8

“LIGHT AT THE TOP, HEAVY AT THE BOTTOM”

DECISIONS THAT DESTROYED A NATION

The loss of Ban Me Thuot set in motion a series of decisions that triggered the spectacular collapse of the Republic of Vietnam. Over a five-day period, choices made independently in Hanoi, Saigon, and Washington unraveled two decades of grand strategy crafted by generals and politicians on both sides. The quagmire had suddenly morphed into a runaway train.

General Cao Van Vien, the head of the South Vietnamese military, later said he believed the Communists’ successful assault on Ban Me Thuot acted “like a catalyst on the mind” of President Thieu. It was more than just the city’s loss, however. The countrywide attacks, the American failure to respond militarily, and the U.S. Congress’s likely refusal of further aid all spurred the president to make rash changes to his fundamental strategy. Since 1973, Thieu had fought the war based on Nixon’s twin pledges of vigorous reaction and plentiful aid. Since neither pledge had been honored, Thieu decided to abandon his policy of no territorial concessions. Holding every inch of soil had been a political, not a military, stratagem. Thieu hoped that when the North Vietnamese attacked his outposts, the world would acknowledge that the Communists had destroyed the accords.

His plan failed because the North Vietnamese had succeeded in painting the U.S. and South Vietnam as serial violators solely responsible for the current situation. Although Thieu’s forces had violated the ceasefire on occasion, and he had balked at implementing certain provisions, in comparison the Communists had broken virtually every clause in the Paris Peace Accords. Now, with Giap’s armies pouring down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and the world deserting South Vietnam, Thieu believed he had no option but to take an extraordinarily perilous step to save his country.

On the morning of 11 March, Thieu convened his top three military advisors at Independence Palace for a working breakfast. Attending were General Vien, Prime Minister Tran Thien Khiem, and Lieutenant General Dang Van Quang, Thieu’s long-time aide for National Security Affairs. Khiem was the most senior officer in the Army, but had long remained in Thieu’s shadow. Many Vietnamese referred to Quang, often accused of being the most corrupt officer in South Vietnam, as “Fat Quang” because of his corpulence. These four men would decide South Vietnam’s fate.

After waiters cleared the plates, Thieu pulled a small map of the country from his pocket. Looking at his senior officers, he outlined the situation. In his view, South Vietnam could no longer defend all its territory. With little hope for the reintroduction of American military power, a drastic consolidation of units and supplies seemed the best chance for survival. It would also buy additional time to prepare for what everyone knew would be the North Vietnamese attempt at a coup de grâce in 1976. Protesting the obvious current North Vietnamese offensive would be an empty gesture: the other countries of the world were preoccupied with the energy crisis and their own economic problems.

Thieu now believed the South Vietnamese government needed to redeploy its military forces to defend the most populous and economically significant parts of the country. Those areas were the heartland of South Vietnam, from the southern portion of II Corps—a line stretching across the country from Ban Me Thuot to Tuy Hoa on the coast—to the southernmost tip of the Mekong Delta. This was a larger version of the old Cochin China section of the country, that part considered truly “southern” by the people of Vietnam. There was a longstanding and distinct cultural identity among the people of this region, and Thieu hoped to use it to rally them against the northern invaders. Most of South Vietnam’s natural resources, including the all-important oil deposits and the majority of the agricultural base, lay within this area. Thieu would abandon much of I Corps, although he wanted to hold Danang as an enclave for a future counterattack to regain lost territory. He also wanted to defend Hue if possible, but he felt it would be difficult to hold against a determined thrust.

Accordingly, it was imperative to recapture Ban Me Thuot, which anchored the northwestern end of Thieu’s bisected South Vietnam. If the Communists held the town, they could threaten Saigon from three directions: from Dalat in the north, Nha Trang in the east, and Tay Ninh in the west. Thieu had absorbed this lesson from the French, who had used the Montagnard capital as their main stronghold in the Highlands. Moreover, Thieu wanted to destroy the 320th Division, which he thought had taken the city. Lastly, he wanted to retrieve his troops from isolated and vulnerable positions in the Highlands. Otherwise, “they would be decimated because of a lack of reserves to support them and the inability of the air force to resupply them.”¹ After retaking the city, Thieu could then move against Pleiku or Kontum. Thieu named his new strategy “Light at the top, heavy at the bottom.” Since he was fearful of leaks and spies, only a select few were informed of his decisions. That did not include the Americans.

Thieu’s choice to abandon a large chunk of the country was the first major strategic decision made strictly by the South Vietnamese in nearly a decade of war. Many have theorized as to why Thieu abruptly chose this course of action.² Previously, he had opposed it because of the overwhelming logistical complexities and the probable damage to South Vietnamese morale. Thieu had also feared that a retrenchment would negatively influence American congressional and public opinion at a time when he could ill afford it.

Ambassador Martin and other senior U.S. officials soon claimed that Thieu’s decision stemmed solely from a lack of hope for any future aid. Martin told Kissinger and others that the unsympathetic reception given the GVN Senate delegation in February, plus the visit of the recently departed and mostly hostile U.S. congressional delegation, had finally convinced the president there would be no further aid. Martin’s analysis, however, was only partially correct. Although the results of Lam’s trip and the congressional visit had disheartened Thieu, he continued to seek aid until the very end. Thus, lack of aid was not the sole rationale for Thieu’s decision. In fact, Thieu had faced a similar military crisis during the 1972 offensive, but had decided to stand and fight instead of retreat. Indeed, the military situation at that time was far worse; An Loc was surrounded, Kontum was cut off, and Quang Tri was already captured. Yet Thieu ordered those cities held at all costs or recaptured. Why then and not now?

According to General Vien, while Thieu’s decision in 1972 to defend those cities was a poor “tactical judgment,” the president had ordered the Army “to hold at these places because the political and psychological repercussions of losing them would have destroyed South Vietnam. . . . To have abandoned these positions would have been to cause a political collapse. That was Thieu’s clear judgment.”³ Vien further stated that if ARVN had abandoned Kontum in 1972, “the whole Central Highlands and Binh Dinh would have been lost . . . further defense would have been impossible because the blow to morale . . . would have caused a complete loss of nerve. . . . South Vietnam would have been cut in two,” leading to “the eventual doom of the country.”

If Thieu had decided against moving the regular forces out of the northern Highlands in 1972 because doing so would have risked “political collapse” (and had rejected this course again as recently as Serong’s effort in January), why did Thieu believe it would have a different result now? The Speaker of the South Vietnamese House of Representatives, Nguyen Ba Can, offered this assessment: Thieu’s decision, he said, “cannot be viewed as an inspiration of the moment, nor as a move by an exhausted man stunned by the loss of Ban Me Thuot. Rather it must be viewed as the result of his revised strategic assessment of the general situation of the country and mainly of the balance of forces that had become tipped in favor of North Vietnam.”⁴

The difference, therefore, was not just the lack of aid, but also the absence of American military support. In 1972, Thieu had the U.S. Air Force and Navy supplying the necessary firepower and mobility to neutralize the North Vietnamese ability to hide and mass. He also had a seemingly endless flow of supplies from the United States. Now he had neither. With his troops outflanked and facing North Vietnam’s battle-hardened army of twenty divisions alone, retrenching to a more defensible territory seemed the only viable solution.

Withdrawing from the northern Highlands was the riskiest of maneuvers. Thieu was attempting this retreat while strong enemy forces were nearby, and without American firepower to hold them off if they attacked. Yet in his mind, he was on the horns of an impossible dilemma: If he left the Pleiku and Kontum garrisons in their bunkers while Dung struck east to the sea, those ARVN units would slowly starve while doing the rest of the country absolutely no good. Pleiku was blockaded on three sides, and with Cu Hanh airfield under sporadic shelling, the city would soon feel the supply pinch despite the sixty days’ worth of stocks that had been shipped in earlier. In Ban Me Thuot, the Communists had strong forces. On Route 21, there were only RF troops and the newly arrived units of the ARVN 23rd Division to block them. If those defenses were penetrated, PAVN troops and their tanks, artillery, and anti-aircraft guns could barrel straight down Route 21 to the coast, severing South Vietnam. PAVN could then move south on Route 1 to the very outskirts of Saigon.

Most of Thieu’s senior officers disagreed with his decision. They believed it would have been better to stay in their bunkers and go down fighting rather than hazard such a perilous journey while under heavy pressure. Many of his generals also hoped the scenes of South Vietnamese soldiers defending their positions against massive North Vietnamese attacks might finally convince the U.S. Congress to loosen its purse-strings.

Thieu’s decision, moreover, may not have been as sudden as has been long believed. The American consul general in Nha Trang, Moncrieff Spear, wrote in his review of the fall of II Corps that “in early 1975 I was advised in confidence that in the event of an all-out offensive in the Highlands, a top-level GVN decision had been made not to defend Kontum.”⁵ While Thieu had outwardly rejected the withdrawal plan, apparently he had kept the option open. Since he rarely communicated his inner thoughts, it is not shocking that he had secret contingency plans that he did not share with his senior military commanders.

Unfortunately for the South Vietnamese people, the new decision was executed with no preparation. Even though Thieu had kept the option open, he had not called for any comprehensive planning. Now that he had abruptly changed course, his three top generals quickly agreed with the new strategy, with hardly any dissent. Actually, Thieu had decided and his advisors meekly acquiesced. Now it was up to them to make it work, regardless of the difficulty. With no plans to draw upon, the withdrawal would become an improvisational ballet, requiring discipline and dedicated leadership, skills the war-weary South Vietnamese society had in short supply.

After the breakfast meeting, events were set in motion by an order from Thieu to withdraw the Airborne Division from I Corps. On 12 March—the day Phu reported to Saigon that all organized resistance in Ban Me Thuot had ceased—the JGS ordered Lieutenant General Ngo Quang Truong to return the Airborne Division to Saigon. Truong immediately requested an audience with Thieu. Upon Truong’s arrival the next day, Thieu explained his concept of a retrenchment to a smaller, more easily defensible country. In I Corps, Truong was to hold Danang at all costs, but he could sacrifice everything else.

Truong was flabbergasted. He declared that removing the Airborne on the eve of a major attack might lead to a serious defeat. At best it would force him to relinquish key terrain as he shifted forces to cover the Airborne positions west of Danang. Faced with his general’s impassioned pleas, Thieu partially relented, allowing Truong to stagger the withdrawal one brigade at a time. However, Thieu ordered the first Airborne brigade to depart by 17 March. As a replacement, Truong would receive the newly formed 468th Marine Brigade. Thieu had nothing else to give him. The two newly formed Ranger groups were not combat-ready, the 7th Rangers were going to II Corps, and the new 4th Airborne Brigade would remain near Saigon. That left only the 468th Marine Brigade. A deeply upset Truong flew back to I Corps to carry out his orders.

Meanwhile, after the meeting with Truong, the message went out to Major General Phu to meet Thieu on 14 March at Cam Ranh Bay.

On the morning of 14 March, Thieu, Khiem, Quang, and Vien flew to Cam Ranh Bay to inform Phu of the new plan. This was the second, more perilous adjustment in Thieu’s new strategy. Abandoning whole regions was more dangerous than shifting forces between corps. While there is no transcript of what is undoubtedly the most critical meeting of the war, and only one participant (Vien) has provided a written summary, enough has surfaced from other sources to piece together a reasonable outline of what transpired.

Thieu began by asking Phu for his analysis of the situation. Painting a dismal picture, Phu noted that Route 19, the most important road in the Highlands, was cut in two places. The other main roads were blocked as well. He also informed Thieu that his forces had just captured a soldier from the 316th Division near Ban Me Thuot. Thieu grimly absorbed the news. He was well aware that the addition of a strategic-reserve division to the PAVN forces in the Highlands had decisively tipped the balance of forces against ARVN.

After Phu finished speaking, Thieu asked him if he could retake Ban Me Thuot with the forces currently deployed around the town. Phu said no, and he asked for reinforcements from the Airborne Division to retake the city. Thieu denied his request. Turning to Vien, Thieu asked if there were any other reserves. Vien stated that Phu had already received the last unit, the 7th Rangers. With no reserves available, Thieu ordered Phu to redeploy his regular units from Pleiku and Kontum and retake Ban Me Thuot. Most important, no one was to know about the plan, including the Americans. The Montagnard regional and popular forces and the local administrations in Pleiku and Kontum would remain and defend their areas as best they could.

Vien later accurately described this as “the most critical juncture of the entire war.”⁶ Much confusion remains, however, regarding precisely what Thieu ordered versus what Phu understood. Phu’s aide and biographer, Pham Huan, was sitting outside the room and claims that Phu told him that Thieu had ordered him to withdraw. Huan provides snippets of Phu’s version, but they are interspersed with made-up dialogue and his own analysis of the motives of the various personalities. Over the years, Vien has denied that Thieu ordered Phu to withdraw from Pleiku. In September 1975, Vien told an American interviewer, “somehow the impression was given that Thieu’s order could be interpreted as tantamount to a withdrawal. But never did he give such an order. He just told Phu it was up to him to redeploy his forces to reoccupy Ban Me Thuot.”⁷ The CIA base chief in Nha Trang disagrees, and later wrote that Thieu “categorically ordered Phu to abandon Pleiku and Kontum.”⁸

Both Quang and Khiem seem to be fence-sitting, as they later informed CIA Saigon Station Chief Thomas Polgar that they were unaware that Thieu intended to order Phu to withdraw. They also claimed the same thing at a GVN Cabinet meeting. Although Polgar accepts their version, it is difficult to believe, but the possibility cannot be dismissed. The reality seems to be that while Thieu did not explicitly say he was abandoning Pleiku, and in fact ordered the RF to remain and defend it, the practical effect was the same. Although Thieu was notorious for providing imprecise instructions, given the outcome, the various South Vietnamese accounts of these events seem to have been crafted for maximum spin.

Despite the difficulties involved in redeploying large numbers of troops while under attack, Phu apparently did not try very hard to change Thieu’s mind. Perhaps one explanation for Phu’s not arguing with Thieu or threatening to resign is that he did not have any reasonable alternative. In fairness to Phu, it is impossible to judge whether Thieu would have relented even if he had been presented with a different plan to recapture Ban Me Thuot. Truong’s impassioned pleas to keep the Airborne Division had netted him only a small reprieve. One gets the sense that Thieu would not be dissuaded from the monumental decisions he had made. He was also furious at Phu for failing to follow his order in early February to reinforce Ban Me Thuot. This definitely colored Thieu’s later decision-making and interaction with Phu. He was brooking no dissent, and Phu had little choice but to carry out Thieu’s order or offer his resignation, which Thieu would probably have rejected.

Phu’s senior aide, Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Quang Vinh, who had traveled with Phu to Cam Ranh and was also sitting outside the meeting room, relates that upon departure, Thieu did not shake Phu’s hand and ignored Phu’s salute. Vinh had heard Thieu raising his voice inside the room, and pounding on a table. Vinh notes that on the flight back to Pleiku, Phu “sat silently, staring at the floor. After awhile, I asked him if he had been relieved of command. Phu looked up and burst into tears, saying that the country had no future, and that his career as a general was over. Thieu had ordered him to retreat in three days, and if he did not, he would face a military tribunal.”⁹

With the decision made, how then would the retreat be accomplished? Airlift capability being limited, that option was discarded. Route 19 appeared too difficult to reopen. The PAVN 95A Regiment had made a surprise attack the day before and wiped out the M-113 troop assisting the 4th Rangers. In addition, as Vien warned Phu, attempts by the French army to withdraw down this road had met with destruction from well-planned Communist ambushes. As for Route 14, any movement south would be easily detected. Phu would then have to fight through the 320th Division just to get to Ban Me Thuot, where two more PAVN divisions awaited him. Route 21 was still blocked, but could be easily reopened with more troops.

Vien designed his remarks to force Phu to consider the difficulty of the task he was accepting. Contemptuous of Phu, particularly after he had disregarded the JGS’s warnings about Ban Me Thuot, Vien hoped he would resign rather than carry out the withdrawal. Although Vien told his J-3 (operations officer) to monitor Phu’s progress and provide any requested assistance, the commanding general of South Vietnam’s armed forces was content to stand aside and let Phu succeed or fail on his own. With Thieu having given a direct order to the corps commander, Vien felt the operation was Phu’s responsibility, not his. Underscoring Vien’s attitude was his refusal even to summon his deputy, Lieutenant General Dong Van Khuyen—who had just taken his cancer-stricken father to Japan for treatment—to return and oversee the retreat. Despite a strategy transformation of this magnitude, Vien claims he saw “no reason” to recall Khuyen. While it is true that Thieu’s policy of denying the JGS any oversight of the corps commanders prevented Vien from overruling any of Phu’s decisions, given the importance of the operation, Vien’s hands-off approach to Phu’s planning is stunning.

Phu realized that a successful withdrawal would require surprise. He therefore proposed using Route 7B, the only highway out of the Highlands still open. This road branches off from Route 14 south of Pleiku, passes through Cheo Reo, the capital of Phu Bon province, then turns east and ends on the coast at Tuy Hoa, the capital of Phu Yen province. From there, Phu’s soldiers would move south on Route 1 to Route 21, and then west along this road to Ban Me Thuot. The total distance from Pleiku to Tuy Hoa is 155 miles, and from Tuy Hoa to Ban Me Thuot another 147 miles. Phu’s forces would have to march three hundred miles just to enter battle.

Moreover, only part of Route 7B was fully trafficable. Although excellent from Pleiku to Cheo Reo, after leaving the provincial capital it was eighty miles of narrow, rough, badly rutted road to the coast. Major stretches snake through mountains covered with thick forests that converged on the road. Washouts, steep passes, and ruined culverts over many small streams added more problems. There were seventeen bridges on the road from Cheo Reo to Tuy Hoa. All were too weak—a maximum weight of twelve to twenty tons—to support armor. More significantly, the retreating column would have to cross the sizable Ba River twice. The first crossing was about ten miles southeast of Cheo Reo. The existing bridge would not support tanks, so a float bridge would have to be built to enable the armor to cross the fifty-yard-wide river. From there to the town of Cung Son in Phu Yen province was an additional fifty-five miles of bad road. The only town between Cheo Reo and Cung Son was the village of Phu Tuc. Here another large stream with a rickety bridge would have to be traversed.

And that was the easy part. The final stretch of road, some fifteen miles from Cung Son to Tuy Hoa, had been heavily mined years earlier by Korean forces. The only bypass around the mines—a bridge that branched off from Route 7B, crossed the Ba River and linked up with Local Route 436 to Tuy Hoa—had been destroyed long ago. To reach Tuy Hoa, Phu’s troops would have to build a new bridge at Cung Son to cross the Ba River, which at this point was three hundred yards wide.

Phu, however, claimed the road was in better shape than was generally believed. Additionally, since it was nearing the end of the dry season, the water in many streams was low, so they could be easily forded. The biggest problem was the mines on the main road. Phu’s troops would have to detour around them. However, since the river was low, he did not believe they would have to build a bridge at Cung Son. He declared that if they lined the river bottom with steel planks from local airfield runways, his vehicles could drive across the river on the steel planks and then link up with Local Route 436.

Thieu accepted Phu’s proposal, and gave him three days to complete the withdrawal. The other senior generals voiced no dissent. Thieu added that if Phu succeeded in retaking Ban Me Thuot, he could then drive north to Pleiku and Kontum.

Phu did not ask for any assistance from the JGS other than river-crossing equipment, which Vien promptly granted. Closing the meeting, Phu made one final request, pleading for Colonel Pham Duy Tat, the II Corps Ranger commander, to be promoted to brigadier general. Thieu hesitated, but finally agreed. In a rare move, he also gave Phu permission to promote anyone else he felt deserved such a reward. Normally, only Thieu had the authority to promote officers to general. It was Thieu’s way of giving Phu flexibility. Advancing a soldier or officer in rank or giving him monetary gifts was the ARVN method of rewarding those who performed a successful deed in combat.

In summary, Phu had only two choices for the retreat: open Route 19, or create a diversion and then personally lead his men out on Route 7B. A determined thrust against Route 19 would probably have opened that road. The PAVN 3rd Division was weaker than believed, and probably could not have withstood a large-scale assault. But even if he had opened Route 19, that would have added significantly to his forces’ journey to Ban Me Thuot. As for a diversion, Phu might have sent an armored task force south on Route 14 to tie down the 320th Division, allowing the remainder of his units to retreat along Route 7B. Another possibility for a diversion was to attack toward Duc Co, threatening Dung’s supply lines. Yet Phu never broached any other concept than the one he offered at the meeting. Embarrassed over the loss of Ban Me Thuot, he did not have the force of personality to convince the president that the idea of withdrawing from the northern Highlands was unworkable, even though Phu knew his forces would not make it without heavy losses. According to a South Vietnamese general with whom Phu discussed the meeting at Cam Ranh Bay, Phu claimed that if he got 50 percent of his men and vehicles to the southern Highlands, he would be “a hero.” The officer responded that if Phu lost half his troops and equipment he would not be a hero; he would be relieved of his command.¹⁰

Thus, Phu had committed himself to moving thousands of troops and their equipment and supplies, while rebuilding bridges and repairing the road as he went, before the enemy could react. Oddly, it apparently never occurred to Phu that the North Vietnamese might have stationed reconnaissance troops on hilltops to monitor ARVN movements. In addition, he seems to have forgotten the horrific scenes of hordes of refugees following the retreating ARVN south along Route 1 from Quang Tri during the 1972 Easter Offensive. Why neither Phu nor Thieu considered the civilians in their planning is incomprehensible.

Ultimately, the horrendously mismanaged retreat directly caused the defeat of South Vietnam. Phu was to blame for his failure to properly plan and oversee the retreat. Phu, however, was far from the only one culpable. While Thieu’s decision to withdraw from the northern Highlands was logical, it was impractical. His orders to complete the retreat in three days and to leave the civilian population and local administrations to fend for themselves were disastrous. Nor did any of Thieu’s senior aides protest, voice concern, or demand that Phu provide a detailed withdrawal plan before initiating the retreat. These were the final mistakes in a series of critical military blunders in II Corps.

THE AID DEBATE RESUMES

For the Ford administration, the argument was simple: Without U.S. aid, South Vietnam could not survive. In new hearings before the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations Committees, administration spokesmen and the members of the congressional delegation to Indochina presented their viewpoints. Yet the delegation, while recognizing the seriousness of the situation, declined to recommend continued aid. The hearings, which President Ford had worked on since September 1974 to persuade Congress to grant more aid, had failed decisively. On the morning of 12 March, the House Democratic Caucus, spurred by Bella Abzug and three others, passed a resolution opposing any further aid to Vietnam and Cambodia in 1975. It was not even close. The vote was 189 to 49. The next day, the Senate Democrats voted 34 to 6 against further aid. While the caucus does not bind party members, its votes are made public. As one House committee staffer later wrote: “by revealing the striking absence of support in the dominant party for aid to Cambodia and South Vietnam, the caucus votes undoubtedly shaped the expectations of supporters and opponents of the president’s request in both houses.”¹¹

To what extent this congressional action influenced Thieu is unknown, but Ambassador Martin certainly could count votes. On 12 March, he and Philip Habib from the State Department met with Senators Church and Pearson to discuss Martin’s three-year aid proposal. Both Church and Pearson saw no possibility that Congress would agree to the sums Martin was seeking, but they sought some compromise. They felt combining economic and military aid into one package was the best option. The ambassador instead pressed his case for separate aid packages, explaining that “if clear American commitment given for three years he was confident Hanoi would return seriously to conference table . . . and put military action in south on back burner.”¹² Martin further articulated his belief that Hanoi had made the decision to launch the current heavy fighting after learning Congress had cut the appropriations. Martin knew the American public would not indefinitely support aid to Saigon, but he was convinced that the South Vietnamese economy had bottomed out. He thought another infusion of aid would get it moving again, and if the oil deposits produced a steady revenue stream, he believed Hanoi would reluctantly conclude that a political compromise was its best choice. The Communists were striking now because this was their last chance to win. Apparently, Martin’s and Le Duan’s analyses were not that dissimilar.

The senators were unconvinced. The $6 billion Martin wanted for economic and military aid was simply not feasible during a recession. Church offered $1 billion for the first year, with that amount to be reduced by one-third each year. It was either that or return to annual requests. Habib indicated that Church’s offer was not sufficient for Saigon’s needs, and that the administration would take its chances on a yearly budget. Despite the failure to agree on an aid package, Pearson promised to sound out his colleagues on Martin’s three-year plan.

For some reason, Martin believed the meeting had been positive. He immediately drafted a letter to bolster Thieu’s morale, and he tasked his deputy, Wolfgang Lehmann, with presenting it in person. Arriving at Independence Palace on the morning of 15 March, Lehmann handed Thieu the letter. The note was supportive, but Martin could not disguise the increasingly gloomy chances for aid. He wrote: “Reading the recent news from Washington regarding Congressional action on Indochina aid must give you and your colleagues . . . a feeling of discouragement about the constancy of American policy.”¹³ The bad news from Cambodia was contributing “to a Congressional sense of hopelessness that future aid would [not] really change the course of events.” Martin feared that Congress was drawing a parallel between Cambodia and Vietnam. Therefore, “To lessen this tendency . . .I do not want the $300 million supplemental to come to a vote in the near future.” Congress would be taking its Easter recess from 21 March to 6 April, and Martin wanted the extra time to persuade recalcitrant congressmen to vote for the funding.

To help his efforts, Martin pressed Thieu to loosen General Vien’s tight restrictions on munitions. While concerned that Thieu “may expend too much force in an immediate effort to retake Ban Me Thuot,” Martin still expressed full confidence in Thieu’s military decision-making. In closing, he stated: “It is going to be a tough time ahead on the battlefront in Vietnam. Very soon, the Defense Department will agree with your assessment that what you now confront is indeed a general offensive whose intensity may well exceed that of 1972. It is also going to be a tough time on the battlefront in Washington and I believe I may serve the common interests of both our countries by staying here for a while. I can give you the most categoric assurances that the President and the Secretaries of State and Defense are determined that when the Washington battle is over you will have the resources you need. With those I am certain the will and determination of the Vietnamese people to remain free will prevail.” Despite Martin’s statement that he was remaining to fight the aid battle, he promptly had dental surgery and traveled to his farm in North Carolina to recuperate. He was out of touch for over ten days in March.

After reading Martin’s letter, Thieu provided Lehmann a few insights into his thinking. Thieu said that he intended to use the Ban Me Thuot battlefield to destroy the 320th and 316th Divisions, which had been positively identified in the area. Lehmann then echoed Martin’s concern as to whether Thieu could concentrate sufficient forces at Ban Me Thuot without unduly exposing other areas. As Lehmann reported to Martin, Thieu agreed that this was “a very difficult problem and that the defenses in the northern part of the Highlands, especially around Kontum, would have to be substantially thinned out.”¹⁴ Thieu expected “the Ban Me Thuot battle to be hard and last for some time, perhaps two weeks.” Phu would halt the effort to reopen Route 19, while expanding the operation on Route 21. The reasons for Thieu’s decisions were simple: “the loss of southern Darlac province . . . would jeopardize Dalat and Khanh Hoa [province], and that he could not afford to let go.” As to Martin’s point about ammunition, he had ordered Vien to remove any limitations. After the meeting, Lehmann informed Martin that he expected Kontum would fall if attacked, but that four Ranger groups would continue to defend Pleiku.

While Thieu had not lied to his ally, he had been less than forthright. In an interview years later, Lehmann admitted that “Thieu did not directly inform me of that decision, but he hinted that a major decision was in the process of being made and that it had been a rather difficult one. I could not draw him out on the details. However, what he did say set a slight alarm bell ringing in my head as I left the palace.” Lehmann added, “The question is sometimes raised whether that was a proper way for a president to deal with us and whether I was not considerably annoyed by the fact that he had not directly and clearly conveyed this decision to me. My feeling about that is . . . in light of the fact that we were letting the [other] side down, he had a right to make his own decisions.”¹⁵

In Saigon, many senior South Vietnamese political figures, including those who were not part of Thieu’s government, were deeply alarmed over the Communist attacks. To survive the onslaught, they believed, Thieu needed to expand his government in order to help rally the people, before it was too late. Since Thieu had just asked former Ambassador Bui Diem to meet with him and discuss a mission to Washington to assist with the aid request, Diem decided to bring along two allies to force that very question: former Foreign Minister Dr. Tran Van Do, a highly respected member of Saigon’s intelligentsia, and Tran Quoc Buu, the head of the labor federation. Soon after Lehmann left Independence Palace, they met with Thieu to discuss the political situation.

By no means were these men part of the Third Force. They viewed themselves as supporters of an independent South Vietnam, though not necessarily of Thieu. Nor was this the first time they had pressed Thieu to broaden and improve his government. All three had badgered him for years on the subject. In this particular meeting, however, they had come as mediators between the opposition and Thieu. They began by stating that a gulf existed between the government and the people, a gap deepened by corruption, military reverses, and a declining economy. Diem and Do pressured Thieu to form a government of national unity as the best hope of rallying the country. Thieu asked what they could do in this regard. The three agreed to begin a dialogue with the opposition, but insisted that new blood had to be brought into the government and given real authority. Thieu agreed to restructure the government, but cautioned that he could work with only about 50 percent of the opposition. A coalition government with the Communists remained out of the question.

Thieu’s agreement did not fool Bui Diem, who had heard his promises too many times. He was correct. While Diem’s mission to Washington was real, Thieu had an ulterior motive in sending him there. He wanted Diem and Tran Quoc Buu out of the country to prevent them from rallying the opposition and potentially overthrowing him. His ploy failed, however. As the military situation dramatically worsened, in early April Thieu would be forced to broaden his government anyway.

THE WITHDRAWAL BEGINS

Lieutenant Colonel Ngo Le Tinh, commander of II Corps’s 20th Combat Engineer Group, was working in his office around 7:00 P.M. on 14 March when his phone rang. Tinh had taken command of the engineers in January 1975, having served previously on the staff of Brigadier General Nguyen Van Chuc, chief of all military engineers. Tinh had been responsible for maintaining all the bridges and roads across South Vietnam, an unenviable job given the constant Communist sabotage, but one at which he had labored vigorously. His reward for his hard work was command of the 20th Engineers, a unit with over 2,500 men and millions of dollars in equipment.

The caller was Colonel Le Khac Ly, II Corps chief of staff. Ly wanted Tinh to immediately report to the II Corps command bunker to meet with Phu, and to bring his maps and a status report on all bridges and roads in II Corps. Tinh was astonished. He had spoken to Phu only twice since his arrival in II Corps, and he did not understand why the commander suddenly wanted to see him now. Picking up his maps, however, Tinh grabbed his helmet and left for the command bunker.

Phu had returned in the late afternoon from the meeting at Cam Ranh Bay. He immediately summoned Colonel Tat, Colonel Ly, Brigadier General Pham Ngoc Sang, commander of the VNAF 6th Air Division, and Brigadier General Tran Van Cam, Phu’s deputy for operations. Phu began the meeting by announcing that Thieu had authorized him to promote Colonel Tat to brigadier general. After pinning the star on Tat’s collar, Phu came to the heart of the meeting: the president had decided to withdraw all regular forces from the Central Highlands back to the coast. These forces would then conduct two missions: defend the coastal areas, and counterattack along Route 21 to retake Ban Me Thuot. Secrecy must be preserved at all costs. Phu would not inform the province chiefs, sector commanders, and their subordinates, as RF/PF units and others would stay and defend Kontum and Pleiku. Local governmental offices and organizations would also remain open. This order meant that over 100,000 Montagnard and Vietnamese civilians, including the families of the very same ARVN soldiers who would be retreating, would be left behind to face three PAVN regiments.

Phu ordered Colonel Ly to plan a corps-sized road march from Kontum and Pleiku along Route 7B to Nha Trang. The movement would occur between 16 and 19 March. The bulk of the corps headquarters would relocate via helicopter to Nha Trang, while the 6th Air Division would transfer from Pleiku to the Nha Trang and Phan Rang airbases. The engineers would repair the road and bridges. Ly would move in the convoy with a light corps headquarters.

Ly was stunned. He begged Phu to give him more time. It was impossible, he exclaimed, to organize a movement of that scale in thirty-six hours. Phu denied his request, claiming the president’s instructions were firm. Part of Phu’s refusal was motivated by disdain for Ly. Phu had always been a field officer, with little training in or understanding of staff operations, while Ly had spent his entire career working at the staff level. It was one source of friction between the two, but not the only one. Ly had been chief of staff for I Corps Forward for two years. At the end of that tour, he was ordered to II Corps on 1 December 1974 to become Phu’s chief of staff. Since he was not Phu’s choice for the job, Phu harbored suspicions that Ly was spying on him for Vien and the JGS. He was not. Instead, Ly was, and had been for years, a CIA source, one of many the agency had among the South Vietnamese officer corps.¹⁶

As Ly set about planning the retreat, his first call was to Lieutenant Colonel Tinh. When Tinh arrived, Phu came right to the point. II Corps would conduct a withdrawal from Pleiku to Tuy Hoa along Route 7B, and Phu needed to know the status of the roads and bridges. Tinh said that the first obstacle was the bridge over the Ba River east of Cheo Reo. It could not support tanks and artillery. Since the river at this location was fifty yards wide, Tinh would have to build a float bridge to enable the heavy equipment to cross. A float bridge consists of decks of square, hollow aluminum sections lashed to pneumatic floats. Boats then hold the bridge in place against the current. Depending on the water speed, a float bridge can handle up to seventy tons. Phu asked Tinh how long it would take to build it. Forty-eight hours, Tinh replied. Phu granted Tinh that amount of time, but no more. Tinh immediately left the bunker and headed back to his compound to inform his best battalion commander that he had a new mission for him.¹⁷

Phu then made two decisions that helped doom the already problematic retreat. First, instead of directly supervising the retreat himself, he placed Brigadier General Tat in command of the evacuation. Brigadier General Cam was told to “supervise.” This arrangement only exacerbated long-simmering personal conflicts among the upper-echelon officers. Second, after his engineer commander’s request for forty-eight hours to construct the floating bridge, Phu did not delay the main group’s departure until the 17th. Certainly he could have called Thieu and provided his rationale for delaying one day to allow for the bridge construction. This would have prevented the first part of the column from being stuck in Cheo Reo for twenty-four hours and tipping off the North Vietnamese, as in fact it did.

Regardless, orders quickly went out. The initial part of Ly’s plan called for the 20th Engineers to depart first and move to the Ba River to begin building the float bridge. The 23rd Ranger Group was ordered to move with the engineers and then stay and defend Cheo Reo. The 6th Ranger Group was ordered to depart Kontum the night of 15 March and link up with the engineers in Cheo Reo. The 6th Rangers and an armored cavalry element would move with the engineers along Route 7B and protect them. Local RF/PF units would be responsible for security along the road from Cheo Reo to Cung Son. The 22nd Ranger Group, also defending Kontum, was pulled back to defend the critical Chu Pao Pass on Route 14 between Kontum and Pleiku. The 25th Rangers at Thanh An were ordered to hold their positions, as were the 4th Rangers on Route 19. The 6th Air Division began preparing to move from Cu Hanh airfield to Nha Trang. How all this movement was to remain hidden from the Communists, not to mention the civilian population, apparently was never discussed.

ROUND TWO AT BAN ME THUOT

It was late on 12 March when the two lead battalions of the ARVN 45th Regiment landed outside of Ban Me Thuot and occupied Hill 581, just one mile from the beleaguered defenders at the 53rd Regiment base camp. PAVN Lieutenant General Hoang Minh Thao was instantly informed. This was precisely what he had predicted: Phu’s only recourse to recapture Ban Me Thuot was to land reinforcements east of the city and storm it from that direction. When the 45th Regiment’s reconnaissance company was spotted trying to link up with its sister regiment, Thao immediately ordered the two positions destroyed.

The 53rd Regiment base, about four miles from town, lay on flat, open ground sandwiched between Route 21 and another road leading south. To defend a perimeter over a half-mile long, the 53rd’s commander could muster only around five hundred soldiers—the 3rd Battalion and the regimental headquarters company. Fortunately, previous commanders had prepared stiff defenses. The camp was surrounded by seven rings of barbed wire, then a deep anti-tank ditch, and, last, a massive dirt barricade with built-in bunkers fitted with machine guns. Several M-113s and mortar teams augmented the defenders. It was these stout defenses, and good leadership by Lieutenant Colonel Vo An, that had enabled the ARVN troops to beat back the sappers on the morning of 10 March.

There had been another attack on 11 March, when the 149th Regiment, 316th Division, made its first assault against the 53rd camp. After an artillery barrage, the Communist troops attacked. Two hours later, dozens of PAVN casualties littered the battlefield. The men of the 53rd had held their ground a second time, but the longer they were surrounded, the more precarious their situation became. The wounded could not be evacuated, and supplies were dwindling. Some fresh supplies were reaching them via airdrop, but that link grew more tenuous each hour as the North Vietnamese pushed their air defenses closer to the base. The ARVN troops suffered daily artillery bombardment, followed by nighttime infantry probes. The news grew worse on 13 March when the 53rd captured a POW and discovered he was from the 316th.

The latest PAVN design to capture the base called for two columns, one to attack the camp and another to assault the nearby Phung Duc airfield. Like most ARVN bases, the 53rd’s had a major weak point: no physical blockade of the main gate. Naturally, that is where the North Vietnamese chose to strike. Three tanks would spearhead each attack, closely followed by an infantry battalion. The Communists, however, did not adequately plan this new attack. In particular, there was no preparatory artillery fire against the ARVN fortifications. The North Vietnamese wrongly assumed that enemy morale had collapsed, and that a tank-led assault would lead to a quick surrender. Their newfound arrogance would cost them.

At dawn on 14 March, the 149th Regiment, accompanied by six tanks, attacked the 53rd’s camp and the airfield. Launching the attacks, the airfield column quickly discovered that ARVN had abandoned the airfield. The column at the 53rd base, however, fared much worse. One tank got lost, and the other two mistakenly turned left at the main gate, exposing their flanks to the defenders. One tank was soon knocked out, and the accompanying infantry took heavy casualties. The other tank continued past the base and also got lost.

Despite their third failure, the attackers were undeterred. The 149th Regiment’s commander requested reinforcements and time to plan a new attack. Thao denied his appeal. The 149th was ordered to take the base by nightfall, no matter the cost. Thao sent five more tanks to reinforce the four still operational from that morning. The new plan called for another attack against the base’s main gate, along with a second spearhead from the southwest, while three tanks would provide direct fire support from the north. The attackers would strike again in the late afternoon.

The lack of time exposed PAVN’s biggest weakness: poor flexibility. The North Vietnamese operated best when they had carefully studied the battlefield and rehearsed. When they had little time to prepare, Murphy’s Law hit them hard. The infantry battalion that was to accompany the southwest column failed to arrive in time, as did other units. Watching in despair as the sun sank behind the hills, the PAVN regimental commander gave the order to attack.

The result was the same. The gate column quickly bogged down under withering fire from the ARVN defenders. Infantrymen riding on the tanks were swept off by accurate machine-gun fire. When night fell, the tanks became disoriented. One fell into the anti-tank ditch and was hit by a rocket. Another cracked its barrel against a tree trunk. A third became tangled up in the barbed wire and ground to a halt.

The other spearhead fared no better. The armor advanced, but one tank was hit and the others were unable to penetrate the base defenses. Although the infantry finally arrived, night had fallen. With no prior reconnaissance, the troops became confused and were pinned down by heavy fire. At midnight the PAVN commander ordered his troops to retreat. The 3rd Battalion had inflicted such heavy losses on the 149th Regiment that it was pulled back to regroup.

Jubilant over the stalwart defense, Phu promoted Lieutenant Colonel Vo An to colonel and told him to hang on, help was on the way. Aircraft soon dropped more supplies to the defenders, bombers pounded suspected Communist positions, and Phu ordered the RF task force on Route 21 to clear the roadblock at all costs.

While the men of the 53rd Regiment were repulsing the enemy attacks, Thao was planning an assault against the two battalions of the 45th Regiment organizing on Hill 581. The 45th was considered the best regiment in the 23rd Division, but here the results would be diametrically opposite to the 53rd’s. The main reasons were the lack of prepared fortifications and the desertion of many enlisted men to find their families. The PAVN 24th Regiment, 10th Division, heavily supported by armor and an anti-aircraft battalion, had secretly moved into place on the night of 13 March. While C-119 gunships kept a steady air patrol over the 45th’s location, dropping flares and firing at any suspected enemy concentrations, the PAVN troops managed to reach their planned jump-off positions.

At 7:00 A.M. on 14 March—as Phu was flying to Cam Ranh Bay to meet with Thieu—the North Vietnamese attacked. One ARVN battalion held the hill, while a second was getting organized about half a mile to the rear. Their only fire support was a nearby RF 105-mm howitzer battery and whatever air power could be mustered. Seeing the infantry and tanks charging straight up Hill 581, the ARVN troops scattered. Surging forward, the North Vietnamese infantry and tanks roared down the backside of the hill and into the second ARVN battalion. Direct fire from the lowered barrels of the anti-aircraft guns added to the firepower of the tank cannons blasting at the exposed ARVN troops. By 11:00 A.M., PAVN forces had crashed through the second battalion and poured onto Route 21.

They soon reached the first bridge east of Ban Me Thuot. If the bridge was taken, PAVN would have its first foothold in its drive to the coast. An RF company was guarding the bridge, but when its soldiers saw the approaching tanks, they destroyed the bridge and fled. The 10th Division engineers quickly built a ford to enable the tanks to continue the pursuit. As soon as the tanks and infantry got back on the road they spotted the RF artillery position about six hundred yards away. For a third time, the armor charged. The results were similar. The North Vietnamese captured four 105-mm howitzers and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

The infantry and tanks continued on Route 21, where they attacked and dispersed an RF battalion defending a small town. By noon on 14 March, the 10th Division had scattered three battalions, killing two hundred soldiers and capturing many prisoners and hundreds of weapons. In one lightning blow, a second 23rd Division regiment was heavily damaged, and the main springboard of Phu’s counterattack was destroyed. Phu’s initial effort to recapture Ban Me Thuot had been soundly defeated.

Meanwhile, the 23rd Division commander, Brigadier General Tuong, ordered the fleeing elements of the 45th Regiment to link up with the 21st Ranger Group at the small village of Nong Trai on Route 21, located about twelve miles east of Ban Me Thuot. Unfortunately, Communist signals intelligence picked up Tuong’s orders to regroup. Scouts were sent forward to monitor the ARVN efforts to form a defense around Nong Trai. About five miles further east was the district town of Phuoc An, where the 23rd Division had established its forward headquarters.

While Tuong tried to gather his scattered units, Phu’s plan was again disrupted by the maintenance problems that bedeviled the large CH-47 Chinook helicopters; fewer and fewer were available each day. Phu’s belief that he could conduct an American-style airlift of regimental size was now proven wrong. Despite additional helicopters from other corps, by late afternoon on 14 March, only the 45th Regiment and one battalion and the headquarters of the 44th Regiment had landed. The 44th was put down closer to Phuoc An. The rest of the regiment would not arrive until the next day.

Furthermore, since the enemy roadblock of Route 21 was located between Phuoc An and the coast, all supplies had to be flown in by helicopter. With the number of flights rapidly dwindling because of limited fuel and lack of spare parts, ARVN could not ferry in any armor or artillery. Bad weather and the constant threat from the SA-7 anti-aircraft missiles had badly reduced air power. The South Vietnamese were fighting against armor and artillery with little more than light infantry weapons.

After the defeat of the 45th Regiment, Phu realized that the situation around Ban Me Thuot had dramatically changed. With Thieu’s new orders, Phu decided it was useless to try to retake Ban Me Thuot until he could clear the roadblock on Route 21. On 15 March, Phu ordered Tuong to abandon the counterattack. Instead, Tuong would punch through the blockade from the west, while the RF task force attempted to break through from the east. Phu also halted the helicopter flights lifting in the rest of the 44th Regiment. Instead, he diverted the helicopters to move his headquarters to Nha Trang. The 44th Regiment would retreat down Route 7B with the rest of II Corps.

Hoang Minh Thao, however, had no intention of letting Phu consolidate his forces. The last 10th Division regiment still at Duc Lap was ordered to move rapidly and arrive at Ban Me Thuot by the morning of 15 March. The division’s other two regiments, the 24th and 66th, were ordered to sweep north and south of Route 21 and converge on Nong Trai. The two regiments had a difficult task. They would have to walk fifteen miles through the mountains at the end of the dry season to reach their positions. The combination of heat, difficult terrain, and lack of water would take a heavy toll on the young troops, but cutting through the woods would spare them from air strikes. The main assault would be one infantry battalion, bolstered by armor and an anti-aircraft battalion, which would strike straight down Route 21 into the ARVN formations at Nong Trai.

On the morning of 16 March, the 10th Division launched its attack. With a heavy cloud cover preventing the VNAF from supplying air support, the results were predictable. The armor raced down Route 21 and easily penetrated the 45th Regiment’s positions. The two pincers swept into Nong Trai and captured it. ARVN stragglers were policed up, and then the armor proceeded toward Phuoc An. ARVN troops fled in disorder as the armor sped past them. Only when the clouds finally cleared did the VNAF manage to engage the armor, knocking out several vehicles. This halted the North Vietnamese advance long enough for the ARVN elements at Phuoc An to escape.

Later that day, while flying in his helicopter near the front, Brigadier General Tuong was slightly wounded in the face by an anti-aircraft round that hit his helicopter. Tuong immediately had himself flown to the hospital in Nha Trang. Phu was furious. He berated Tuong in his hospital bed for cowardice, and relieved him of command. Phu then departed for the collapsing ARVN front lines near Phuoc An. He appointed Colonel Le Huu Duc, his officer in charge of pacification, to assume command of the dis-integrating 23rd Division. It made little difference. By the late afternoon of 16 March, the 10th Division was in complete control of Phuoc An.

As the elements of the 23rd Division, the Darlac RF, and the 21st Rangers were falling back, Phu again ordered the Khanh Hoa province chief to clear the roadblock on Route 21. His efforts were only partially successful. While he managed to clear the south side of the road, the main position at Chu Cuc remained in the hands of the PAVN 25th Regiment. The attack was no doubt hindered by the fact that a Communist penetration agent commanded one of the RF battalions engaged in the fighting.¹⁸

Colonel Duc had been assigned a near-impossible task. That night, five thousand refugees from Ban Me Thuot arrived at the ARVN front lines east of Phuoc An. As Duc made his rounds, he was stunned at the almost complete collapse of ARVN troop strength, either from enemy action or from desertion by men hoping to find their families. The 21st Rangers reported less than 240 men out of a normal strength of one thousand (the group was minus one battalion). The 45th Regiment had around two hundred men out of 2,500. Division headquarters had only forty-two men. Most of the specialized companies such as signals, transportation, and engineers had been wiped out. Only a lone battalion of the 44th Regiment had any cohesion left.

With the ARVN counterattack demolished, Thao moved to eliminate the 53rd Regiment base camp. He sent four more tanks and additional artillery, and he pulled the 66th Regiment, 10th Division, back from Nong Trai to reinforce the attackers. The PAVN commander again divided his forces into two columns. The 66th would attack from the north and the 149th Regiment, 316th Division, from the south. A massive artillery barrage would commence first, and then engineers would blow holes through the barbed wire with explosives. The infantry would then charge the base.

At 3:00 P.M. on 16 March, the artillery opened fire. For ninety minutes, shells rained down on the ARVN defenders, destroying vehicles and setting the base on fire. At 4:30 P.M., the tanks began roaming around the exterior, firing at the bunkers in the wall. Soon, the engineers advanced into the barbed wire, blasting off charges to cut a path for the infantry.

Even with the ferocious bombardment, as soon as the engineers appeared, the South Vietnamese poured machine-gun fire and mortars into them. Both North Vietnamese columns took losses, and after making progress through the ARVN defenses, they ran out of explosives. The armor also became bogged down. An anti-tank rocket hit one tank, while another fell into the anti-tank ditch. After nine hours, neither column had been able to breach the perimeter wall. Yet despite the growing casualties, the PAVN forces grimly pressed forward.

As night fell, the PAVN commander sent his tanks closer to the dirt barricade. All night long they fired at ARVN positions, shooting at anything that moved or shot back. At the same time, North Vietnamese supply troops hurried forward with more explosive charges and ammunition. After completing a path through the barbed wire during the night, the engineers broke through the dirt wall at first light. Tanks quickly entered the base camp, followed by infantry. At 8:00 A.M., 17 March, Colonel Vo An led about a hundred soldiers out of the base and escaped toward Phuoc An. After a valiant defense, the base had fallen. Colonel An’s men had held out for seven days against multiple tank-led assaults and artillery attacks. They had fought splendidly against tremendous odds, destroying five tanks and causing hundreds of Communist casualties. Their own losses were staggering, and in the end, An’s small unit was no match for the attackers’ superior firepower. On 24 March, he and thirty of his men made it into Nha Trang.

On Route 21, the 10th Division commander gathered his staff to plan the final destruction of the 23rd Division. ARVN’s rapid collapse provided him an opportunity to destroy the division’s last remaining unit, the 44th Regiment. The 10th Division’s newly arrived 28th Regiment replaced the tired 24th. The PAVN commander saw no need to change what had been extremely successful tactics. He would send one infantry battalion supported by armor and anti-aircraft units barreling straight down Route 21. Two infantry battalions would swing behind the 44th Regiment and trap the retreating South Vietnamese.

Early in the morning of 17 March, the 28th Regiment launched its attack. While the 44th put up some resistance, the North Vietnamese burst through the ARVN lines and continued moving east. In desperation, Phu immediately moved the 40th Regiment, 22nd Division, currently in reserve in Binh Dinh, to the district town of Khanh Duong to create a new defensive position. Phu then called Thieu and begged for reinforcements. The 3rd Airborne Brigade, sailing south by ship from I Corps, was ordered to divert to Nha Trang and take up defensive positions at the M’Drak Pass, halfway between Khanh Duong and the coast. By noon on 18 March, the 10th Division had moved close to Khanh Duong and had captured over two thousand ARVN and RF soldiers. The 23rd Division had been destroyed as a fighting unit. It would never recover.

“CAN WE ACCELERATE THINGS EVEN MORE?”

On the morning of 11 March, the Politburo met to assess the first days of the March attacks. After listening to Hoang Van Thai’s briefing on the victories in the Central Highlands and the “coordinating battlefields,” everyone began to speculate on next steps. One possibility was capturing Hue and Danang. Some thought ARVN would dig in at Pleiku, while a few thought it might withdraw from the Highlands altogether.

After listening to the discussion, Le Duan posed an important question: “In the past, we drafted a strategy to liberate the South in two years. A short time ago it was Phuoc Long; now there is Ban Me Thuot. Can we accelerate things even more? Is Ban Me Thuot the beginning of a general strategic offensive?”¹⁹ Essentially, he sought answers to two critical questions: Did their initial success portend the coming of the long-sought strategic opportunity? If so, was it time to turn south toward Saigon, as originally conceived at the December meeting?

Ever the aggressor, Le Duan wanted to launch a major military thrust at Saigon, but he quickly ran into a roadblock. The viewpoint of Van Tien Dung, the commander in the field, differed from that of the men sitting in Hanoi. Instead of favoring the bold gamble of wheeling south to attack Saigon, Dung sought incremental improvement. He wanted to speed up the initial timetable for capturing Darlac and Phu Bon provinces, and then strike north toward Pleiku and Kontum. Shortly after overrunning the 23rd Division’s headquarters, Dung cabled Giap with an update and new proposals: “We have secured complete control of Ban Me Thuot. All major targets, including the 23rd Division headquarters, the Darlac province headquarters, the armored and artillery compounds, and the city airfield have been taken and are being occupied by our troops. We are now hunting down enemy remnants hiding inside the city. Preliminary figures indicate we have taken almost 1,000 enemy troops prisoner . . . and have captured a very large quantity of enemy equipment. . . . Based on the fact that enemy morale in the Tay Nguyen is collapsing and they are weakened and isolated, and considering that our forces are still strong . . . our preliminary intention is to: 1) both strengthen Ban Me Thuot to fight enemy counterattacks, and proceed to the outlying areas to take complete control of Darlac province, [and] 2) continue east to Cheo Reo (possibly wiping out or encircling it), then turn back up to surround and wipe out Pleiku, and isolate Kontum to take care of later. We can postpone moving toward the South.”²⁰

Dung’s recommendation to postpone the move south was the first dust-up in what would become a sizable squabble between the Politburo and Dung during March 1975. The question was: Which direction should Dung’s forces move after the victory at Ban Me Thuot? Since the earliest days of the Central Cell’s planning, the main target had always been Saigon. Internally called “Plan One,” the idea shared by Le Duan, Giap, and Tran Van Tra, the B-2 Front commander, was for Dung to use the newly captured stretch of Route 14 to shift immediately toward Saigon. With his three divisions added to Tra’s forces, they would launch a massive attack to capture the South Vietnamese capital and end the war in one stroke.

Dung did not want to wheel toward Saigon. Why? Two reasons: First, he sought to clear everything behind him so that his rear would be safe. He did not want his supply lines open to interdiction by ARVN forces in Pleiku while he and Tra were banging at the gates of Saigon. Second, he felt that an attack against ARVN troops in III Corps who were prepared for a PAVN assault was a bad strategy. The fighting at the 53rd Regiment base camp provided plenty of support for that belief. Plus, he was certain that Phu would attempt to recapture Ban Me Thuot, and Dung believed he could easily defeat that effort. Then he would be in a position to mop up the rest of the Highlands.

Giap responded to Dung’s cable on the night of 11 March:

I received your cable. . . and am very excited about the tremendous, clear victory our troops have won in the primary sector as well as in the supporting sector. This morning, before we received your cable, the Politburo and the Central Military Party Committee met to assess the situation. The following are the main points from that meeting:

The strategic and campaign plan that the Politburo and the Central Military Party Committee approved was precisely correct, our preparations for this attack were rather good, and we achieved surprise, and that is why we have been able to achieve such great victories in the very first days of the campaign. The victories at Ban Me Thuot and Duc Lap, along Route 19, and in other sectors demonstrate that we have the capability of winning a tremendous victory more quickly than we anticipated. . . . Because of this situation, during this current phase of operation, and even in our follow-up plan, we need to display a spirit of urgency and daring, because only by exploiting this opportunity in a timely fashion will we be able to win a great victory. . . .

I received your cable this afternoon. I believe that the policy you propose in your cable is completely consistent with the ideas discussed this morning in the meetings of the Politburo and the Central Military Party Committee. I have just discussed your cable with [Le Duan] and [Le Duc Tho]. We are all in complete agreement with the proposals you make in the cable.²¹

In agreeing to postpone the move against Saigon, the Politburo was bowing to its field commander’s assessment. In the same message, Giap ordered Dung to annihilate all remaining ARVN units near Ban Me Thuot “while at the same time spreading out through the surrounding area and standing ready to attack any enemy relief force.” Moreover, he agreed with Dung that he should “send forces . . .to immediately surround and besiege Cheo Reo in order to overrun it and at the same time annihilate enemy troops in the area.” The next step was even more vital: “Immediately deploy your forces to surround Pleiku, block their avenues of supply, and prepare to advance toward overrunning and taking Pleiku. As for Kontum, you should isolate it and overrun it later.” To support Dung, Giap ordered the 3rd Division and 95A Regiment to expand their control of Route 19 to isolate the Pleiku-Kontum area.

While Thieu had no way of knowing Hanoi’s intentions, if Phu had remained in Pleiku, he would have been surrounded and would have faced a massive PAVN attack. Still, he would probably have fared much better than by attempting to retreat to the coast. The terrain around Pleiku was more open than the terrain around Ban Me Thuot, allowing for greater use of firepower, and the defensive positions at Pleiku were far superior.

At noon on 12 March, Giap sent a follow-up cable to Dung. Based on new information (Hanoi was now receiving almost real-time intelligence of the highest caliber, probably from the spy in Vien’s office), Giap precisely outlined the plan that Phu had presented and Thieu had approved on the night of 10 March. “The enemy intends to utilize those forces that have not been destroyed and his surviving outposts on the outskirts of the city, together with reinforcements and air support, to conduct a counterattack to retake Ban Me Thuot. . . . For that reason it is vital that you quickly concentrate your forces to rapidly eliminate enemy units and bases around Ban Me Thuot and destroy the enemy reinforcements. The destruction of an important portion of the enemy’s forces in the Ban Me Thuot area will have a decisive impact on the progress of this campaign.”²²

On the afternoon of 12 March, Dung was handed a decoded copy of Giap’s response to his 11 March message. Scanning its contents, Dung became ecstatic. The Politburo had approved his recommendations. A few minutes later he received Giap’s next message detailing Phu’s initial plan. As Dung surveyed the battlefield, he realized that “another key battle in the Tay Nguyen was about to begin.” With the rainy season only two months away, he knew that “a race with the enemy as well as the heavens began on the morning of 12 March.”²³

On 13 March Giap’s staff analyzed Phu’s potential courses of action. They surmised that if Dung’s troops destroyed ARVN forces around Ban Me Thuot, if the city remained in North Vietnamese hands, and if Route 19 stayed blocked, Phu had only two options: either pull back into an enclave around Pleiku, or retreat from the Highlands. Giap’s staff surmised that Phu would stand and fight. Giap immediately ordered Dung to ring Pleiku with “all kinds of firepower, including anti-aircraft guns, to cut off Southern supply routes, while simultaneously preparing to defeat the enemy with regard to each of these eventualities.”²⁴

Although only two days had passed since the taking of Ban Me Thuot, the ease of the victory convinced Dung that he should expand his vision. To Dung, his casualties had been low and his supplies barely dented. Earlier he had told Giap that he could achieve his goals sooner than planned. Now he was thinking on a grander scale. Replying to Giap on 14 March, he claimed he could “achieve the goals set by higher authority to shorten the timing and exceed the plan by achieving in a few months the planned goals for the entire year of 1975.”²⁵ Given his superior strength, Dung believed that his forces were capable of more than just conquering the provinces of Darlac, Phu Bon, and Quang Duc. He might be able to capture not just the entire Highlands, but the coastal areas as well.

On 15 March, the PAVN intelligence department informed the General Staff that on 12 March, Thieu had ordered Phu to make an all-out effort to retake Ban Me Thuot using the positions around the city as a springboard. During the same briefing, it also informed Hoang Van Thai that the South Vietnamese had discovered the presence of the 316th Division in the Highlands, that ARVN now realized this area was PAVN’s main thrust, and that the 3rd Airborne Brigade was being sent to reinforce a large-scale effort to reopen Route 21.

Giap immediately forwarded this information to Dung, and repeated his earlier instructions: “The first thing we must do is to concentrate our forces in Ban Me Thuot . . . to annihilate individual enemy columns, with the first one being the Phuoc An sector, and be prepared to annihilate enemy reinforcements and relief forces sent in by air and overland. . . . With regard to Pleiku, systematically, step by step, surround and besiege the city, step up operations to suppress the enemy’s airfields and to destroy his supply warehouses. Carry out all necessary preparatory tasks on a truly urgent basis in order to do a truly good job on this target without giving the enemy time to react. . . . Just as I finished writing this cable I received your Cable No. 5. We are in complete agreement with your assessment that we will complete our mission much earlier than the time specified in the overall plan. We are currently studying this and making urgent preparations along that line. Early next week, after requesting further instructions from the Politburo, I will send you another cable.”²⁶

But as even Giap was assuring Dung that the Politburo accepted his recommendation that he not turn his troops toward Saigon, Le Duan was now having second thoughts. He decided to convene another Politburo meeting to re-evaluate the main direction of attack. Learning of the impending meeting, on 16 March Dung sent a summary report to Hanoi. He requested permission to continue cleaning out ARVN units around Ban Me Thuot, and then to move against Cheo Reo and Pleiku. Dung also recommended a change in the original plan: the B-2 Front should capture the rest of Quang Duc province, thus freeing his forces for an attack north toward Pleiku.

At the General Staff in Hanoi, Hoang Van Thai quickly copied the message and distributed it among his colleagues. The senior staff officers now believed that Thieu had changed strategy, and that he was forming enclaves around Danang, Cam Ranh Bay, and Saigon. Le Duan, therefore, felt PAVN needed to press hard against the faltering South Vietnamese. More important, had this new information overtaken the decision made several days earlier to not move against Saigon? If so, which direction should the offensive now take?

Meanwhile, Dung’s intelligence teams noticed some strange enemy behavior. At noon on 16 March, they intercepted VNAF communications from numerous planes taking off from Pleiku and requesting permission to land at Nha Trang. Dung was puzzled by this, since his forces had not heavily shelled Pleiku airfield. At 3:00 P.M., Giap telephoned and informed Dung that II Corps headquarters had moved to Nha Trang. An hour later, a reconnaissance team reported a long convoy from Pleiku moving south on Route 14.

Dung immediately called a staff meeting, but no one could decipher the ARVN plans. Then at 9:00 P.M., new intelligence poured into Dung’s headquarters. The Pleiku ammunition dumps were exploding, there were many fires in town, and the convoy that had left Pleiku had been spotted on Route 7B. ARVN was pulling out of Pleiku.

Dung was furious. He immediately picked up the field telephone and called the commander of the 320th Division, Senior Colonel Kim Tuan. Tuan had assured Dung two days earlier that Route 7B was unusable. Now the South Vietnamese were retreating along the very road that Dung had left unguarded, and there were no forces to block them. Dung read Tuan the riot act, telling him that “if the enemy escapes, it will be a big crime, and you will have to bear responsibility for it.”²⁷

Dung swiftly issued a flurry of instructions. The 320th Division was ordered to immediately move toward Cheo Reo and cut off the retreating ARVN troops. Since the division’s units were currently scattered from Ban Me Thuot to the Darlac-Pleiku border area, the B-3 Front was instructed to mobilize anything with wheels and send it to the 320th. The 968th Division was ordered to leapfrog enemy positions and attack Pleiku. Local forces in Phu Yen province were instructed to close in on Tuy Hoa and block the retreat at that end of the road.

Then Dung realized he had a trump card. The 9th Battalion of the 320th Division, which had been secretly waiting to attack Cheo Reo since the beginning of the offensive, sat only a couple of ridgelines away from the town. At 10:30 P.M. on 16 March, the telephone line that had been cleverly strung thirteen miles to the 9th Battalion suddenly sprang to life. The voice on the other end of the phone was that of the division commander. His orders were brusque: Move out as soon as possible, cut Route 7B south of Cheo Reo, and block the withdrawal.

The 9th Battalion moved out within ten minutes, but the dark night and rugged terrain hampered its speed. By midnight, the battalion had covered only a short distance. Looking at his watch, the commander made a critical decision. If he was to cross the forest-covered mountains and reach Route 7B by dawn, his men would have to run. Running at night was dangerous, and they could easily stumble into an ARVN ambush. In addition, the heat and lack of water would seriously affect his troops. To attempt to accomplish his mission, he would have to risk the life of every soldier in his battalion. Turning to his deputy, he barked an order. Each soldier would light a torch made of either bamboo or a spare rubber sandal. It was now a race between Phu’s column and the 9th Battalion. Who won would determine the fate of the Republic of Vietnam.