines were extremely reluctant to relinquish authority over their aircraft to an Air Force general. Rod Andrew, Jr., a history professor at Clemson University and colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve, has written an easily read and thoroughly . Armies and Commanders Allies General William Westmoreland Colonel David Lownds Approx. [70] The Marines and ARVN dug in and hoped that the approaching Tt truce (scheduled for 2931 January) would provide some respite. One headquarters would allocate and coordinate all air assets, distributing them wherever they were considered most necessary, and then transferring them as the situation required. According to Ray Stubbe, a U.S. Navy chaplain during the siege and since then the most significant Khe Sanh historian, the 205 figure is taken only from the records of the 26th Marine Regiment. Battlefield boundaries extended from eastern Laos eastward along both sides of Route 9 in Quang Tri province, Vietnam, to the coast. Operation Pegasus: ~20,000 (1st Air Cavalry and Marine units), U.S. losses:At Khe Sanh: 274 killed2,541 wounded (not including ARVN Ranger, RF/PF, Forward Operation Base 3 US Army and Royal Laotian Army losses)[15]Operation Scotland I and Operation Pegasus: 730 killed2,642 wounded,7 missing[15]Operation Scotland II (15 April 1968 July 1968):485 killed2,396 wounded[1]USAF:5 ~ 20 killed, wounded unknown[1]Operation Charlie for the final evacuation:At least 11 marines killed, wounded unknown[1] The official, public estimate of 10,000 to 15,000 North Vietnamese KIA stands in contrast to another estimate made by the American military. McNamara wrote: "because of terrain and other conditions peculiar to our operations in South Vietnam, it is inconceivable that the use of nuclear weapons would be recommended there against either Viet Cong or North Vietnamese forces". In March 1968, an overland relief expedition (Operation Pegasus) was launched by a combined MarineArmy/ARVN task force that eventually broke through to the Marines at Khe Sanh. [147] The official closure of the base came on 5 July after fighting, which had killed five more Marines. This is also the position taken in the official PAVN history but offers no further explanation of the strategy. These were pitted against two to three divisional-size elements of the North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN). "[105] There had been a history of distrust between the Special Forces personnel and the Marines, and General Rathvon M. Tompkins, commander of the 3rd Marine Division, described the Special Forces soldiers as "hopped up wretches [who] were a law unto themselves. While climbing, the C-123 was struck by several bursts of heavy machine gun and recoilless rifle fire. [141] Because of the close proximity of the enemy and their high concentration, the massive B-52 bombings, tactical airstrikes, and vast use of artillery, PAVN casualties were estimated by MACV as being between 10,000 and 15,000 men. But only by checking my service record while writing this article did it become evident that I had participated in all three operations. [56], At positions west of Hill 881 South and north of Co Roc Ridge (163340N 1063755E / 16.561N 106.632E / 16.561; 106.632), across the border in Laos, the PAVN established artillery, rocket, and mortar positions from which to launch attacks by fire on the base and to support its ground operations. That proved to be the last overland attempt at resupply for Khe Sanh until the following March. [44], On 14 August, Colonel David E. Lownds took over as commander of the 26th Marine Regiment. Five days later, the final reinforcements arrived in the form of the 37th ARVN Ranger Battalion, which was deployed more for political than tactical reasons. [165], Another interpretation was that the North Vietnamese were planning to work both ends against the middle, a strategy that has come to be known as the Option Play. "[103] The Bru were excluded from evacuation from the highlands by an order from the ARVN I Corps commander, who ruled that no Bru be allowed to move into the lowlands. On June 19, 1968, another operation began at Khe Sanh, Operation Charlie, the final evacuation and destruction of the Khe Sanh Combat Base. A smaller slice of the action saw Americans on the receiving end, defending some firebase or outpost. On 18 January, Westmoreland passed his request for Air Force control up the chain of command to CINCPAC in Honolulu. [24], The plateau camp was permanently manned by the US Marines in 1967, when they established an outpost next to the airstrip. Battle of Khe Sanh The attack finally came on January 21, 1968, when PAVN forces began a massive artillery bombardment of Khe Sanh, hitting the base's main store of ammunition and destroying. Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. Ten American soldiers were killed; the rest managed to escape down Route 9 to Khe Sanh. Shortly after midnight on February 7, a large NVA force, reinforced with tanks, attacked the camp. How many American soldiers died in the Battle of Ia Drang? [131], Planning for the overland relief of Khe Sanh had begun as early as 25 January 1968, when Westmoreland ordered General John J. Tolson, commander, First Cavalry Division, to prepare a contingency plan. The Marines at Khe Sanh Combat Base broke out of their perimeter and began attacking the North Vietnamese in the surrounding area. [74], During January, the recently installed electronic sensors of Operation Muscle Shoals (later renamed "Igloo White"), which were undergoing test and evaluation in southeastern Laos, were alerted by a flurry of PAVN activity along the Ho Chi Minh Trail opposite the northwestern corner of South Vietnam. [45] In December and early January, numerous sightings of PAVN troops and activities were made in the Khe Sanh area, but the sector remained relatively quiet.[46]. The Marine garrison was also reinforced, and on November 1, 1967, Operation Scotland began. Army deaths at FOB-3, however, were not included in the official statistics either. server. This marked the first time that all three battalions of the 26th Marine Regiment had operated together in combat since the Battle of Iwo Jima during the Second World War. All of the attacks were conducted by regimental-size PAVN/VC units, but unlike most of the previous usual hit-and-run tactics, they were sustained and bloody affairs. The Battle of Khe Sanh (21 January 9 July 1968) was conducted in the Khe Sanh area of northwestern Qung Tr Province, Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), during the Vietnam War. GitHub export from English Wikipedia. Then, on the morning of 6 February, the PAVN fired mortars into the Lang Vei compound, wounding eight Camp Strike Force soldiers. [58] These tactics were reminiscent of those employed against the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, particularly in relation to entrenching tactics and artillery placement, and the realization assisted US planners in their targeting decisions. WALKI NA WZGRZU: PIERWSZA BITWA KHE SANH Edwarda F. Murphy'ego - twarda okadka w bardzo dobrym stanie | Books & Magazines, Books | eBay! The PAVN 130mm and 152mm artillery pieces, and 122mm rockets, had a longer range than the Marine artillery support which consisted of 105mm and 155mm howitzers. The combat losses in February and March 1967 were a prelude to the "First Battle of Khe Sanh," one of the Vietnam War's hardest-fought battles, . On the following night, a massive wave of PAVN/VC attacks swept throughout South Vietnam, everywhere except Khe Sanh. At the same time, the 304th Division withdrew to the southwest. The Twenty-fifth United States Infantry Regiment was one of the racially segregated units of the United States Army known as Buffalo Soldiers.The 25th served from 1866 to 1957, seeing action in the American Indian Wars, Spanish-American War, Philippine-American War and World War II. The next operations were named Crockett and Ardmore. These combined sources report a total of 354 KIA. The border battles, however, had two significant consequences, which were unappreciated at the time. 528 of them include images. "[97], Ladd and the commander of the SOG compound (whose men and camp had been incorporated into the defenses of KSCB) proposed that, if the Marines would provide the helicopters, the SOG reconnaissance men would go in themselves to pick up any survivors. . The fighting around Khe Sanh began January 21, 1968, and concluded around April 8, 1968. The report continues to state, "this prompted Air Force chief of staff, General John McConnell, to press, although unsuccessfully, for JCS (Joint Chiefs of Staff) authority to request Pacific Command to prepare a plan for using low-yield nuclear weapons to prevent a catastrophic loss of the U.S. Marine base. [71][72], Nine days before the Tet Offensive broke out, the PAVN opened the battle of Khe Sanh and attacked the US forces just south of the DMZ. [148], Regardless, the PAVN had gained control of a strategically important area, and its lines of communication extended further into South Vietnam. At 1530 hours the first C-123, with 44 passengers and a crew of five, began to land. Operation Pegasus forces, however, were highly mobile and did not attack en masse down Route 9 far enough west of Khe Sanh for the NVA, by then dispersed, to implement their plan. A limited attack was made by a PAVN company on 1 July, falling on a company from the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, who were holding a position 3km to the southeast of the base. Operation Pegasus casualties included 59 U.S. Army and 51 Marine Corps dead. Declassified documents show that in response, Westmoreland considered using nuclear weapons. Westmoreland believed that the latter was the case, and his belief was the basis for his desire to stage "Dien Bien Phu in reverse. At 00:30 on 21 January, Hill 861 was attacked by about 300 PAVN troops, the Marines, however, were prepared. By late January 1967, the 1/3 returned to Japan and was relieved by Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 9th Marines (1/9 Marines). A decision then had to be made by the American high command to commit more of the limited manpower in I Corps to the defense of Khe Sanh or to abandon the base. A single company replaced an entire battalion. Westmoreland was replaced two months after the end of the battle, and his successor explained the retreat in different ways. The enemy by my count suffered at least 15,000 dead in the area.. Siege at Khe Sanh: ~17,200 (304th and 308th Division), Defense at Route 9: ~16,900 (320th and 324th Division), This page was last edited on 1 March 2023, at 15:52. [157], Commencing in 1966, the US had attempted to establish a barrier system across the DMZ to prevent infiltration by North Vietnamese troops. The Marine defense of Khe Sanh, Operation Scotland, officially ended on March 31. After failing to respond to a challenge, they were fired upon and five were killed outright while the sixth, although wounded, escaped. These forces, including support troops, totaled 20,000 to 30,000. The Pegasus force consisted of the Army 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) plus the 1st Marine Regiment. The Marines, fearing an ambush, did not attempt a relief, and after heavy fighting the camp was overrun. Westmoreland had been forwarding operational plans for an invasion of Laos since 1966. [138] At 08:00 on 15 April, Operation Pegasus was officially terminated. [41], To prevent PAVN observation of the main base at the airfield and their possible use as firebases, the hills of the surrounding Khe Sanh Valley had to be continuously occupied and defended by separate Marine elements. The main US forces defending Khe Sanh Combat Base (KSCB) were two regiments of the United States Marine Corps supported by elements from the United States Army and the United States Air Force (USAF), as well as a small number of Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) troops. The fact that the North Vietnamese committed only about half of their available forces to the offensive (6070,000), most of whom were Viet Cong, is cited in favor of Westmoreland's argument. 216217. [150] On 31 December 1968, the 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion was landed west of Khe Sanh to commence Operation Dawson River West, on 2 January 1969 the 9th Marines and 2nd ARVN Regiment were also deployed on the plateau supported by the newly established Fire Support Bases Geiger and Smith; the 3-week operation found no significant PAVN forces or supplies in the Khe Sanh area. The 26th Marines were activated in 1944 and fought in the Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II and were activated again on 1 March 1966, and fought in the Battle of Khe Sanh during the Vietnam War . By the middle of January 1968, some 6,000 Marines and Army troops occupied the Khe Sanh Combat Base and its surrounding positions. Over 100,000 tons of bombs were dropped by US aircraft and over 158,000 artillery rounds were fired in defense of the base. The Battle of Ban Houei Sane, not the attack three weeks later at Lang Vei, marked the first time that the PAVN had committed an armored unit to battle. According to the official PAVN history, by December 1967 the North Vietnamese had in place, or within supporting distance: the 304th, 320th, 324th and 325th Infantry Divisions, the independent 270th infantry Regiment; five artillery regiments (the 16th, 45th, 84th, 204th, and 675th); three AAA regiments (the 208th, 214th, and 228th); four tank companies; one engineer regiment plus one independent engineer battalion; one signal battalion; and a number of local force units.