11

“HOW COULD I ABANDON THIS ROCKY SOIL?”

FIGHTING TO SAVE HUE

When the war in I Corps erupted again in 1974, the heavy fighting portended another major attack in the spring of 1975. Given the growing PAVN strength, it was an assault the South Vietnamese were uncertain they could defeat, especially since the terrain heavily favored the attackers. A major ridgeline between Hue and Danang divides the area into two discrete sections. It branches off the Annamite mountain range and ends at the Hai Van Pass on the coast. The pass is the key terrain feature in I Corps. It would take only a few troops to seize and hold it, thereby cutting off South Vietnam’s three best divisions. North of the pass are Quang Tri and Thua Thien provinces and the city of Hue, home of the last imperial court. South of the pass is Quang Nam province and Danang, South Vietnam’s second-largest city and a strategic seaport. Continuing south are Quang Tin and Quang Ngai provinces. The landscape in I Corps is mostly mountains covered with dense jungle abutting a narrow coastal plain.

As 1975 began, the region’s population was slightly over three million, the vast majority of whom were Vietnamese living in the lowlands or the cities. Economically, it was the country’s poorest region, yet given the romantic and cultural attachment to Hue, plus Danang’s deep-water harbor, it was second in importance only to Saigon. Although President Thieu had considered abandoning the area several times during the past year, he knew it was an impossible task, politically, emotionally, and logistically. Thieu was accordingly forced to invest a significant portion of his military in defending a section of the country that was draining his treasury rather than contributing to it.

Quang Tri and Thua Thien had been the most heavily fought-over ground of the war, largely because of their proximity to North Vietnam. The tiny coastal plain flanked by a long chain of mountains had made it a difficult area for the South Vietnamese to defend. Now it was even tougher. Previously, PAVN offensives had to start from either the Laotian border or across the DMZ. The 1972 offensive had left the Northerners in control of the western mountains from the border to the plains, plus the area from the DMZ south to Quang Tri City. The South Vietnamese held the lowlands along a line from the coast through Quang Tri City along the Thach Han River west to the mountains, and then south to the Hai Van Pass. Since the Paris Accords stipulated a ceasefire in place, the Communists now started with the ball, as so aptly described by Colonel William Le Gro, on ARVN’s “30-yard line.”

Another factor in previous offensives was that the lack of roads had prevented PAVN forces from building sufficient logistical stockpiles to maintain long offensives, while also providing ARVN units time to detect and react to their movements. Since the areas controlled by the South Vietnamese had better roads and shorter distances, ARVN could shift reinforcements more quickly than the Communists. To mitigate that advantage, after the ceasefire the Communists had invested heavily in building an extensive road network in the area they had captured in 1972. Now PAVN could mass troops and supplies at multiple points in I Corps. Without U.S. air and naval firepower to help stop them, the South Vietnamese were essentially outflanked before a shot was even fired.

Such was the defensive problem for the South Vietnamese in I Corps Forward (Thua Thien and Quang Tri provinces). The Communists could launch a surprise assault from the mountains with overwhelming force against a lightly held position, and then rapidly move a short distance and cut Route 1. Since the coastal plain was only between ten and fifteen miles wide at any point, a successful defense was predicated on three factors: precise intelligence on enemy intentions, adequate troop strength and heavy firepower to blunt the first assault, and reserves to counterattack and seal any penetrations.

However, the commander of I Corps Forward, Lieutenant General Lam Quang Thi, faced constraints in all three areas. Exact intelligence was unobtainable. It was the same problem Truong identified after the Thuong Duc attacks of August 1974. Colonel Nguyen Thanh Tri, the Marine Division’s deputy commander, explained that “since we lost access to the intelligence information formerly provided by the Americans, our ability to assess the enemy’s situation had become limited. This on many occasions caused us confusion and vagueness in our assessment of the enemy’s plans and capabilities.”¹ What I Corps intelligence could do, as was true in the other corps, was provide a fairly accurate initial estimate of general enemy intentions. What it could not do was provide clear-cut early warnings on either specific locations or time frames, especially when PAVN commanders suddenly changed their plans, as Giap frequently did.

Moreover, the U.S. aid cuts had severely reduced firepower, and manpower was depleted by the past year’s heavy fighting. While the Marines were in good shape, the 1st Division and the Rangers were badly short of men. Mobility, which previously meant movement by helicopter, was now severely crimped because of shortages of fuel and spare parts. That left Route 1 as the main artery for shuttling reinforcements from less-pressured areas. Keeping the road open therefore became crucial, or Truong would face, as Major General Murray had prophesied, “Dunkirk without ships.”

The town of Hue in I Corps Forward was the main prize in this hotly disputed land. In 1972 PAVN had attacked into northern Quang Tri from two directions: across the DMZ and from Laos. Its goal, just as in 1968, was to capture the former imperial capital. In 1975, the South Vietnamese still had to defend the same two directions: the current ceasefire boundary and the western mountains. On the Thach Han River, the RVNAF’s mission was to guard Quang Tri City and Route 1, which ran straight to Hue. Concurrently, it had to defend a thirty-six-mile left flank, from the Thach Han River south to Hue. Several major rivers flow out of the mountains, each offering access to the lowlands. The Bo River corridor northwest of Hue posed the greatest threat, since it offered the closest, most direct approach to the city.

Now the North Vietnamese had stretched RVNAF defenses further by opening a third front in the crucial hill country south of Hue, an area PAVN had largely ignored during the 1972 offensive. It was ideal country to mount an attack: over forty miles of steep hills and thick forests end where Route 1 meanders through the tight canyons of the Hai Van.

Thi’s defensive plan was simple. He did not believe PAVN would cross the Thach Han River, as this would constitute a complete abrogation of the Paris Accords. But if the enemy did attack, and the pressure was too great, he planned to withdraw in phases toward Hue, using the rivers as defensive barriers. From Quang Tri City south to the My Chanh River, approximately halfway to Hue, he had placed two Marine brigades, a Quang Tri–based RF group, and a squadron of the 1st Armor Brigade. From the My Chanh to Hue (the northern half of Thua Thien province), he placed his forces in a defensive arc facing the mountains west of Hue. He deployed a Marine brigade, a 1st Infantry Division regiment, a number of RF battalions, and a second armored squadron.

The remaining three regiments of the 1st Infantry Division defended the hill country from Hue down to the pass. The 1st Division had recently created fortifications on numerous high points to provide mutual fire support. After the heavy battles for Mo Tau and Bong Mountains during 1974, the 1st Division adjusted its tactics from a single defensive line of fortified outposts as far forward as possible, to a defense in depth. This was designed to defeat PAVN’s tactic of penetrating behind the lines to attack unit headquarters.

Previously, Thi also controlled the Airborne Division, but after the battles in late 1974, Lieutenant General Ngo Quang Truong, the I Corps commander, had left two Airborne brigades at Thuong Duc to defend Danang’s western flank. This forced Thi to shift a Marine brigade off the ceasefire line to replace the Airborne north of Hue. The third Airborne brigade guarded the Hai Van Pass. Thi held the 15th Ranger Group in reserve.

On Truong’s central front, with the Airborne in western Quang Nam, Major General Nguyen Duy Hinh’s 3rd Division moved south to protect the rest of the province. Since I Corps intelligence believed that PAVN intended to strike here in the spring of 1975, Truong pulled the 12th Ranger Group from Quang Ngai and positioned it in northern Quang Tin. The 11th Ranger Group and the badly battered 14th Ranger Group would concentrate on expected attacks on Truong’s southern front, Quang Ngai province. This left only local RF to defend Tien Phuoc in central Quang Tin, the site of fierce battles in 1974. Since the Quang Tin RF were among the best in I Corps, they rarely received outside help. This was a gap that PAVN would fully exploit.

In addition to his infantry and armor, Truong had the VNAF 1st Air Division, and the Navy’s 1st Coastal Zone, which included river craft, short-range patrol vessels, and several deep-water ships. Fully expecting a major spring offensive throughout I Corps, Truong busily prepared for the onslaught by rehabilitating the units that had suffered losses during the tough fighting in 1974. His efforts were paying off, but troop morale remained poor. Low pay prevented the average soldier from adequately feeding his family. Supplies were heavily rationed, medicine and gasoline stocks were depleted, and Truong had expended a considerable portion of his artillery reserve defeating the 1974 attacks. In sum, while Truong controlled the most powerful command within the South Vietnamese military, he had few reserves, his units were under-strength, the terrain placed him at a tremendous disadvantage, and his firepower was drastically reduced.

In comparison, Hanoi had also put its heaviest troop concentration in northern South Vietnam. PAVN had two major commands in the I Corps Forward area: the 2nd Corps and the B-4 Front. The 2nd Corps was made up of the 304th, 324th, and 325th Divisions, an air-defense division, the 203rd Tank Brigade, and artillery, engineer, and signal brigades. The B-4 Front had three independent regiments and eight local-force battalions. South of the Hai Van Pass, the Communists had major elements of the B-1 Front. These included the 2nd Division in the southern portion of Quang Nam, the 52nd Brigade in Quang Ngai, and almost a dozen independent local-force battalions. In addition, the B-1 Front contained a division equivalent at Thuong Duc, in the form of the two 304th Division regiments and one 324th Division regiment that had taken the town in August 1974.

Strategically, Truong readied for two contingencies. In December 1974, the JGS had predicted that Hanoi’s main goals in I Corps for 1975 were to occupy the balance of Quang Tri province and isolate Hue and Danang by cutting Route 1 at the Hai Van Pass. If the Communists attacked with the same forces they had used in 1974, Truong believed he could defeat them.² But if the North Vietnamese reinforced the northern front with several strategic-reserve divisions, which it appeared they were doing, then Truong would retreat into a concentrated defense around Hue. If his central and southern fronts also collapsed, he would withdraw into enclaves centered on Danang and the Chu Lai peninsula in southern Quang Tin province. Chu Lai was the site of the ARVN 2nd Division headquarters, and it had a large airfield and nearby port facilities.

Withdrawing into enclaves around the major cities was exactly the plan Hanoi feared. The PAVN planners worried that if ARVN could concentrate its manpower and firepower around strong defensive positions, it would prove costly to break through. On the other hand, what Truong dreaded was Hanoi’s dispatching its strategic-reserve divisions to dramatically alter the current balance of power. In November 1974, Truong’s suspicions spiked upward when ARVN spies reported that the 308th Division had arrived from North Vietnam. In January, signals intelligence picked up hints that a second strategic-reserve unit, the 341st Division, had moved into Quang Tri province to replace the 325th Division along the ceasefire line.³ These reports, although unsubstantiated, seemed to confirm the JGS analysis that Quang Tri was Hanoi’s primary spring objective.

Overall, Truong’s G-2 (intelligence chief) predicted that the enemy would make piecemeal assaults in each province until all PAVN units were engaged. Attacks at first would be strong but brief, building to a crescendo by late April or early May. The G-2’s analysis was based upon two main factors. First, PAVN units had also taken heavy casualties during 1974. It would take time to rebuild the units and position new supplies. Second, the weather remained nasty. Normally the rainy season in central Vietnam slackens in January, but this year the rains continued into February. Flooding delayed the start of the offensive, as Communist units engaged in road repair, food production, and training.

PAVN’s offensive in I Corps was intended to tie down the two South Vietnamese strategic-reserve divisions, particularly the Airborne, so that Saigon could not shift them to the Central Highlands. However, there were no direct attacks planned against either elite unit, and the various North Vietnamese histories are silent on exactly how PAVN’s forces would prevent the Airborne’s departure. Perhaps General Giap believed that if his forces threatened a vital target such as Hue, ARVN would be forced to commit the Airborne and the Marines. PAVN would thereby succeed in tying down these units without incurring the risk of directly attacking them. Regardless, it is an interesting exception to Giap’s strategy, one that perhaps reveals his true evaluation of his army’s strength.

While Giap did not believe his troops could liberate all of Quang Tri and Thua Thien until 1976, he hoped that by aggressively attacking, he might get a lucky break. His goals included destroying a significant portion of ARVN’s manpower, capturing part of the lowlands, and gaining control of a large proportion of the rural population. Giap’s plan also called for a major attack in Quang Tin. In March 1975 he massed his regulars against the RF, hoping for a quick victory to seize this vital area. The entire PAVN 2nd Division and the 52nd Brigade would shift from their normal operating areas in Quang Nam and Quang Ngai and converge on Tien Phuoc, with the ultimate goal of capturing Tam Ky. Quang Ngai local forces would launch supporting attacks to tie down the ARVN 2nd Division and prevent its reinforcing Quang Tin.

In overall design, it was a repeat of the 1974 plan, only with superior numbers attacking the same positions simultaneously instead of consecutively as they had done the previous year. The General Staff assumed direct control over both the 2nd Corps and the B-4 Front. Giap also assigned a new 2nd Corps commander, Major General Nguyen Huu An, who had just returned from a military school in Russia. He was one of PAVN’s best combat leaders, and his promotion would prove instrumental in Hanoi’s eventual success. He had risen through the ranks from private to major general, always on the military rather than the political-officer side of the chain of command. He had been a battalion commander in the 1950 Border Campaign, and then a regimental commander at Dien Bien Phu. He later commanded the 325th Division during the unit’s infiltration from North Vietnam in late 1964 and early 1965. He was the field commander during the famous Ia Drang battle at Landing Zones X-Ray and Albany in November 1965, and then commanded the PAVN 1st Division in the Central Highlands. He was then sent to Laos in 1968 to become the commander of the 308th Division. He fought in Laos during Lam Son 719, and was then detached to command the PAVN offensive in the Plain of Jars. When the Easter Offensive bogged down, An was brought back to take over the 308th Division, leading it against the South Vietnamese counteroffensive until the Paris Peace Agreement was signed.

After receiving Giap’s strategic guidance, the 2nd Corps and B-4 Front drew up a plan to combine forces and attack northern Thua Thien. Their goal was to penetrate and then hold part of the lowlands. Logistics teams began stockpiling supplies for an attack, and reconnaissance troops were dispatched to scout ARVN positions. In early February a group of senior officers traveled to Hanoi to gain Giap’s approval for their plan.

However, after several days of discussions, the plan was rejected. The rationale was straightforward: the Marine defenses in northern Thua Thien were simply too stout. A new plan called for the 2nd Corps to instead shift south and attack the hill country below Hue. The 324th Division would attack the same positions it had attacked the previous year, the Bong Mountain/Mo Tau area. From the hilltops in both areas, PAVN could bring artillery to bear on Route 1 and Hue’s main airport, Phu Bai, effectively shutting them down and isolating I Corps Forward except by sea. The 325th Division would secretly depart the ceasefire line in Quang Tri and occupy the right flank of the 324th Division. It would assault the hills near the Truoi River, closer to the Hai Van Pass. This multi-division thrust would be the primary sector for the entire Quang Tri/Thua Thien battlefield. Although both divisions sought to destroy ARVN units, the 325th’s main mission was to cut Route 1. At the same time, the B-4 Front would draw Truong’s attention to northern Quang Tri by means of a feint. Afterwards, it would attack northern Thua Thien to prevent ARVN from reinforcing the defenders south of Hue.

Giap’s forces in I Corps would attack in two phases. Phase One would occur from March to early May. It was timed to coincide with the attacks in II Corps, and so the opening date was critical: no later than 5 March. Phase Two would last from July to August. Each phase required two plans: a Basic Plan and an Opportunity Plan. The Basic Plan was the main concept, while the Opportunity Plan was in case of a sudden breakthrough. The opening blows would be sapper attacks against supply facilities and bridges. Giap also ordered that no tanks or heavy artillery, the deadly 122-mm and 130-mm cannons, could participate in the first phase. Giap needed to husband his remaining heavy weapons for the final attacks.

Using the same strategy as in the Central Highlands, Giap decided to secretly reposition a combat unit from the northern portion of the theater—in this case, Quang Tri province—south to what he viewed as a more weakly defended area. Just as surreptitiously infiltrating the 316th and 341st Divisions from the strategic reserve into South Vietnam was a major factor in Hanoi’s successful spring offensive, shifting the 325th Division south within I Corps was another. ARVN had barely contained an attack by the 324th Division in the hill country in the summer of 1974. If a second division was added, the two would almost certainly prove unstoppable. Giap’s movement of the 325th Division from northern Quang Tri to south of Hue had a tremendous impact on the tactical situation in I Corps Forward. He achieved this advantage not by reinforcement from the strategic reserve, as Truong feared, but by maneuver. Giap’s stratagem enabled him to use his reserve divisions on other battlefields, thus affecting theaters across the country.

Giap’s instructions regarding the change, however, were not transmitted until early February, and since the attack date was 5 March, the short time frame created major difficulties for his frontline units. According to Major General Nguyen Huu An, “The problem we faced was that . . . we had only thirty days from the time we received our orders until the time we were to open fire, and in that period we had to virtually begin our campaign preparations from scratch. All our previous logistics preparations had been focused on [northern Thua Thien]. Now all these supplies had to be loaded onto the shoulders of our transportation troops and carried up and down scores of steep, muddy mountain slopes.”⁴

As the PAVN 2nd Corps engineers began to carve rough roads out of the rocky terrain to move vehicles, heavy weapons, and supplies to the new front, Major General An decided it would be impossible to meet the attack deadline. The 325th Division needed time to reposition, and the corps did not have enough supplies stored in the area south of Hue to support two divisions. Despite Giap’s orders to open fire on 5 March, Nguyen Huu An decided to have the 324th open fire on 10 March, followed three weeks later by the 325th.

On 26 February An’s deputy, Major General Hoang Dan, arrived in Hanoi to brief Giap and Deputy Chief of Staff Le Trong Tan on the changes. Although the basic design was quickly approved, when Tan heard about the proposed delay, he exploded in anger: “With a major campaign of strategic significance that is being coordinated with many other battle-fields, do you think that you can start your attacks any time you want? If you delay the start of your attacks the enemy may send the airborne division to the southern Central Highlands, which will shatter our campaign in the primary theater of operations! Then what will happen to our General Offensive? After all the times we have brought you up here to attend the meetings, all the representatives we have sent down to disseminate our plans to you, and all the reminder cables we have sent, is it possible that you still do not understand this?”⁵

Despite Tan’s outburst and the compelling strategic needs, the logistics were immutable. Dan tried to explain that the 2nd Corps had to provide food and ammunition for four infantry regiments plus support troops while moving supplies and artillery in difficult terrain in the midst of terrible weather. A compromise was reached: The B-4 Front would open fire by itself on 5 March in Quang Tri to draw ARVN’s attention. On D-Day + 3, one 324th Division regiment and two B-4 Front regiments would assault Mo Tau and other nearby hills. On D-Day + 21, one regiment of the 325th Division would commence an assault on the 324th’s right flank.

As Dan prepared to leave, Giap called him back to forcefully reiterate the time schedule. He told Dan, “Remember that this campaign is not like previous campaigns. You people down there may be able to use new ideas to fight really well and over-fulfill the goals set by the plan. However, you must also remember that there is absolutely no flexibility on those elements that the General Staff has laid down in our instructions, and you must follow them to the letter.”⁶ Dan got the point: Open fire on schedule.

By early March the 2nd Corps had completed a road that vehicles could traverse, and built more than fifty miles of side roads to a number of hills along both sides of the Truoi River. It was an impressive engineering feat under tough conditions. As Major General An later wrote, “Do you think that, with a brand-new dirt road and the constant late-season rains, with people and vehicles constantly moving up and down these roads, that there would be problems? You are right! There was mud, mud, and more mud. People were always ankle-deep in mud, and vehicles moved as slow as tortoises, often spinning their wheels and forcing the troops to get out and push. 105-mm howitzers . . . had to traverse grades of between 20 and 40 degrees in a driving rain. Only with the help of infantry troops was the artillery finally able to move its guns into position. The problems we had moving the guns into place were just as bad as anything we faced at Dien Bien Phu.”⁷

To implement Giap’s plan to draw ARVN’s attention northward, on 5 March PAVN held a large-scale field exercise near Cua Viet to give the impression of an impending offensive. The B-4 Front shifted troops around, and it sent out tracked vehicles to drive through a number of areas. To deceive allied signals intelligence, the B-4 Front commander ordered the 46th Regiment (an independent unit in North Vietnam) to use “the unit code designation of the 308th Division in its communications. Regimental cadres sent out to reconnoiter the terrain all used the radio unit code designations of the different regiments of the 308th Division. At the command level, the Military Region Headquarters sent messages over its communications channel as if it was commanding an important sector in a real offensive campaign.”⁸

Various Communist histories claim that the field-exercise feint achieved its purpose, since RVNAF forces were not shifted south to bolster the hill country. Yet no South Vietnamese account even mentions it, and U.S. records barely discuss any activity in this area. It may have been ignored or may have simply gone unnoticed. More effective was the 46th Regiment’s fake radio messages, as the possible presence of the 308th Division deeply concerned the ARVN commanders. Both I Corps deputy commanders wrote in their memoirs that when PAVN forces attacked across the Thach Han River on 19 March, they were led by the 308th. Others, including Generals Cao Van Vien and Ngo Quang Truong, believed it was the 341st Division. It was neither. The 308th remained in the Hanoi area, and the 341st was in III Corps. In fact, the PAVN units that came across the Thach Han River were Quang Tri provincial forces, supported by armor. But even the radio fakery was not particularly effective. Just as he had done in late 1974, Lieutenant General Thi eventually stripped the Thach Han River line of all but Regional Forces and Rangers, daring Hanoi to breach the ceasefire line.

In early March, when sappers destroyed an ARVN 3rd Division ammunition dump and damaged the critical An Lo Bridge over the Bo River north of Hue, Truong was convinced that PAVN’s spring offensive was imminent. But the South Vietnamese, tied down defending large tracts of land, could only sit in their bunkers and wait for the coming PAVN onslaught.

THE ATTACKS BEGIN

In accordance with Giap’s orders, the B-4 Front infiltrated sappers, political cadres, and five infantry battalions into the lowlands. After conducting the fake field exercise near Cua Viet, the 9th Regiment, 304th Division, departed for Thuong Duc on 6 March. It would replace the 324th Division regiment at Thuong Duc, and that regiment would shift north to take part in the attacks in the hill country. Major General An wanted the 324th at full strength, hoping he could chew up the ARVN 1st Division and make it easier for the 325th Division to break through to Route 1.

On 8 March Communist local forces made a series of attacks across Quang Tri and Thua Thien. In northern Quang Tri, most RF positions held, but one outpost was destroyed, allowing Communist forces to penetrate into the area east of Route 1. Fifteen hamlets were seized, but hard-fighting Quang Tri Regional Forces drove the Communist troops out in two days. In northern Thua Thien, North Vietnamese gains were slight, except for one major target, Hill 51, which was overrun after a stiff fight. Defended by a lone Marine platoon, it was attacked by the B-4 Front’s 4th Regiment. Although the Marines repulsed several assaults, by late afternoon the North Vietnamese troops had penetrated their bunkers. About to be overrun, the Marine lieutenant in charge called for an artillery strike directly on his own position. He was killed, but his unit’s stalwart defense delayed the PAVN advance, and enabled the 4th Marine Battalion to counterattack the next day. Using pinpoint air strikes, the Marines crushed the Communists, killing over one hundred and capturing numerous weapons.

Southeast of Hue, two Communist local-force battalions penetrated behind ARVN lines and moved to the coast. Their mission was to annihilate the governmental structure in the area. The North Vietnamese marched into several villages and called on the people to rise up against their “oppressors.” The population immediately rejected the Communists’ appeals. Lieutenant General Thi organized a task force to regain the lost territory, and the ARVN counterattack destroyed one battalion and mauled the other.

Overall, the initial Communist efforts in Quang Tri ended in dismal failure. By 12 March, the survivors had withdrawn back into the mountains. The Communist forces’ only meaningful accomplishment was that the fighting in northern Quang Tri caused a hundred thousand civilians— approximately half the population—to flee to Hue. Entire villages fled. Fifty thousand people had arrived in Hue by 10 March, and another fifty thousand arrived the next day. About twenty thousand people from Thua Thien ran to Danang. Both city governments moved quickly to assist this massive influx of people. The Vietnamese Red Cross began distributing food, while other volunteer and government agencies worked to provide shelter and medical care. These various agencies efficiently assisted the refugees, but despite the authorities’ urgings, most people refused to return to their homes. While they were reassured by the effective military response to the attacks, they remained terrified of the Communists. The North Vietnamese 1972 shelling of retreating civilians on Route 1 heading south from Quang Tri City, nicknamed “The Highway of Death,” and the 1968 massacre in Hue remained fresh in their minds.

South of Hue, the time for the 2nd Corps to open fire had arrived. Despite tremendous efforts by Nguyen Huu An’s logistics teams, the corps could provide only about 50 percent of the necessary campaign supplies. Regardless, An ordered the 324th Division to attack. On 8 March, two regiments from the division struck ARVN positions on Mo Tau, while two B-4 Front regiments attacked several other important hills. The fighting was ferocious. Time and again PAVN troops charged ARVN defenses. Mo Tau was overrun, but numerous air strikes, some coordinated personally by Lieutenant General Thi, enabled a counterattack to regain the hill.

After two days of fighting, the PAVN forces’ casualties were high, and their success was minimal. Several small hills were captured, along with one major one, Hill 224, the gateway to Bong Mountain. Hill 224 dominates the north side of the Truoi River, and stands between Mo Tau and the Mom Kum Sac hills, which command the river’s south side. When a battalion of the 1st Division was overrun on Hill 224 in heavy fighting, Thi ordered a counterattack. The 1st Division soon recaptured half of Hill 224, while Mo Tau and the majority of hills remained firmly in South Vietnamese hands. In general, the 1st Division’s new defensive strategy worked perfectly, and the 324th was driven back with heavy losses.

On Truong’s other fronts, North Vietnamese forces were quiet in the central sector, but attacks were successful at ARVN’s weakest point, the RF defending the district town of Tien Phuoc. After secretly massing the entire PAVN 2nd Division plus major elements of the 52nd Brigade from Quang Ngai, they attacked at 12:30 A.M. on 10 March. By 4:00 P.M., they had shattered the RF defenses and captured the town. The survivors pulled back to regroup on the main road heading to Tam Ky.

On 11 March Brigadier General Tran Van Nhut, the ARVN 2nd Division commander, hurried to Tam Ky from Quang Ngai to make preparations for a relief operation to recapture Tien Phuoc. Truong also dispatched his reserve, the 12th Ranger Group, to reinforce Tam Ky. The next day, the 5th Regiment, 2nd Division, arrived from Quang Ngai to conduct the attack. Radio intercepts and prisoners quickly revealed the size of the North Vietnamese forces in the area, and the 5th Regiment prudently halted its attack well short of the town.

Losing Tien Phuoc was a blow, but Truong’s main concern was the hill country. Several captured B-4 Front soldiers informed their ARVN interrogators that Quang Tri local forces had replaced the 325th Division along the ceasefire line. When prisoners from the 324th Division confirmed the arrival of the 325th in the hill country south of Hue, Truong immediately took action. He realized that the 325th’s presence enabled PAVN to strike in multiple directions, either to put additional pressure on his 1st Division, to seize the Hai Van Pass, or to attack Danang from the north. On 10 March, while the PAVN 304th Division at Thuong Duc remained in its bunkers, he shifted one Airborne brigade to cover Danang’s northern approaches. He also ordered the 14th Ranger Group to depart Quang Ngai and fly to Danang to reconstitute his reserve, and moved a 3rd Division regiment to cover northern Quang Tin after the departure of the 12th Rangers.

Little did Truong know that the 304th was so badly battered from the previous year’s battle at Thuong Duc that it was incapable of operations. Only the division’s 9th Regiment, on its way from Quang Tri, was combat-ready. This was ARVN’s third intelligence breakdown in this campaign. First was the false intelligence that the 308th and/or 341st Divisions were on the ceasefire line, which caused the South Vietnamese to keep larger forces in northern Quang Tri than necessary. Next was missing the 325th Division’s southern shift. Third, the failure to accurately gauge the 304th’s status led Truong to tie down his best troops and, more importantly, affected his military decision-making. With the 304th encamped west of Danang, he believed he had to concentrate a sizable blocking force to defend his capital, and this worked to the detriment of his other fronts. While intelligence is never perfect, when combined with Thieu’s subsequent decisions and the collapse of morale, these failures led directly to the fall of I Corps.

Despite the loss of Tien Phuoc and a few positions south of Hue, after the first week of action Truong was confident that he had halted the North Vietnamese offensive. Only the looming presence of the 325th Division gave him any pause, but with his shift of the Airborne and the 14th Rangers, the situation seemed fairly secure. In the midst of this confidence, on 12 March, the JGS cabled Truong ordering him to release the Airborne Division for an immediate return to Saigon. With ARVN’s strategic reserves tied down in I Corps, the JGS needed the division to help retake Ban Me Thuot and defend Saigon. In fact, there was almost no second line of resistance around the capital.

To Truong and his commanders and staff, this order was insane. With the 325th Division poised in the hills, and the 304th Division entrenched west of Danang, removing the Airborne would strip Truong’s defenses around South Vietnam’s second-largest city. He immediately requested and was granted an audience with the president.

Arriving in Saigon on 13 March, Truong passionately tried to dissuade Thieu. Taking his best unit in the midst of an enemy offensive was folly, Truong exclaimed. Without the Airborne, he would need to shift the Marines from Quang Tri to cover his lines west of Danang. The resultant transfer of forces to protect the city meant in essence abandoning Quang Tri. Defending Hue would also prove problematic. Further, the loss of the Airborne would adversely affect military and civilian morale. The civilians were well aware that the Red Berets were essential to the region’s defense, and they would interpret the Airborne’s removal as the government giving up I Corps. The population would subsequently flee, compounding Truong’s already massive refugee problem. If Thieu’s order stood, the sweeping changes it would entail threatened to destroy I Corps.

The president, however, was adamant. Thieu explained to Truong his new strategic concept. With the severe aid cuts, and no hope of U.S. air-power to help stem the North Vietnamese attacks, his best option was to consolidate his forces, conserve his logistics, and try to survive the dry-season offensive. Afterwards, the military would prepare for what he was sure would be a major North Vietnamese offensive in 1976. Thus, he had made the decision to defend only those areas critical to the survival of South Vietnam. It was better, Thieu stated, to lose part of the country than to enter into a coalition with the Communists. Turning to a map, he outlined for Truong his vision of the future of South Vietnam. In I Corps, only Danang and the surrounding areas were to be held at all costs. All other areas, including Hue, could be abandoned to permit Truong to preserve his combat strength for Danang’s defense. Truong was ordered to develop a plan for the necessary redeployments. He would receive the newly formed 468th Marine Brigade as a replacement for the Airborne, who would start moving by 17 March.

Faced with Thieu’s refusal, Truong begged to phase the withdrawal. Once the situation was stable, he could shift forces, but rapid changes would invite panic. Thieu instead offered a compromise. Truong could stagger the movement one Airborne brigade at a time, but the entire withdrawal was to be completed by the end of March.

A devastated Truong later described Thieu’s decision to colleagues as “irrational,” and he contemplated resigning. He later wrote: “I was bitter and angry because the order was so sudden, beyond anything I ever anticipated or desired . . . although the situation in Hue, Quang Ngai, and Danang was rather serious because of the enemy’s continuous attacks, I had sufficient strength to resist and planned to send the Airborne and Marine Divisions to those areas to regain a position of superiority. I meticulously explained my ideas and my plans to the President and the Prime Minister but these ideas and plans were rejected.”⁹

Why Truong was so surprised about the Airborne’s withdrawal is a mystery. Removing Airborne units to meet a major threat to Saigon had first occurred in June 1974, when a brigade was rotated back during the Iron Triangle battle. Further planning occurred, according to General Vien, at the December 1974 National Security Council meeting, which outlined the JGS’s plans for 1975: “The I Corps was told to rearrange its forces so that the Airborne Division could be redeployed to Saigon or elsewhere within seventy-two hours.”¹⁰ That short time frame precisely fits Thieu’s subsequent order. Frank Snepp, the CIA’s main analyst in Vietnam, recounts that in February 1975, Thieu had again informed Truong to “hold [the Airborne] in reserve for a possible transfer to Saigon.”¹¹

But even though Truong knew in principle that this was a possibility, to have the withdrawal called for so hurriedly and in the midst of an enemy offensive was a severe blow. Additionally, Thieu was now changing to a Danang-only enclave from the previously-agreed-upon three-enclave plan (Hue, Danang, and Chu Lai). While Truong understood the requirement for a strategic reserve, he felt that Thieu vastly underestimated the psychological impact of rapid troop redeployments on a population that feared the Communists after years of depredations.

One other factor deeply concerned Truong. He suspected that the real reason Thieu wanted to pull the Red Berets south was to prevent a coup. With Thieu, it is often difficult to separate policy from personal motivation, since he rarely revealed his inner thoughts. But by 1975, the military had been mostly weaned from its previous coup mentality. Still, Thieu’s suspicious nature constantly was on the lookout for challengers, and the one general officer who had the national reputation to threaten the president was Truong.¹²The president’s political wariness of Truong probably affected how clearly he explained this and subsequent decisions to his general. For example, there is some confusion as to whether Thieu informed Truong that his idea was to seek a “last enclave, a beachhead along the coast that would serve as a landing area if the Americans decided to return.”¹³ He wanted to maintain this enclave so that the Americans could not say there was nowhere to land. Moreover, by concentrating three divisions and four ranger groups around Danang, Thieu hoped to lure PAVN into a set-piece battle, where ARVN’s superior firepower could inflict severe casualties on the North Vietnamese. Whether Giap would have taken the bait and mounted repeated charges against Danang is debatable. Regardless, the hasty withdrawal of the Airborne helped trigger the downfall of I Corps.

When Truong returned to his headquarters, he did not inform his subordinates of everything Thieu had told him. According to Truong’s Navy commander, Commodore Ho Van Ky Thoai, Truong was following orders. Truong told him after the war that Thieu had instructed him “to keep this information absolutely secret and not to disclose to his division commanders, province chiefs, or his Navy and Air Force commanders that we were going to abandon Central Vietnam.”¹⁴

On 14 March Truong convened a meeting with his senior officers, but, per his orders, he discussed only the withdrawal of the Airborne Division and not the enclave plan. Thieu, fearful of Communist spies, had hamstrung Truong’s ability to inform his commanders, which prevented them from making sufficient preparations for a full-scale retreat. While Truong told them to make “contingency plans” for a withdrawal to Danang, his primary directive was for them to hold their ground. He did share the full news with his chief of staff, ordering him to commence planning for a retreat into multiple enclaves, but he was unable to do much on his own. Thus, when the decision came to pull back to Danang, the ARVN retreat was a haphazard affair that immediately broke down because of thousands of panicky civilians on the road and PAVN forces pressing hard on their heels.

Despite Truong’s bitterness, he ordered the 369th Marine Brigade to depart Quang Tri and replace one of the Airborne brigades at Thuong Duc. The 258th Marine Brigade and the Marine Division headquarters would shortly follow and replace the other Airborne unit. Truong also ordered Lieutenant General Thi to ship his 175-mm artillery battalion and an M-48 tank company to Danang, along with engineering equipment and ammunition stocks.

Thi was extremely upset about the loss of the two elite brigades. He did not believe he could hold Hue against a determined enemy thrust without them, and asked that Truong do the utmost to secure Route 1. Otherwise, he would be cut off. In response, Truong altered the Marine redeployment and shifted forces to help Thi. In return for the 369th Marine Brigade, Truong gave Thi the 14th Ranger Group. He left the 147th Marine Brigade and Marine deputy division commander, Colonel Nguyen Thanh Tri, north of Hue. Truong also put the 258th Marine Brigade headquarters and one battalion on the Hue side of the Hai Van Pass, while another battalion remained near Hue. The third battalion went with the 369th Marine Brigade to Thuong Duc. Not until the 468th Marine Brigade arrived from Saigon on 21 March did he shift the 258th Marine Brigade headquarters into Quang Nam province.

While Truong was still digesting Thieu’s order, the PAVN 324th Division resumed the assault. The fighting was especially ferocious at Hill 224. Over several days, control shifted back and forth. ARVN artillery and air strikes pummeled the PAVN troop concentrations, and by 16 March ARVN counterattacks had recaptured the entire peak. While the surrounding hills remained in enemy hands, supply problems prevented the 324th from launching further attacks.

Meanwhile, in Quang Ngai province, low-level fighting continued, but neither side could make any headway. On 13 March, noticing the pullout of the 14th Rangers and the 5th Regiment, local Communist forces pushed forward. By 16 March they were pressing toward Quang Ngai City, forcing back a regiment of the 2nd Division. To shorten his lines, Truong ordered the abandonment of two western districts in Quang Ngai, hoping that he could use the troops to strengthen his defenses along Route 1. Truong supervised the air evacuation of one ranger battalion and numerous civilians from one of those districts. Over two days, some 2,500 GVN civil servants and their families were rescued.

Late on 16 March, the 14th Rangers arrived in Quang Tri and replaced the 369th Marine Brigade along the Thach Han River on the western side of Route 1. The 14th Rangers were badly under-strength; they had roughly 1,400 soldiers present for duty (out of a full complement of 2,324), with an average strength of less than 300 men per battalion (out of 683). They were replacing a full-strength, 3,500-man Marine brigade. The Rangers put one battalion on the river and another facing the mountains, and held one in reserve. The next day, the 258th Marine Brigade departed from the eastern side of Route 1, leaving only the Quang Tri RF group to continue defending the area. The last Marine brigade, the 147th, remained dug in northwest of Hue. Once again Thi had deliberately placed his weakest units on the ceasefire line, gambling that the North Vietnamese would not cross it.

On 15 March Nguyen Huu An held a staff meeting to evaluate the campaign. While An was pleased that his units had overrun an ARVN infantry battalion on Hill 224 and captured a few other hills, he was jubilant that his units had opened fire exactly on schedule. Yet despite the importance he placed on accomplishing Giap’s prime directive, An was no political hack. He admitted that “our concrete achievements were not impressive” and that, because of a host of problems, “the corps’s combat efficiency during this phase of the operation was low.”¹⁵ Many on his staff recommended that he employ the 325th Division to assist the 324th in its attacks, but he decided against that move. Instead, he directed the 325th to stick to the original plan and open fire on 21 March against ARVN units in the Mom Kum Sac hills south of the Truoi River. He informed Giap of his decisions, and then went to the 325th’s headquarters to inspect its combat preparations. His refusal to adjust his plans, despite the real difficulties the 324th had encountered in penetrating ARVN defenses, would prove critical.

On the night of 15 March, PAVN strategic intelligence reported to Giap that the 14th Rangers had shifted to Danang. Although Giap was focused on the Central Highlands, upon studying the Rangers’ movement, combined with the pullout from Pleiku, he now discerned a pattern. He suspected ARVN was retreating into the long-feared enclaves. He immediately ordered new attacks in I Corps to prevent an enclave from forming at Danang. On 17 March he cabled Nguyen Huu An to shift to the Opportunity Plan: liberate Hue, the rest of Thua Thien, and Quang Tri now. Giap wrote: “The situation is developing quickly and the big opportunity is arriving sooner than we had anticipated. The enemy is now being forced to deal with our attacks . . . and he has begun to carry out strategic withdrawals and regrouping. Tri-Thien must intensify its operations on all fronts. Specifically, step up your attacks from the west against the enemy’s regular army units, cut off and strategically divide Hue from Danang, [and] boldly send forces down into the lowlands to . . . push in the enemy’s defensive blocking lines.”¹⁶

On 18 March, Giap received more vital intelligence. North Vietnamese spies reported that the Airborne was withdrawing to Saigon. Giap’s attention was now riveted on I Corps. Noticing the very thin ARVN defenses along the Thach Han, Giap’s staff concluded that the South Vietnamese were abandoning Quang Tri province. As soon as the morning staff meeting was over, Giap sent a cable to the two PAVN commands. They were instructed “to take immediate and daring action. [B-4] must immediately send forces down into the lowlands and intensify operations deep within the lowland area. You are to send not just battalions, but . . . entire regiments to . . . attack.”¹⁷ In ordering the B-4 Front to attack across the cease-fire line, Giap had just called Lieutenant General Thi’s bluff.

Later that day, the PAVN commanders received a second important message. It provided the intelligence on current South Vietnamese plans, and outlined Giap’s main strategy: “In Danang the Airborne Division is being withdrawn to Saigon. The Airborne will be replaced by the Marine Division. It is possible that the enemy will abandon the area from north of Hue to the Thach Han River. These redeployments are part of a major retrenchment and strategic withdrawal plan for all South Vietnam. Because the situation is currently so advantageous for us, you all must direct the units under your command boldly and urgently. You must not allow the enemy to abandon the area north of Hue, withdraw his forces safely, and bring all their people, including civilian reactionaries, back to make their stand in Danang, because if they are able to do that we will run into problems. You must quickly attack down to Route 1, cut the road and attack the airfield and supply warehouses and facilities at Phu Bai.”¹⁸

In less than a week, Giap had become privy to the single most important piece of the South Vietnamese government’s strategy. This critical information gave him a rare opportunity to adapt his tactics, and he took full advantage. On 18 March the Politburo met to assess the situation. Giap’s speech outlined his belief that ARVN was pulling back into enclaves and that it was crucial to push hard now in order to prevent this. Strongly supported by Le Duan, he recommended that his armies attempt to conquer the South in 1975, and that Saigon be made the primary direction of attack. However, while Saigon remained the ultimate prize, the first goal would be to destroy the RVNAF forces in I Corps and liberate Hue and Danang.

While the Politburo was making these far-reaching decisions, the sudden and unexplained shift of the Marines from Quang Tri had brought about precisely what Truong had dreaded: the remaining civilians became demoralized and immediately left their hamlets and villages. On the morning of 17 March, a new wave of refugees reached Hue bearing news of the Marines’ abrupt departure. And it was not only the civilians who were affected. Lieutenant General Thi noted that “The Marines’ departure had a devastating effect on the courage and morale of the RF units.”¹⁹ The Quang Tri RF troops, who had fought superbly two weeks earlier against the first enemy incursions, now felt abandoned. Moreover, rumors that the GVN was preparing to cede much of I Corps to the Communists began to spread. The outlines of Thieu’s truncation plan had leaked out, and had morphed into a nefarious “secret deal” to discard part of the country. Many South Vietnamese were convinced this had been arranged by the superpowers. When people learned of the withdrawals from Kontum and Pleiku beginning on 15 March, the rumors were only reinforced. That night and into the next morning, a flood of people headed for Danang. Massive numbers of civilian vehicles flowed south on Route 1, and the civil governments in Quang Tri and Hue crumbled as many officials evacuated.

Truong called Prime Minister Khiem every day to plead for help in coping with the refugee problem. With the roads jammed with civilians, Truong was losing the ability to maneuver his forces. He told Khiem it was already almost impossible to execute Thieu’s order to withdraw via Route 1 into an enclave around Danang. On 17 March Truong tried to set up checkpoints at the Hai Van Pass to control the flow of refugees into Danang, but traffic immediately backed up. Truong feared the Communists would shell the road as they did in 1972, so for humanitarian reasons he opened the checkpoints. Consequently, Danang became terribly overcrowded. People slept on the sidewalks, and food and sanitation were becoming serious issues.

Given this news, Thieu ordered Khiem and the entire Cabinet to make an inspection tour of I and II Corps. They arrived at Danang the morning of 18 March. Truong assembled his staff, the province chiefs, and senior military officers to brief Khiem. Before the main meeting, Truong gave the prime minister an update on the military situation. He warned him that North Vietnamese attacks against Hue and Danang were imminent, while upwards of a half-million refugees were heading toward Danang. Shocked, Khiem ordered Truong to report directly to Thieu the next day.

Beginning the meeting, the province chiefs took turns describing the difficult refugee situation. Several recommended that Thieu issue a statement denying the rumors of a secret deal, and that military dependents be evacuated so that the soldiers could fight without worrying about their families. The province chiefs also informed the prime minister that upwards of 350,000 people wanted to leave I Corps. Khiem promised he would arrange for sea transportation, but he claimed he needed four days to arrange for the ships. He promised to appoint a special group of Cabinet ministers, headed by Deputy Prime Minister Phan Quang Dan, to deal with the refugees and plan for their movement south.

Despite Khiem’s promises, little was subsequently accomplished. Instead of remaining in Danang and assisting, he and the Cabinet immediately departed, although Khiem stopped off at Nha Trang to meet with Major General Phu and assess the situation in II Corps. Afterwards, Khiem returned to Saigon. While he has rightly received much criticism for the government’s lackadaisical response, Khiem did keep one promise. Within a day, Deputy Prime Minister Dan, whose work in resettling the refugees from the 1972 offensive is a significant but overlooked accomplishment of Thieu’s government, was appointed to solve this new refugee problem. Dan immediately began working to move people out of Danang.

After meeting with Khiem, Truong flew to Hue. Gathering various religious, political, and civic leaders together, he outlined the critical military situation and asked for their help in defending the city and coping with the refugees. They wholeheartedly agreed, but stated that the refugee situation was growing worse by the hour. They urged that something be done to give the people some hope. The eager response from the Hue civilian leaders convinced Truong that the city could be defended. It was the best way to stem the refugee problem. If the people saw that the military intended to fight, they would be less likely to flee. Truong decided to “do everything in my power to hold Hue and I Corps. . . . How could I abandon this rocky soil that so many of my comrades-in-arms had shed their blood to defend, especially during the 1968 Tet Offensive?”²⁰ Truong had commanded the 1st Division during the Tet Offensive, and his stalwart fight for the city had earned him the admiration of the citizens of Hue and Thua Thien province. Still, a cautious Truong called Khiem that night to inform him that the earlier estimate of 350,000 people who wished to leave I Corps was too low.

Following Khiem’s order to report directly to Thieu, Truong flew to Saigon again on 19 March to brief the president on the withdrawal plans he had developed. Truong offered two options: either a retreat north and south along Route 1 to Danang, or a pullback into enclaves centered on Hue, Chu Lai, and Quang Ngai City, and then a withdrawal by sea. Since refugees already jammed Route 1, the enclave/sea withdrawal was the better option. In particular, it was Truong’s judgment that a withdrawal from Hue by road was already impossible. Truong recommended defending the enclaves as long as possible, and then withdrawing to Danang if the pressure became too great. He would give up Chu Lai and Quang Ngai first, and only then Hue. Truong especially wanted to fight for Hue, as he had good defenses around the city. One also suspects the city held great significance for him after the fierce battles in February 1968 to retake it from the Communist forces.

Both General Vien and President Thieu recommended a different plan. They wanted Truong to withdraw in successive phases toward Danang, as Thieu believed that PAVN would make a strong effort to cut Route 1 at the Hai Van Pass. Vien did not believe that the Navy had enough ships to supply three enclaves simultaneously. It was his way of saying he did not believe Truong could hold both Hue and Danang. Prime Minister Khiem and Vice President Huong were more forthright. They recommended abandoning Hue. But despite their opposition to Truong’s plan, Thieu agreed to let him defend Hue. In supporting his commander, Thieu went against his own instincts and the counsel of his senior advisors. However, he warned Truong that if he could not hold Hue, Route 1 and the Hai Van Pass must remain open so that the 1st Division could safely withdraw to Danang. Thieu also promised to make a TV and radio broadcast that night to reassure his people.

Before leaving, Truong asked Thieu about the government’s plans for the Marine Division. A Marine withdrawal would drastically influence his own plans, and he needed to know. Thieu now faced a remarkable moment of his presidency. Would he inform Truong that he intended to strip him of his best remaining troops at the exact moment the enemy was about to strike? According to General Vien, Thieu flinched from this difficult decision. Although Vien acknowledges that Thieu was in an “excruciating position,” he states that Thieu denied that there were plans being drafted to recall the Marines. Thieu simply told Truong to “hold onto whatever territory he could with whatever forces he had now.”²¹

Truong, however, was well aware of Thieu’s propensity for giving generalized instructions and expecting his subordinates to work out the details. Truong wanted clear-cut instructions that he could implement, while Thieu wanted to give strategic direction and then let his general determine how to implement his decisions. The circumstances were eerily similar to the meeting with Pham Van Phu at Cam Ranh Bay. Although Phu claimed he was instructed to withdraw from Kontum/Pleiku within three days, Thieu (and Vien) later claimed the timing and planning were left to Phu’s discretion. Regardless, it was another miscommunication that contributed to the destruction of the Republic of Vietnam.

Returning to Danang that evening, Truong received an urgent phone call from Lieutenant General Thi. He reported that at 3:00 A.M. PAVN forces had attacked across the Thach Han River in Quang Tri. Although Thi and others believed the attackers were the 308th Division, in reality only one local sapper battalion had crossed the river, while three Quang Tri local-force battalions attacked from the mountains. In any case, the two defending Ranger battalions were quickly engulfed in heavy fighting. At daybreak, another local PAVN unit and four T-54 tanks of the 203rd Armor Brigade pushed southward along the coast undetected and reached a point six miles behind ARVN lines. An RF unit finally spotted and reported the vehicles, and then fled. So did many of the remaining Quang Tri regional troops. With their families and the Marines gone, and nothing but deserted villages all around them, they had little to fight for. Facing no opposition, the PAVN column turned inland and slowly headed for the district town of Hai Lang, which sits on Route 1 south of Quang Tri City. The 14th Ranger headquarters was positioned in Hai Lang, and if the armor reached it, the Rangers would be overrun.

Colonel Nguyen Thanh Tri, the Marine deputy commander and the commander of Lieutenant General Thi’s northern front, requested air strikes to destroy the armor, but none were available. At 4:00 P.M. the PAVN column seized the former headquarters of the 258th Marine Brigade, less than two miles from Hai Lang. Meanwhile, the 14th Ranger commander reported that he had lost contact with his units along the Thach Han, and that Communist troops had captured Quang Tri City. With his flanks crumbling, Tri ordered the Rangers and the Quang Tri RF to retreat and take up defensive positions along the My Chanh River. He also ordered the 7th Marine Battalion, 258th Brigade—currently sitting at the Thuan An port outside of Hue awaiting ships to withdraw to Danang—to halt its redeployment. The Marine battalion would bolster the RF defenses along the My Chanh on the eastern side of Route 1.

During the 1972 offensive, the North Vietnamese lost the cream of their army trying to conquer Quang Tri province. After three months of terrible fighting in 1972, ARVN finally halted the PAVN advance at the My Chanh River. ARVN then spent another three months and thousands of casualties recapturing half of the province and Quang Tri City. This was the most blood-drenched, bomb-wracked, fiercely contested land in all of Vietnam. Now the Communists had retaken it in just one day. When combined with news reports about the horrific retreat from the Central Highlands, the loss of Quang Tri crushed South Vietnamese morale.

After receiving a report on the disastrous developments from Lieutenant General Thi, Truong called the president. He recommended that Thieu hold off on his speech about defending Hue until Truong could better understand the situation. Truong further asked to retain the last Airborne brigade until 31 March. This would give the population some confidence that the government intended to defend the land. Thieu agreed, but on the condition that the Airborne not be used in combat.

At dawn the next morning, Truong flew to see Thi and his subordinate commanders. Truong informed them that Hue would be defended at all costs. His officers responded that they could hold. Despite the setback in Quang Tri and sporadic artillery fire hitting Hue, their positive attitude buoyed Truong. Still, he ordered Thi to prepare contingency plans for a retreat to Danang by the Marines and the 1st Division if the situation became too difficult.

Despite Truong’s caution, Thieu went ahead with his speech on 20 March. Speaking on the radio, the president was short on specifics. Mentioning that ARVN had faced “four to one odds” at Ban Me Thuot, he did not reveal that he personally had ordered the retreat from the Central Highlands. He simply said that “to preserve their strength and create conditions for more effective combat in the present stage . . . our armed forces did not defend Kontum and Pleiku cities.”²² Yet even with the situation at Hue still unclear, he stated, “We are determined to defend our territory until the end. Reports about the abandonment of Thua Thien, Dalat, and other localities are nothing but completely false, groundless rumors aimed at sowing confusion among the people.” Concluding with a plea for the people to rally, he unfortunately offered no solutions other than that he had instructed the “government to take emergency measures to meet the requirements of the situation.” Unfortunately, Thieu’s speech had little effect on troop morale or the refugees. Whatever his intent, he had not delivered the forceful denunciation of a secret deal to partition the land that civilians and the military alike needed to raise their morale. Thieu had missed an opportunity to give his countrymen some hope.

Feeling that the situation was difficult but still tenable, Truong returned to Danang that night. Upon arriving at his headquarters, he found a cable from the JGS awaiting him. The message, flown to Danang by special courier, was a bombshell. It stated: “Limited air and naval resources available are only sufficient to support one enclave. You are therefore to conduct a delaying action by withdrawing to the Hai Van Pass if the situation permits.”²³ Despite the earlier agreement with Thieu to fight for Hue, a stunned Truong interpreted the cable to mean that he was to abandon the city and retreat to Danang. Shortly thereafter, a second cable arrived from JGS countermanding Thieu’s permission to retain the Airborne brigade. Enormously upset, Truong penned a quick reply to General Vien: “I feel weak and confused. I am afraid I am not capable of carrying out my duties. I request that you accept my resignation, and ‘That is all.’”²⁴

After receiving Truong’s resignation cable, Thieu immediately clarified his message. His intent had been to provide Truong the flexibility to deal with the situation, not to give the impression that he had abruptly changed his mind about Hue. Thieu had the JGS send a clarification to the original message: “To put it more accurately, when the situation so demands and conditions allow this to be carried out in a timely manner.”²⁵

While temporarily mollified, Truong knew he still faced major difficulties. The worst problem was the 300,000 refugees who had already poured into Danang, with another 500,000 on the way. His troops had also suffered; in the two weeks from 5 to 19 March, I Corps had lost 334 dead, 1,427 wounded, and 236 missing in action. The Air Force had flown over five hundred sorties and lost two airplanes to ground fire. Over 200,000 artillery shells had been fired, the highest amount since March 1973.²⁶ At that rate, serious shortages would soon appear. By comparison with the 200,000 artillery rounds ARVN had fired, the North Vietnamese claim that “thanks to economy measures and scraping together our reserve stocks for two years, we had about 40,000 rounds. During Phase One of the campaign we had used only 85-mm, 100-mm, and 122-mm guns. The number of 122-mm and 130-mm shells used during Phase One was insignificant, and these rounds were being saved for use when a major opportunity developed.”²⁷ Despite the huge disadvantage in the number of shells, ARVN reports repeatedly mention the improved accuracy over 1972 of the PAVN gunners. Part of the reason is that the Communist gunners were no longer under repeated air attack and counter-battery fire.

Overall, Truong found himself roughly in the same situation now as at the start of the attacks: waiting for the next blows to land, and hoping he could, by some miracle, fend them off once again.

“MAINTAIN A FIRM GRIP ON ROUTE 1, NO MATTER WHAT THE COST”

In Saigon, Wolfgang Lehmann watched Danang’s growing refugee problem with concern. On 18 March he cabled Washington and recommended that “it would not be too early to think in terms of a possible sea lift to move large numbers of people” out of I Corps. If PAVN attacked Hue, hordes of people would flee to Danang, greatly aggravating that situation. Lehmann wrote: “In such a contingency I should think that a sea lift of refugees . . . using suitable U.S. Navy assets, and perhaps augmented by ships from other countries . . . would be the right thing to do on plain humanitarian grounds alone.”²⁸ At the same time, Lehmann ordered the evacuation of all non-essential U.S. personnel from I Corps. Embassy officers in those provinces would man their offices during the day, and then leave at dusk by helicopter for Danang.

As recounted in chapter 9, Lehmann met with Thieu on 20 March at the insistence of the State Department to obtain from the president his precise military intentions. In a wide-ranging discussion about the country, Thieu stated in regard to I Corps that he would not abandon Thua Thien. Aware that removing the Airborne had made the situation worse, Thieu said he had instructed Truong to do “his best with the forces he has at hand. Hue would not be abandoned.”²⁹ He did not, however, think Truong could hold Hue, and he believed that forming an enclave at Danang was the best option. “It would have to be decided later whether to try to hold that enclave. If it were to be useful as a beachhead for the future recapture of other territory that was one thing, but if it were to be held simply as a suicide mission that would be another.” It was Thieu’s way of gauging U.S. intentions, and slyly offering an opening for an American return. No U.S. official grasped the president’s subtle message.

While Lehmann was attempting to divine Thieu’s intentions, on 17 March ARVN received a piece of excellent intelligence. A defector from the 325th Division told his interrogators that the division intended to launch a two-regiment assault toward the district town of Phu Loc on Route 1 near the northern entrance to the Hai Van Pass. Truong immediately moved the 8th Marine Battalion, 258th Brigade, to the town. He also began air strikes and long-range 175-mm artillery fire onto the suspected location of the 325th Division in hopes of delaying its movement. It was the best he could do. The presence of the 304th Division in Thuong Duc continued to force Truong to maintain a Marine brigade in western Quang Nam to guard against a thrust by that unit. Truong simply had no troops left.

The defector’s intelligence was accurate: renewed assaults in Thua Thien province were imminent. PAVN’s plan called for the B-4 Front to attack the Marines defending the Bo River northwest of Hue while concurrently sending forces across the My Chanh River. South of Hue, the 324th Division would again strike Bong and Mo Tau Mountains and Hill 224. Simultaneously, the 325th would cut Route 1 to prevent ARVN troops from retreating to Danang. Nguyen Huu An had just received a directive from Hanoi that he must cut Route 1 between Hue and Danang on 21 March, no matter what the cost. He immediately diverted his campaign’s primary focus away from the 324th Division to the strike by the 325th. That division would now have priority for fire support and logistics. After inspecting the 325th’s preparations, he ordered it to attack on 21 March.

The key to the 325th’s assault was that it had spent almost a month secretly positioning artillery on the high ground near the Mom Kum Sac hills. The plan was to mass cannon fire directly on the Ranger defenses to soften them up before the main assault. Press-ganging its infantry as porters, the 325th hauled twenty-four artillery pieces and almost three thousand rounds of ammunition up brush-covered slopes into eight separate firing positions. After three weeks of intense labor, its guns now had Route 1 and other vital targets within range. Once the opening barrage was complete, infantry would assault the 60th and 61st Battalions, 15th Rangers, which were holding these hills. Once the hills were overrun, Route 1 was only a mile away. Hue would be cut off, and thousands of South Vietnamese soldiers, Marines, and civilians would be trapped.

The two main Ranger positions in the Mom Kum Sac range were on Hill 560 and Hill 312. Two battalions from the 18th Regiment, 325th Division, would make the primary assault on Hill 560. The 18th Regiment’s mission was to overrun the 61st Rangers and then cut Route 1. Another two battalions from the 101st Regiment, 325th Division, would strike the 60th Rangers on Hill 312. The mission of this regiment was to destroy the Rangers, then penetrate into the lowlands and attack the 15th Ranger Group headquarters on Route 1 at the village of Luong Dien. This was the last ARVN blocking position before the bridge over the Truoi River. There were no ARVN defenses between the bridge and the southern entrance to Hue.

Giap had placed his troops in the perfect position. The 325th Division was at full strength—the People’s Army had spent considerable effort rebuilding it after it had been virtually destroyed in 1972. The division had been re-equipped and extensively trained. Facing the 325th were only two badly under-strength Ranger battalions. While the Rangers’ fortifications and fire support were excellent, the large amount of ground they held stretched the too few defenders beyond their limit.

Commanded by Major Do Duc Chien, the 60th Rangers were typical of Ranger units in 1975. The Rangers were originally designed as elite light infantry, conducting reconnaissance and long-range patrols. Now they were corps-level reserves guarding static positions against main-force PAVN infantry. It was a tough assignment, especially since they were at the bottom of the ARVN logistics system for troop and weapon replacements. For example, Chien’s unit had only two hundred men, and most of his officers had been killed or wounded in the savage fighting for Mo Tau the previous year. He had received new officers to serve as company commanders, but sergeants commanded his platoons in place of lieutenants. His weapons situation was even worse. Only 30 percent of his grenade launchers worked, and soldiers were being killed by exploding gun barrels because he had no substitutes. Radio batteries were in short supply, which severely hampered communications.³⁰ His unit was being asked to defend against an enemy force five times its size supported by artillery.

After a ten-minute delay due to fog, at 5:50 A.M. on 21 March, the PAVN Phase Two attacks in the hill country opened with a roar. Volleys of murderous fire exploded on the Ranger bunkers and trenches. After an hour, the shelling shifted to pound ARVN artillery bases and targets ranging from Phu Loc to ships in nearby waters. When the artillery fire lifted, the PAVN infantry charged forward against elements of the 61st Rangers. Within an hour, the Communist troops had captured several strong-points near Hill 560, but the hill remained in ARVN hands. In the face of heavy fire, the Rangers held their ground and rained mortar rounds and machine-gun fire onto the attackers. ARVN batteries along Route 1 returned the artillery fire and pummeled the enemy formations. Yet despite the casualties, the attackers pressed forward to take Hill 560. Cutting through the perimeter obstacles, they reached the Ranger bunkers. Hand-to-hand fighting broke out, but despite being outnumbered, the Rangers threw out the attackers. With his main assault force stymied, the PAVN commander pulled back to re-evaluate the situation.

Looking for a new breach point, the commander noticed a gap in the Ranger defenses. The eastern side of the hill was very steep, and the Rangers had positioned their troops elsewhere and used a minefield to protect that section. The North Vietnamese commander made a bold decision: using the thick jungle as cover, his men secretly removed the mines so they could make an assault straight up the nearly vertical slope.

By 2:00 P.M., they were ready. Climbing the slope, PAVN infantry surprised the Rangers from behind. They overran the 61st Rangers’ command post and captured their commander. The battle was over in an hour. The Rangers had been routed from the hill, but not without cost. The North Vietnamese had lost forty dead and one hundred wounded capturing Hill 560.

At the same time, elements of the 101st Regiment, 325th Division, attacked the 60th Rangers on Hill 312, but Chien’s Rangers drove them off with a barrage of mortar rounds. Several more times the enemy troops assaulted his positions, but his men stopped them cold. Then the group commander radioed Chien that the 61st Rangers had been overrun, and he ordered Chien to retreat back to the group command post at Luong Dien. Of the five hundred Rangers who had marched up into the Mom Kum Sac hills, only about three hundred escaped.

In the 1st Division’s sector, the 324th Division struck Hills 224 and 303, and Bong and Mo Tau Mountains. Within a short time, Hill 224 was captured, but the PAVN advance was halted at Hill 303 by tough resistance. On Bong Mountain, a battalion from the ARVN 1st Regiment, 1st Division, was pushed off with heavy casualties, but a counterattack by a sister battalion reclaimed the high ground. Savage fighting continued to roil across Bong Mountain, which changed hands multiple times. Finally, on the morning of 22 March, the 1st Regiment regained control of the mountain. On Mo Tau, elements of the ARVN 54th Regiment, 1st Division, repulsed several assaults. A prisoner reported that PAVN casualties were extremely heavy, and that one battalion was almost wiped out. The 1st Division had held once more, but the 324th’s assault prevented the 1st Division from assisting the 15th Rangers on its flank.

Later that afternoon, the 2nd Corps and B-4 Front received a message from Giap. His cable outlined the goals agreed upon at the 18 March Politburo meeting. Announcing that the enemy had begun to withdraw in Thua Thien/Hue, Giap wrote: “The mission of 2nd Corps and B-4 Front is to take quick and bold action to block the enemy withdrawal . . . destroy the entire 1st Division and other forces in the area . . . completely liberate Tri-Thien and Hue, and occupy the entire Hai Van Pass. Our forces must completely cut off all traffic on Route 1 from Hue to Danang by the end of the day on 21 March 1975. B-4 forces must not stop at My Chanh. Instead they must quickly develop the attack in the direction of the Thuan An harbor entrance . . . 2nd Corps and B-4 are authorized to use any of their forces to destroy the enemy, including artillery and tanks. . . . Because of the enemy evacuation artillery positions must be moved so that they can reach and control the Thuan An harbor entrance.”³¹

Nguyen Huu An immediately ordered the artillery supporting the 325th Division to begin firing on Route 1 to block any vehicular movement. Within minutes, artillery rounds began to hit the highly congested road. Vehicles exploded, and many civilians died from the shelling. While a few braved the fire, most panicked and drove back to Hue. While it was not the bloody carnage that was Route 1 in 1972, the civilian fears of indiscriminate PAVN fire once again proved true. GVN authorities began shuttling civilians toward the Thuan An port to be evacuated by ship. Within hours, the first manifestations of the “family syndrome” in I Corps began to be seen, as some 1st Division soldiers deserted to find their families. RF/PF and rear-service units also began to melt away. It started slowly, but within days the phenomenon enveloped almost every unit save the Marines.

Nguyen Huu An then ordered the 325th Division to move from the hills and cut Route 1. The 325th sent three battalions on an all-night march through driving rain and heavy brush to block the road. The PAVN troops reached the lowlands at dawn on 22 March. RF troops in nearby positions spotted them and opened fire, but the North Vietnamese soldiers soon cleared the RF bunkers and occupied a two-mile stretch of road.

Learning of the loss of Hill 560, Lieutenant General Thi immediately called Truong and requested permission to use the 8th Marine Battalion in Phu Loc to recapture the hill. He also called Brigadier General Nguyen Van Diem, the ARVN 1st Division commander, who was in command of Thi’s southern front, and ordered him to make a diversionary assault to assist the Marines. He also sent in his last reserve, the 94th Ranger Battalion, 15th Group. But instead of attacking to recapture the Mom Kum Sac hills, the Marines and Rangers now had to deal with the sudden appearance of PAVN forces on Route 1. Heavy combat raged all day as the Rangers and Marines assaulted both sides of the roadblock. Despite multiple assaults and heavy air support, the counterattack failed. Exhausted, both sides dug in as night fell.

The 2nd Corps history rightly calls cutting Route 1 “the most effective blow of the entire offensive.”³² Although the 325th Division troops had now been awake for forty-eight hours, Giap offered them no respite. In a message on the afternoon of 22 March, he commended the 325th’s cutting of Route 1 as “a tremendous achievement.” However, “no achievement would be sufficient to balance the criminal mistake the division would make if it allowed the enemy to re-open the road. The division had to maintain a firm grip on the newly captured section of Route 1, no matter what the cost.”³³ During the night, the 325th Division commander brought most of his two regiments to Route 1, leaving only a battalion behind to garrison the Mom Kum Sac hills.

Given Giap’s new orders, and with the 324th’s inability to capture the hill positions, at noon on 22 March, An decided to shift strategy. He ordered the 324th Division to bypass the 1st Division and penetrate directly into the lowlands. Concurrently, the 325th would resume the attack and send one regiment north on Route 1 toward the 15th Rangers’ headquarters at Luong Dien. Once Luong Dien was captured, the regiment would attack Phu Bai airport in coordination with the 324th. The 325th’s other regiment would strike toward Phu Loc. On the night of 22 March, the 324th left one regiment behind to pin down the 1st Division, and sent its other two regiments to attack Hue from the south.

Making a rapid attack against the ARVN defenses south of Hue presented Nguyen Huu An with two major problems. First, his troops were burning through supplies. Some units reported they were dangerously low on ammunition and food. The continuing rains turned the makeshift roads into impassable rivers of mud, and few supplies were coming forward. He faced a difficult choice: Halt his advance and give his logistic teams time to resupply his troops, or go for broke. While he was considering his options, his supply troops found the solution. They used captured ARVN weapons, and they stole food from local villagers to resupply the soldiers.

An’s second issue was firepower. Per Giap’s original order not to use the corps’s armor and heavy artillery, An had left them deep in his rear. Now Giap had suddenly approved the use of armor, but An had only one tank company close enough to get into battle. Having just returned from a Soviet school, he was disappointed by Giap’s earlier caution. Contemplating the tactical situation on 22 March, An later wrote: “If only the General Staff had approved the recommendation made by 2nd Corps Headquarters at the start of the campaign, to allow us to position one tank battalion and one battalion of long-range artillery right behind the corps’s attack formation, this force would have been a priceless asset to us now. Later, when I thought about this issue, I decided that during this period the General Staff should have given us broad authority to use all forces subordinate to the corps, so that when an opportunity arose it would have been easier for us to react. If that had been done, I am certain that the pace of our attack would have been more rapid.”³⁴ Whether he is correct is open to debate. An armor thrust would have exposed his tanks to air attack, and he would have faced the same clogged Route 1 that ARVN confronted.

Lieutenant General Thi, meanwhile, was well aware he needed to stop a PAVN thrust into the undefended land south of Hue. Consequently, on the night of 22 March he pulled in his defenses. He ordered the 15th Rangers to withdraw across the Truoi River, while the 1st and 54th Regiments were told to withdraw from their hilltops and move closer to Hue’s southwestern flank. Together they would to form a new defensive line to protect Hue’s soft underbelly. The division’s other two regiments would remain in their positions west of the city.

That afternoon, Truong received another distressing message from the JGS. Thieu had changed his mind. Vien repeated his earlier warning that Saigon was capable of supporting only one enclave. “For this reason, by every means possible, quickly, and as the situation permits, form an enclave at Danang. During the initial phase, 1st Infantry Division, 3rd Infantry Division, and the Marine Division will move into the Danang enclave. In Phase Two, 2nd Infantry Division will move into the enclave as well. When the entire 2nd Infantry Division has arrived, you will immediately return the Marine Division to the National Level Command Authority.”³⁵

This was the final blow for I Corps. Whatever Thieu’s intent, upon receipt of these orders, Truong ordered the 8th Marine Battalion to cease its efforts to reopen Route 1, and to establish positions closer to the Hai Van Pass. Despite Thieu’s earlier orders to ensure the road stayed open so that the 1st Division could use it to withdraw, his new orders ensured that Truong could not comply. Truong is reported to have said that with no way out of Hue, he hoped the troops would stop deserting, as “they would have no alternative except to fight.”³⁶ Truong was wrong. Instead of settling down along a defensible perimeter, his troops felt abandoned. Desertions increased, and commanders soon began losing control over their soldiers.

This could not have come at a worse time, as Giap was determined to take advantage of South Vietnamese turmoil. After disseminating the various orders to the 2nd Corps, Giap sent a cable on 22 March to Van Tien Dung in II Corps summarizing the Politburo’s decisions. “The tremendous, strategically significant victory we have just won signals a new step in the collapse of the Americans and their puppets and marks a turning point in the military and political character of the war in South Vietnam. The enemy has displayed his intention of conducting a large-scale strategic withdrawal throughout the entire South Vietnamese battlefield aimed at pulling his forces back and concentrating them to defend primarily just Saigon and the Mekong Delta. After his retreat from the Central Highlands, he is now in the process of withdrawing from Hue and we cannot exclude the possibility that he may also withdraw from Danang. In view of this situation, the Politburo’s resolve, as has already been transmitted to you, is to move as fast as possible, acting with daring and surprise . . . in order to defeat the enemy’s plan and quickly achieve our strategic resolve in the key, focal-point sector.”³⁷

The key sector was Saigon, the heart of South Vietnam. But first, Senior General Vo Nguyen Giap intended to destroy I Corps, once and forever.