17

“I WILL KNOCK THEM DOWN!”

ARVN HOLD AT XUAN LOC

Le Duan sensed the death throes of the South Vietnamese state in the anarchy that engulfed Danang. On 29 March he sent the message to Pham Hung telling him to “act with great timeliness, determination, and boldness,” giving Tran Van Tra the opportunity he had dreamed about. In fact, it was a characteristic Le Duan message: more strategic guidance and high-level thinking than precise details or, in this case, an actual authorization to attack. Nonetheless, Tra had taken full advantage of Le Duan’s ambiguity, and now, while the Coastal Column was barreling down Route 1, the 4th Corps was assembling in the dense brush and banana plantations of Long Khanh province.

What made Xuan Loc the focal point for the PAVN attack was its strategic location. The city, situated thirty-seven miles northeast of Saigon, controlled Dau Giay, the vital junction of Routes 1 and 20, two of the three main paved highways that linked Saigon with the eastern part of the country. With the destruction of I and II Corps, Xuan Loc had suddenly become a critical node on the improvised defensive line the desperate South Vietnamese were trying to form around Saigon. Most observers realized that whatever slim chance ARVN had of defending the capital from the encircling enemy was predicated on holding Xuan Loc. If ARVN could make a stand there, a chance remained that it could regroup its battered forces and save the country from defeat. Because of its importance, Xuan Loc would soon become the site of the fiercest battle of the 1975 offensive.

After the meeting with Tra on 2 April, Hoang Cam and the others returned to the 4th Corps headquarters located near the La Nga Bridge on Route 20, scene of the 18 March battle. On 4 April, Cam ordered the 7th Division, which was near Dalat, to immediately head south to Xuan Loc. Given Tra’s pressure to move rapidly, and with only five days before the opening barrage, Cam decided on the simplest of tactical plans: a frontal assault on the provincial capital. The strategy was to “use a portion of the corps infantry forces, together with all the corps’s tanks and artillery, to launch a direct attack on the Province Military Headquarters and 18th Division. If the enemy collapsed, we would be able to quickly capture Xuan Loc. 7th Division was assigned the mission of mounting the main attack, striking from the east to seize the 18th Division’s headquarters. 341st Division would be responsible for the secondary attack, striking from the north to take the Long Khanh Province Headquarters and other targets in the city.”¹

A frontal assault was an odd choice for Cam, since he had just witnessed the failure of the same tactical plan at Chon Thanh. He wrote: “It was obvious that we held a position of strength [at Chon Thanh], but our forces were not employed properly in this attack. Of particular importance was that we had underestimated our enemy and that our preparations for battle had been too cursory. This kind of mistake in the future could cause us to fail to accomplish our mission or [lead] to our paying too high a price for the accomplishment of the mission.”² He felt the same way about Xuan Loc: that it was too late to attack the city, since the South Vietnamese had prepared their defenses. He was also concerned about the condition of the 7th Division, which had been worn down by continuous fighting. Yet for some unexplained reason he did not deviate from his plan for a frontal assault. Perhaps he hoped the ARVN soldiers were so badly shaken that they would flee at the first sound of gunfire.

Although the 7th was too far away to conduct any reconnaissance of the area, the 341st was close by, and it made a complete analysis of its attack area. The first step was for the commanders to meet with local Party officials. They discussed the terrain, and possible scenarios they might encounter during the offensive. They agreed that local guerrillas would act as guides for the assault units. According to the 341st Division history, after the conference “the cadre group was guided by our reconnaissance cells right up to the perimeter wire surrounding the city. Local armed forces selected teams to guide division and regimental reconnaissance personnel into the various military positions within the city. . . . Division Chief of Reconnaissance Le Anh Thien walked right up to the residence of the enemy Province Chief headquarters. . . . The reconnaissance forces laid out the locations of the attack targets [and] the specific points where the enemy perimeter would be breached, and determined the layout of perimeter wires, fences, and obstacles. . . . On 5 April our cadre reconnaissance group made its final reconnaissance through the enemy perimeter wire. The enemy continued normal activities within the city, proving that he still knew nothing about our operations. The enemy did not suspect that for almost a week our reconnaissance soldiers had been concealing themselves on the ground making observations and marking our targets.”³

After conducting its reconnaissance of the northwestern approaches to Xuan Loc and the city environs, on 6 April the 341st Division commanders met to discuss the attack plan and forward it to the 4th Corps for approval. The corps agreed, and the following missions were assigned: The 266th Regiment would attack targets within the city while the 270th Regiment would strike Kiem Tan and Thi Mountain, which housed an artillery battalion, a communications center, and the ARVN 2nd Battalion, 43rd Regiment. The 273rd Regiment remained with the 9th Division. The 6th Division’s two regiments, the 33rd and the 274th, would circle south of the city and attack the Dau Giay road junction and several key points along Route 1 west of Xuan Loc.

While the 7th Division was assigned the primary role in the assault, it had to travel one hundred miles from Lam Dong province. It did not arrive at its assembly area until the night of 7 April. Its orders were to destroy the 48th Regiment and liberate the intersection of Routes 1 and 2 at the village of Tan Phong south of Xuan Loc. As the 7th’s staff began planning, suddenly their orders changed. The division was to liberate the city first and only then focus on destroying the 48th. With less than one day to develop a new attack plan, the 7th decided that “the 165th Regiment would lead the primary attack against the 18th Division’s rear base and command post in the northeastern part of the city [and the 52nd’s base camp]. . . . The 209th Regiment would liberate Route 1 from Suoi Cat [a small village about five miles east of Xuan Loc] to the Tan Phong intersection, attack up from the south into the city, and stand ready to attack enemy . . . reinforcements. The 141st Regiment would serve as a reserve force.”⁴

The 4th Corps shifted its headquarters to a position northeast of Xuan Loc, coordinated artillery fire for all elements, and established supply routes to its three main assault units. It also sent a forward headquarters under Deputy Corps Commander Bui Cat Vu to Chua Chan Mountain east of the city to oversee the attack. H-hour was set for 5:30 A.M. on 9 April. If the PAVN assault on Xuan Loc produced another precipitous ARVN retreat, nothing would stand between the 4th Corps and Saigon except the 1st Airborne Brigade. There would be chaos, trapping thousands of Americans and their South Vietnamese allies, employees, and friends in a defenseless city.

However, Brigadier General Le Minh Dao, commander of the ARVN 18th Division, was waiting for the North Vietnamese assault. After the attacks at Dinh Quan on 18 March, Dao sensed an imminent attack on Xuan Loc. His suspicions had been initially raised in February when a Regional Force outpost on Chua Chan Mountain surprised and killed a 4th Corps artillery survey team. His intuition was reinforced after the battles on Route 20 in late March in which his troops captured several POWs. Interrogating the prisoners, Dao was astonished to see how young they were. Apparently PAVN was scraping the bottom of the manpower barrel in North Vietnam. Many of the captured soldiers were barely sixteen years old, but they were carrying new Soviet Bloc weapons and equipment. When they revealed they were from the 341st Division, Dao had confirmation that three PAVN main-force units were in the area.

In early April, Dao began organizing his defenses. First, he closely examined the terrain around the city. Xuan Loc sits amidst numerous banana and rubber plantations at the base of the southern end of the Annamite Mountains, which march from China toward the South China Sea, forming the backbone of the Indochinese peninsula. The hilly terrain to the west of the city is covered by thick forest and is crisscrossed by several small rivers and streams. To the east, the land is more open, but dominated by Chua Chan Mountain.

While Dao had more than a full week to prepare for the expected attack, his forces were stretched thin. Two of his three regiments were outside the city: the 52nd was guarding the Route 20 area, while the 48th was seventy miles away in Tay Ninh. In early April, he had only the 43rd Regiment, rear-base personnel, his armor, and the division reconnaissance company holding Xuan Loc. Four Regional Force battalions helped secure the northern section of the city and the area around the province headquarters. However, this left Dao’s rear wide open, the area south of the city—the exact place the PAVN 7th Division intended to strike.

Dao knew he would need his full division to halt the North Vietnamese attack, whenever it came, and he saw his chance on 3 April when Lieutenant General Toan came to visit him. During a briefing on his preparations, Dao asked Toan to return the 48th Regiment. Toan was reluctant, but Dao persisted, telling Toan that if III Corps expected him to hold Xuan Loc, he needed to secure his rear. To convince Toan, he told a small lie: that he intended to use the 48th to clear Route 1 east from Tan Phong and retake Chua Chan Mountain. Toan agreed to return the 48th, but he ordered Dao to send one battalion to the coastal city of Ham Tan to provide security for the hordes of refugees pouring in from II Corps.

The 48th Regiment returned on 5 April. On 7 April, Dao sent it to clear Route 1 but did not send it all the way to Chua Chan. Leaving the 3rd Battalion in the area, he pulled the 1st Battalion back to hold the Tan Phong intersection south of the city, along with two troops of the 5th Cavalry Squadron, his organic armored unit. This was his reserve. Meanwhile, Dao was well aware of the disasters in I and II Corps, when entire units collapsed as soldiers deserted to rescue their wives and children. He moved as many of his soldiers’ families and the local civilians as he could back to Long Binh, the huge logistics facility near Bien Hoa. Any remaining civilians would stay in bunkers near the province chief’s headquarters.

More important, Dao moved his soldiers to the outskirts of the city, thinking the Communist troops would concentrate their opening artillery barrage on the city center. He armed his reconnaissance company with .50-caliber machine guns and stationed it in the high school on the northwestern edge of town. Dao also created three separate command posts: The first was his house in the city; the second was at Tan Phong; and the third was in a nearby orchard. As his soldiers dug in, it dawned on him that the enemy would undoubtedly employ the same routes of advance they had used when they attacked Xuan Loc during the 1968 Tet Offensive, with modifications based on the current situation. This was a correct appraisal.

Therefore, Dao laid a trap for them. Using his artillery, he created what he called the “meat grinder.”⁵ Dao’s artillery chief pre-registered all his artillery, comprising thirty-six guns (twenty-four 105-mms and twelve 155-mms), onto likely avenues of approach. He ordered a bulldozer to dig revetments to protect the guns, and bunkers to pull the guns back into after they fired. Dao also expanded the existing system of bunkers and trenches for the city defenders. He wanted to render the PAVN counter-battery fire ineffective. His efforts ultimately were very successful. He later remarked, “Their artillery could never find us.”

Moreover, because ARVN stockpiles of fuel and ammunition, especially artillery shells, were low, beginning in February, Dao had implemented two programs. First, he began secretly stockpiling artillery ammunition (in direct violation of JGS regulations) by reducing his daily artillery expenditure by 20 percent. Second, he formed a long-range reconnaissance platoon in each of his line battalions to assist in finding the enemy. He used the platoons to sweep the areas around Xuan Loc. On 6 April, one platoon ambushed and wiped out an enemy reconnaissance team on Ghost Mountain, the major high point northwest of Xuan Loc. Dao’s troops then occupied other hills to prevent the Communists from using them as observation posts.

At noon on 6 April, Dao was informed that the 82nd Ranger Battalion had just been rescued after a harrowing escape through Communist territory. Lieutenant General Nguyen Van Toan ordered the 82nd Rangers ferried by helicopter to Xuan Loc, where Dao gave them food and ammunition, stationed them at the local airfield, and put them under the nominal control of the 43rd Regiment. Toan told Dao that the 82nd would be sent to Saigon for reconstitution the next morning. Little did the Rangers know they had walked out of the frying pan and into the proverbial fire.

As night fell on 8 April, Dao’s forces were arrayed in the following manner: The 52nd Regiment and one troop of APCs from the 5th Cavalry were defending Route 20 and the vital Dau Giay road intersection. One battalion was stationed south of Dau Giay at the small hamlet of Phan Boi Chau. The northernmost element was a company on top of Horseshoe Hill, a small hill on the eastern side of Route 20 near Ghost Mountain. The 2nd Battalion, 43rd Regiment, defended Thi Mountain, the high ground on the western side of Xuan Loc. This left a worrisome gap in the lines between the 52nd and the city, which Dao could cover only by artillery. The division’s reconnaissance company held the high school on the northwestern approach to the city, with two Regional Force battalions on their right flank. Two other RF units occupied positions inside the city. The 1st and 3rd Battalions of the 43rd Regiment were on the eastern approaches to Xuan Loc. The 1st Battalion, 48th Regiment, and the other two troops of the 5th Cavalry were in reserve, while the 2nd Battalion was detached for guard duty at Ham Tan. The 3rd Battalion was positioned astride Route 1 leading east out of the city. The 82nd Rangers were holding the Xuan Loc airfield.

During the morning hours of 9 April the PAVN attack elements moved into position. The 6th Division crossed Route 2 south of Xuan Loc undetected and moved rapidly through the rubber plantations north toward Route 1. The 7th and 341st Divisions moved up close to the ARVN perimeter wire. By 5:00 A.M. all elements had reported to the 4th Corps that they were in their assigned assault positions. The PAVN artillery completed preparations and waited for the order to commence firing. In the 341st’s sector, right before the scheduled opening barrage, artillery observers noticed that the overnight fog had not adequately lifted, and they requested a ten-minute postponement. The 4th Corps approved the delay. At 5:40 A.M., the 4th Corps radioed the signal, and with an ear-shattering roar, the corps and divisional artillery opened fire simultaneously. The battle for Xuan Loc had begun.

One of the first artillery shells landed directly on Brigadier General Dao’s home. It was a small two-story house that sat across the road from the province chief’s residence, near the Catholic church in the middle of Xuan Loc. The round crashed through the roof and exploded in the bedroom, a testimony to the incredible accuracy of the North Vietnamese artillerymen. Fortunately, Dao was not at home. For an hour the PAVN batteries rained artillery shells, mortars, and rockets on the city. They hammered the city center and pounded many buildings into rubble. However, despite their prior reconnaissance, the Communists had failed to spot the movement of the ARVN forces to the outskirts. Most of the shells struck civilian targets in the town, leaving Dao’s troops sitting unscathed in their bunkers and trenches. Two thousand rounds poured onto the exposed city. Then, at 6:40 A.M., two red flares flashed into the early-morning sky. The signal for the infantry and tanks to advance had been given, and the cadres and peasant soldiers of the 341st and 7th Divisions began to close with the waiting South Vietnamese troops.

In the eastern sector, the 165th Regiment led the onslaught. Four tanks joined it, with another four assigned to the 209th Regiment. Believing the South Vietnamese troops would run as soon as the artillery barrage lifted, the North Vietnamese soldiers confidently pressed forward. Instead, the men of the ARVN 18th Division held fast. The eastern side of the town was fairly open ground, and Dao had prepared for a combined tank and infantry attack by constructing strong defensive works. The assault elements of the 7th would have to move uphill across open fields, penetrate eight barbed-wire barriers, navigate several minefields, and scale an earthen berm before finally reaching the trench lines held by ARVN soldiers.

At a signal, the concealed ARVN infantry started pouring artillery and automatic-weapons fire onto the exposed North Vietnamese. The 165th’s first infantry attack quickly bogged down. The lead T-54 hit an anti-tank mine, which blew off its left track and left it sitting helpless. As dawn broke, VNAF jets began making air strikes against the exposed PAVN troops.

Despite the heavy fire, the North Vietnamese mounted a second charge. As the tanks pressed forward, the soldiers of the 43rd Regiment had another surprise waiting for them: 2.75-inch rockets, normally used by helicopter gunships, mounted on bipods and fired using simple electrical batteries. Between the air strikes and the rockets, the RVNAF knocked out two enemy tanks and stopped the attack. The PAVN 209th Regiment, assigned to clear Route 1 from the east into town, ran into the 82nd Ranger Battalion at the airfield. The 82nd fought two battalions of the 209th to a standstill and destroyed two more tanks.

Hoang Cam’s main assault force was pinned down. The attacks had been halted not only by air strikes and artillery, but by determined infantry. Dao had assigned every single soldier in the division to a defensive position. As he later explained, “All my men fought. Even the rear staff officers and base camp personnel dug defensive positions. Plus, many of the invalids, men who were to be demobilized or had been previously wounded, were given weapons and defensive positions. These men also fought well and killed many of the enemy soldiers.”

The 341st Division on the western side of Xuan Loc initially fared better. With less open terrain and having spent time reconnoitering routes into the city, the 266th Regiment quickly breached the five barbed-wire-fence lines. Its targets were the high school, the marketplace, and the Catholic church. The division commander personally accompanied the 266th during the attack. However, ARVN artillery soon began hitting the PAVN soldiers, while a C-119 gunship laid a stream of tracers along the breach. As the enemy troops came into range, the reconnaissance company in the high school ripped apart the inexperienced soldiers with heavy machine-gun fire. The green troops of the 266th tried to open a second breach point to the east and ran straight into the two RF units, who also held their ground. Finally, after suffering extremely heavy casualties, elements of the 266th managed to bypass the high school and infiltrate about three hundred yards into the town, where they occupied positions near the market square, the church, and the province sector headquarters. Despite the PAVN penetrations, from Dao’s perspective, his reconnaissance company had stopped an entire regiment.

The 341st Division’s history claims that by 7:40 A.M. it had captured several positions in the city—including the parking lot near the church, the province chief’s house, and the marketplace in the city center—but it admits that ARVN still held most of the city. Further out to the west, the PAVN 270th Regiment had hit Thi Mountain, but it was also driven back, leaving dozens of dead on the battlefield.

Wasting no time, at 11:00 A.M., Dao launched a counterattack outside of the city. He used his reserve force—the 1st Battalion, 48th Regiment, and the armor from the 5th Cavalry—to attempt to encircle the enemy soldiers who had penetrated into the city. The 270th Regiment immediately launched an attack to halt Dao’s maneuver, and succeeded in preventing the 266th from being surrounded. Still, the 266th’s situation was precarious. While some soldiers of the 266th managed to cling to a few buildings, at the end of the first day, the 341st Division had taken very heavy casualties, close to six hundred men dead and wounded.

Of the three PAVN divisions, the 6th was the most successful because it faced the least opposition. The 274th Regiment attacked and occupied the colorfully named Mother Holding Baby Pass, thus blocking Route 1 between Xuan Loc and the Dau Giay intersection. It struck precisely where Dao had no troops, and in doing so, it cut Dao off from his 52nd Regiment. The 33rd Regiment, meanwhile, attacked the hamlets of Hung Nghia and Hung Loc on Route 1 on the western side of Dau Giay. They grabbed Hung Loc but were repulsed by Popular Forces at Hung Nghia. An attack on the Dau Giay intersection was defeated by the 1st Battalion, 52nd Regiment dug-in nearby at the Phan Boi Chau hamlet. However, the 52nd was now cut off from both Xuan Loc and Saigon.

By afternoon the battlefield was so calm Dao became worried that the enemy was massing for another attack. This time he was wrong. The North Vietnamese had taken close to seven hundred dead and wounded while the South Vietnamese had suffered only fifty casualties. The stiff resistance rocked the Communists. According to the History of the People’s Army, “Enemy aircraft taking off from Bien Hoa . . . pounded Xuan Loc with bombs. The battle became a hard, vicious struggle. Our units suffered a high number of casualties . . . our artillery ammunition was seriously depleted. More than half our tanks were knocked out.”⁶

Throughout the night, the North Vietnamese struggled to resupply their troops in town and on the outskirts. The 4th Corps believed that it held half the city and had cut Route 1 from the Dau Giay intersection to the Mother Holding Baby Pass, but it acknowledged that the 7th Division had failed to take its objectives.

Also that night, the forward units reported back to the 4th Corps headquarters that while they had suffered losses, the first day had gone well. Hoang Cam decided to stick with the same tactics the next day: frontal assault. However, he was worried: “That night, Bui Cat Vu sent me a cable . . . asking my approval to commit his reserve force to the battle. I thought it was a bit early to commit the reserve, but I approved his request.”⁷

With Cam’s permission, the 7th Division would commit its reserve, the 141st Regiment plus an anti-aircraft battalion in a direct-fire role. The 165th Regiment and more tanks would also resume their attack, as would the 209th. The 341st Division would move the 270th Regiment into Xuan Loc to support the battered battalions from its sister regiment holed up on the edge of the town. The corps and division artillery would fire another opening barrage early in the morning to support the ground attack.

At 5:27 A.M. on 10 April the Communist batteries opened fire, pouring one thousand rounds into the smoking city. The 7th Division forces launched repeated onslaughts against the ARVN fortifications east of the city but could not make any headway against the 82nd Rangers or the dug in 43rd Regiment. On the western side of the city, the 270th launched five assaults against the Regional Forces near the marketplace. Each time it was thrown back. Hand-to-hand fighting broke out at one point, as “a savage battle using hand grenades and bayonets ensued.”⁸ Four more T-54s were destroyed. South Vietnamese artillery, supported by effective air strikes, continued to inflict heavy casualties.

As the afternoon wore on, Dao counterattacked again. Seeing that the two regiments of the 341st were pinned down inside the city, Dao moved to attack from both inside and outside the city. This second counterattack was too much for the teenaged soldiers of the 341st. Under continual fire and taking heavy casualties after two days of fierce battle, many frightened PAVN soldiers lost their will to fight and began hiding in cellars and collapsed buildings. According to General Cao Van Vien, “They did not know the terrain and were afraid of the fighting and of the artillery. After penetrating the city, they hid in the sewers and did not fire any of their seventy-round basic ammunition load.”⁹

One by one ARVN forces cleared the buildings PAVN had captured the day before. By nightfall on 10 April, Xuan Loc was totally in South Vietnamese hands, but the northern part of town was a smoldering ruin. An American journalist, Philip Caputo, wrote: “Almost every building has been damaged, and the town center reduced to rubble. The streets are pocked with 130-millimeter shells that come whistling in from the green, brooding hills to the north. What once were houses are now heaps of pulverized stone and charred timbers. The market, its tin-roofed stalls twisted into weird shapes, looks like a junk yard, and the bus station, where the initial fighting took place, is recognizable as such only by the blackened skeletons of a few buses. Even the Catholic Church steeple has not escaped. Like the ruin of some ancient tower, it looks over the wreckage, over the flames, and over corpses, bloated and rotting in the sun, of North Vietnamese soldiers that lay here and there in the odd positions of death. ‘It looks like a city from the Second World War,’ said one South Vietnamese soldier.”¹⁰

The evening provided no respite for the tired ARVN soldiers, as Communist artillery fire blasted away the entire night. PAVN fired another two thousand rounds into the city during the night. The 18th Division responded with counter-battery fire, trying to disrupt the PAVN concentrations. The 341st Division history noted: “The enemy bombarded our artillery positions while simultaneously bombarding the routes from our rear bases into the city. C-130 gun-ships [sic] fired streams of 20-mm shells into our positions. The enemy hoped to lay down a curtain of fire to block our efforts to re-supply our forces with ammunition and evacuate our wounded.”¹¹

Despite the heavy casualties, the PAVN commanders would not relent. On the morning of the third day, they resumed their attacks. The 4th Corps ordered the 341st Division to shift its attack to hit the 43rd Regiment and link up with the 7th Division. The 7th was also ordered to resume its assault.

At 5:30 A.M. on 11 April, the PAVN artillery fired a thirty-minute barrage on the 43rd’s positions. The results were the same. The dogged ARVN defenders threw back the attack columns of both divisions. ARVN counterattacks stopped any penetrations and reclaimed lost ground. By the end of the day, PAVN had again not taken the city, and North Vietnamese casualties were extremely heavy and growing. Cam wrote, “This was the most ferocious battle I had ever been involved in! My personal assessment was that, after three days of battle, even after committing our reserves, the situation had not improved and we had suffered significant casualties.” In a footnote, Cam provides figures, which match those in the History of the People’s Army: “During the first three days of the battle 7th Division suffered 300 casualties and the 341st Division suffered 1,200 casualties. . . . Virtually all of our 85-mm and 57-mm artillery pieces had been destroyed.”¹² Meanwhile, the ARVN 18th Division had suffered only one hundred dead and wounded. Dao’s thorough preparation, the effective air strikes and artillery fire, and his stalwart leadership were the most important factors in defeating the PAVN attacks in the first few days.

The South Vietnamese Joint General Staff realized the critical importance of Xuan Loc. It was not only an essential defensive position, but also potentially a crucial morale builder. If ARVN could inflict a significant defeat on PAVN at Xuan Loc, the military crisis might be averted. Lieutenant General Toan’s battle plan for the defense of Saigon was to use his mobility to concentrate forces at points under assault and destroy enemy formations. On 11 April Toan recalled the 3rd Armored Calvary Brigade from Tay Ninh and sent it to reopen Route 1 from the village of Hung Nghia to the Dau Giay intersection. At the same time, the battalion guarding Ham Tan was rushed back by helicopter to Xuan Loc.

The 3rd Armored reached Hung Nghia on 11 April and immediately ran into a 6th Division roadblock on Route 1 east of the village. Brigadier General Khoi deployed his forces so that one of his task forces made the main attack along Route 1, while he maneuvered a second task force to the north. Khoi’s units, however, were unable to break through.

More important, on the morning of 11 April, Toan began moving the 1st Airborne Brigade, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Van Dinh, to reinforce the 18th Division. The 1st Airborne was one of the last units in the ARVN strategic reserve. For two days, Toan used virtually every available transport helicopter left in the fleet to move three battalions of Airborne infantry and an artillery battalion into an area near Tan Phong. It was the last major helicopter assault of the war. One South Vietnamese source notes: “Every helicopter in VNAF’s 3rd and 4th Air Divisions, a total of one hundred Huey’s, moved more than two thousand Airborne troops . . . into the battle. Airborne artillery platoons were transported by Chinook helicopter to the Airborne Headquarters, which was located adjacent to the 18th Division Headquarters. Two airborne battalions were landed on top of enemy troops to recapture Route 1.”¹³ Civilians and wounded soldiers were sent out on the empty helicopters.

Dao also made an internal move to bolster his defenses. Although cut off and under artillery fire, the 52nd Regiment still held a line running from south of the Dau Giay intersection at Phan Boi Chau hamlet, moving north up Route 20 to its furthermost position on Horseshoe Hill. Other than the 1st Battalion at Phan Boi Chau, none of the other elements had faced any infantry attacks. However, the 1st Battalion was under constant pressure from the enemy. The hamlet consisted of brick houses in the middle of a rubber plantation and was an easy target for artillery. Round after round poured in on the ARVN defenders. When the artillery let up, the infantry would attack. The 1st Battalion repulsed many attacks, but it was taking heavy casualties to accomplish its mission.

Despite this pressure on the 1st Battalion, on the morning of 10 April, Dao ordered the 2nd Battalion, 52nd Regiment, to move from Dau Giay and reinforce Xuan Loc. After sneaking through enemy lines, the battalion broke through and joined the 43rd Regiment on the afternoon of 12 April. Also on 12 April, an Airborne battalion fought a difficult engagement south of Xuan Loc against a battalion of the 7th Division. On 13 April Dao moved the other two Airborne battalions along Route 1 to assault the 7th Division east of the city. One of the Airborne battalions attacked and punched a hole in the 7th Division’s lines at the village of Bao Dinh, enabling the other battalion to move forward and surround the 8th Battalion, 209th Regiment.¹⁴ Despite Dao’s success to date, these would be his last offensive moves.

DUNG CHANGES TRA’S GRAND DESIGN

After the setbacks in the Delta and at Xuan Loc, Van Tien Dung moved to rein in Tra’s grandiose attack plan. The stiff ARVN resistance proved that Dung’s earlier analysis was correct. In his role as campaign commander, on 13 April Dung cabled Giap and the General Staff recommending that they now wait until the rest of the army joined them. Dung also told Giap that it was impossible for the 1st and 3rd Corps to arrive in time to attack Saigon by 15 April. There was also a supply problem, particularly of artillery and tank ammunition. Tra’s old complaint about lack of supplies had now proven true. As PAVN massed its forces in the B-2 theater, there were not enough resources on hand to sustain heavy combat for this many soldiers.

The Politburo reluctantly agreed to delay the attack. Le Duan cabled Dung to begin his attack no later than the last week of April. Giap followed up with another cable, telling Dung that “The overall attack plan must guarantee that once the action begins there will be powerful, continuous attacks, one on top of the other, until complete victory. . . . Initiating attacks in the outlying areas and keep[ing] forces prepared to seize the opportunity to strike deep into the center of Saigon from many directions. . . . This is the fundamental direction, and the one most certain to win.”¹⁵ The Politburo also wholeheartedly approved Dung’s recommendation that the upcoming campaign be named after Ho Chi Minh.

Seeing the number of ARVN reinforcements flung into the battle, the PAVN leadership began to reassess the situation and make new plans. Much to Tra’s dismay, reports also began reaching him that the 4th Corps had been forced to retreat. After the euphoria of the first positive reports, Tra became very worried. The 4th Corps “complained about shortages of ammunition of all kinds, and especially that the [341st], 6th, and 7th Divisions were under-strength because they had fought continuously since the fighting along Route 20 began.”¹⁶ On the afternoon of 11 April, after a discussion between Tran Van Tra, Van Tien Dung, Le Duc Tho, and others, Tra was sent to the 4th Corps headquarters to assess the situation and, if need be, to assume command. Moreover, he was carrying new tactical instructions with him.

For Tra, it must have been humiliating to see his grand design pulverized by the ARVN resistance, especially with his mentor, Le Duc Tho, and his rival, Van Tien Dung, close by. Additionally, Tra had failed to follow the General Staff’s pre-attack instructions to neutralize Bien Hoa airbase before launching the Xuan Loc attack.

Shortly after Tra departed from the B-2 Front headquarters in Tay Ninh, Dung telephoned Hoang Cam and provided him an overview of the new orders. Realizing that ARVN had massed much of its remaining reserves to defend Xuan Loc, Dung and Tra recognized that Dao’s position had two weaknesses. One was his dependence on the Bien Hoa airbase to provide air support, and the other was that the 52nd Regiment holding the Dau Giay intersection was isolated and outside of his main defensive network. Dung later wrote: “Once the enemy had amassed troops to . . . save Xuan Loc, we need not concentrate our forces and continue attacking them head-on. We should shift our forces to strike counterattacking enemy units in the outer perimeter . . . before they could get their feet on the ground. We should use our long-range artillery to destroy Bien Hoa airbase . . . so enemy fighter planes could not take off.”¹⁷ PAVN would now use maneuver to gain what it had failed to achieve with frontal assaults.

After Dung’s phone call, the 4th Corps held a meeting on the afternoon of 11 April to review the situation. Strangely, and despite Dung’s verbal instructions, Cam launched two more frontal attacks on 12 April. The first attack, which began before dawn, hit the northeastern edge of the city and lasted until 9:30 A.M. The VNAF used C-130s in a bomber role, with stacks of 750-pound bombs strapped onto wooden pallets and rolled out the rear cargo hatches. The ARVN artillery again fired with devastating effect. After the North Vietnamese troops retreated, ARVN counted 235 enemy dead. At noon the North Vietnamese mounted a second attack, again throwing the depleted units of the 341st Division against the dug-in ARVN. VNAF aircraft flew twenty sorties against the North Vietnamese, breaking up their formations even before they could reach the ARVN positions. Dao noticed that during the last attacks, after having suffered frightful casualties, troops had to be literally pushed out of their foxholes by their commanders. It was little wonder. PAVN losses were climbing toward a reported two thousand dead and wounded in only four days of fighting, while ARVN dead and wounded were only several hundred. Dao and the 18th Division had turned Xuan Loc into a blood-drenched killing ground.

However, after the battle on 12 April, as part of the new tactical plan, the 4th Corps received additional tanks, artillery pieces, and fresh troops. Tra notes that “the Corps had been reinforced [with] . . . a tank company, and a number of field artillery and anti-aircraft pieces, and had urgently brought in reinforcements and ammunition, so we still had good fighting strength.”¹⁸ That evening, the 4th Corps ordered the 341st Division to pull away from the outskirts of the city; by nightfall, the division’s regiments had shifted positions. Meanwhile, the 6th Division remained in place, while units of the 7th Division attempted to hold off the advancing Airborne.

More ominous for Dao, however, was the secret arrival on 13 April of the 95B Regiment from the Central Highlands. When the 4th Corps ran into difficulty, Dung ordered the regiment south. Calling for this unit signaled his deep concerns. It would eventually have the distinction of being the only PAVN unit to be attached to all four corps during the 1975 offensive. Throwing it against the exhausted ARVN troops could easily turn the tide at Xuan Loc.

Tra arrived at 4th Corps headquarters on 13 April and met with the command staff. In analyzing the situation, Tra and the other PAVN officers “reached a clear-cut conclusion: Xuan Loc was an extremely important point on the enemy’s defensive line, so they had concentrated many forces to defend it. . . . We no longer had the element of surprise. Thus, it was not to our advantage to continue to attack Xuan Loc.”¹⁹ However, “If we took and held the Dau Giay intersection . . . Xuan Loc would no longer be a key strongpoint because it lay outside the defensive line. . . . Thus, we would make two moves: One, concentrate our attack on Dau Giay from two directions. Second, we would withdraw from Xuan Loc.” Tra realized that as long as the 18th had effective air support, his troops would have an extremely difficult time taking the ruined city. He planned to covertly move 130-mm artillery within range of the Bien Hoa airbase and shell it in order to paralyze the airfield.

As the North Vietnamese began pulling back from the city outskirts on the night of 12 April, Dao quickly pushed forward and reoccupied the previously taken outlying areas. The 18th Division also began replenishing its supplies. On the afternoon of 12 April, the VNAF flew in ninety tons of artillery ammunition on eight Chinooks. The next day, Dao moved in another one hundred tons of provisions, including food and small-arms ammunition.

The South Vietnamese government attempted to use the 18th’s stand as a morale booster for its frightened populace and dispirited military. Badly needing a propaganda lift after the previous debacles, the government organized a press visit to the embattled provincial capital to showcase its triumph. On 13 April, a bright Sunday morning, the first Western correspondents flew into town via Chinook helicopters. They landed at the village of Tan Phong, where they received a briefing from a defiant Le Minh Dao, who vowed to “knock down” any PAVN division sent against him. The journalists walked into Xuan Loc along Route 1 and surveyed the destruction in the northern part of the city, wrecked by five days of constant combat. The 43rd Regiment’s commander, Colonel Le Xuan Hieu, provided a tour of the market square, pointing out dead enemy soldiers and displaying mounds of captured weapons and a few POWs. Communist artillery rounds continued to hit sporadically, sending plumes of black smoke skywards. One newsman wrote that “Artillery barrages and savage street fighting have reduced entire blocks to piles of white ash, blackened bricks and twisted metal. . . . Xuan Loc’s once-bustling central market is now a pile of rubble about two feet high.”²⁰

Unfortunately, the journalists’ helicopter departure was a potential public-relations nightmare for the South Vietnamese. Local civilians scrambled to gain seats on the Chinooks, only to be knocked aside by a few ARVN stragglers desperate to escape the fighting. ARVN litter bearers, overrun by the anxious crowd, unceremoniously dumped several wounded men on stretchers onto the ground, while the American journalists pushed and elbowed their way onto the overloaded helicopters.²¹ Given the rough return journey, the journalists’ stories were surprisingly generous to the 18th Division soldiers.

While the South Vietnamese government proclaimed its success, as night fell on 12 April, the North Vietnamese were maneuvering their forces for their next move, an assault against the Dau Giay intersection. On 13 April, massive artillery attacks and large infantry assaults pushed the weakened defenders out of the hamlet of Phan Boi Chau back to the very edge of Dau Giay. That night, the ARVN 52nd Regiment commander ordered two companies of the 3rd Battalion to link up with the 1st Battalion and pull it out of Dau Giay. Moving at night through the dense brush, the 3rd Battalion successfully rescued what was left of the 1st Battalion. Only a third of the battalion remained after five days of shelling and attacks by the PAVN 33rd Regiment. Dau Giay was now undefended. Surrounded and unable to evacuate its wounded or receive supplies, the rest of the 52nd was now in an increasingly precarious position. Losing the 2nd Battalion when Dao pulled it back on 10 April had seriously weakened the regiment’s defenses. Dao had felt he needed the additional troops to bolster his defenses in Xuan Loc, but moving the battalion was one of his few tactical mistakes.

With the retreat of the 1st Battalion, the 3rd Armored attempted once more to link up with the 52nd Regiment. Given the importance of opening the road, Brigadier General Khoi decided to bypass the roadblock. He sent a column comprising a Ranger battalion and an Armor troop on a flanking maneuver to the north of Hung Loc to link up with the 52nd Regiment at its location at the hamlet of Nguyen Thai Hoc on Route 20 just north of Dau Giay.

By mid-day on 14 April, Khoi’s troops had successfully captured Hill 122, the high ground north of Hung Loc, scattering light PAVN resistance. However, the first of several streams halted the armor, forcing them to wait while the engineers attempted to create a crossing. This allowed the Communist forces to react to the surprise move, and they quickly counterattacked. Soon, Khoi’s forces were under heavy fire from three directions. According to Khoi’s commander, “The enemy swarmed forward like ants, launching human-wave attacks against three sides of the hill. . . . In this desperate situation I asked headquarters for artillery and air support. Unfortunately, all we got were a few armed helicopters that fired rockets and immediately departed. . . . The enemy attack continued to grow in intensity. I thought they would either overrun Hill 122 or surround it and cut us off completely. . . . Suddenly, they pulled back and the fighting died down. . . . We lost almost twenty casualties, the Rangers almost forty. . . .Enemy bodies were strewn across the rice-fields.”²² Khoi’s attempt to bypass to the north was blocked, leaving both the 18th Division and the 52nd Regiment still cut off.

To break the siege, the South Vietnamese continued to scramble for any means to balance the Communist edge in artillery and infantry. One of Dao’s tactical advantages was his effective use of radio intercepts. The JGS had deployed twenty-man teams to each division to monitor and intercept Communist radio traffic. Dao later told the author, “The enemy units would report their locations and strengths to their headquarters. Every day I evaluated these intercepts and targeted artillery on them. I also passed these targets to III Corps, who coordinated air strikes on these locations.” Without B-52s, the VNAF planned instead to drop recently supplied 15,000-pound bombs called “Daisy Cutters” on high-priority targets.²³ On 14 April the first Daisy Cutter was dropped seven miles northeast of Xuan Loc on the suspected location of the 4th Corps headquarters. Seventy-five percent of the headquarters was reportedly destroyed.²⁴

Early in the morning of 15 April, the opening phase of the new PAVN plan commenced. A sapper squad infiltrated the Bien Hoa airbase and blew up part of the main ammunition dump. The explosion rattled windows in Saigon, twenty miles away. Four 130-mm guns began shelling the airbase, cratering the runway and damaging several planes. Dao’s lifeline, Bien Hoa airbase, was effectively shut down for half a day.

At dawn that same day, the 95B Regiment and the 33rd Regiment, 6th Division, began a coordinated north-south surprise attack against the ARVN 52nd Regiment defending Horseshoe Hill and Nguyen Thai Hoc. Numerous rounds rained down on the beleaguered defenders. After capturing the vital Dau Giay intersection, the 33rd prepared to assault Nguyen Thai Hoc, but it was forced to defend against Khoi’s column, which had resumed its advance. On the northern flank, the 95B Regiment probed the lone ARVN company defending Horseshoe Hill. After beating off three assaults, the 52nd Regiment commander ordered a second company from 3rd Battalion to reinforce the ARVN unit on the hill. Just after the second company had arrived, resupplied the first company, and evacuated the wounded, the 95B launched its main assault, a frontal attack on the hill. Waves of enemy infantry moved across the open fields, only to be mowed down by the ARVN troops. Another battalion from 95B was sent along Route 20 to outflank the hill position, but it was stopped by concentrated ARVN artillery barrages.

The ARVN 3rd Battalion commander later wrote, “1st and 4th Companies on Horseshoe Hill were forced to fight off wave after wave of enemy assaults. . . . At 4:00 P.M. on 15 April one of the officers defending the hill reported ‘there is nothing left around us . . . the base of the hill is covered with enemy bodies and the jungle vegetation has been completely destroyed, so that it seems as if even the slope of the hill has been changed . . . the green peak of the hill has become barren, devoid of vegetation. The thick orchards have become a vast garbage heap. Tree trunks and bodies are piled on top of each other in row after row.’”²⁵ In perhaps the 18th Division’s finest moment, in one day of heavy fighting, two ARVN companies, supported by artillery, had stopped and severely damaged one of the finest PAVN regiments.

On the 52nd Regiment’s southern flank, after halting Khoi’s second effort, in mid-afternoon the PAVN 33rd Regiment resumed its attack on Nguyen Thai Hoc, where the remaining elements of the 5th Cavalry and the rest of the 52nd Regiment were positioned. Facing overwhelming force, at 6:00 P.M. the 52nd’s commander, Colonel Ngo Ky Dung, ordered a night retreat back to friendly lines. Fighting virtually to the last round, the men on Horseshoe Hill pulled back to rejoin the 3rd Battalion. At 6:30 P.M. Colonel Dung led a convoy out of Nguyen Thai Hoc, while the 3rd Battalion moved separately. One ARVN officer stated, “There was nothing we could do. The communists shelled us with thousands of rounds—thousands. Then they attacked this morning with two regiments of infantry. Our casualties were not light, so we ran through the jungle to escape.”²⁶ PAVN hit Xuan Loc with another thousand rounds of artillery that night to prevent the 18th Division and the 1st Airborne Brigade from assisting the 52nd Regiment.

Despite the valiant defense by the 18th Division, the Communists had maneuvered their light infantry through the scrub brush to outflank the ARVN troops. What had been touted as a major victory two days previously now was suddenly reversed. ARVN’s failure to clear Route 1 to Xuan Loc after 9 April and to support Dau Giay with a strong force had come back to haunt it.

Lieutenant General Toan immediately pressed the 8th Regiment, 5th Division, which had been located north of Saigon, to assist the 3rd Armored in breaking through the Communist roadblock on Route 1. Commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Ba Manh Hung, the unit took four hours to move by truck to Hung Nghia, where it joined Khoi’s 3rd Armored. Khoi attached TF 322 to Hung’s regiment and ordered him to clear the highway, while at the same time he pressed forward again from Hill 122. Hugging the blacktop, the ARVN soldiers fought a series of engagements against the 95B Regiment and the 6th Division at the now deserted hamlets of Hung Nghia and Hung Loc west of Dau Giay. Despite repeated attacks, ARVN could not reclaim the road junction from the dug-in PAVN troops. Hung states, “The Communists had built about ten strong-points, each held by a reinforced platoon. It was impossible to break through.”²⁷ Several Western newsmen who ventured out to Hung Nghia to see the fighting were wounded, and the Communist shelling killed many civilians halted at the checkpoints on Route 1. After several days of fighting, the 341st Division moved in to replace 95B and the 6th Division. Meanwhile, the four North Vietnamese 130-mm guns, now augmented by a battery of 122-mm rockets, kept up a relentless barrage on Bien Hoa airfield. The shelling attacks greatly restricted the ability of the South Vietnamese Air Force to provide support to Dao and Khoi and helped to sound the death knell of Xuan Loc.

With the capture of the Dau Giay intersection and with the 18th Division surrounded, Lieutenant General Toan had no choice. At 9:00 A.M. on 20 April, Toan flew in to see Dao. His orders were blunt: Retreat immediately. Toan needed Dao’s forces for the coming battle for Saigon. Once they had retreated, they would be moved by truck to Long Binh to re-equip and receive reinforcements. Dao and Toan decided that the 18th would escape along Route 2, the dirt road leading south out of Xuan Loc that had been attacked a month earlier by the 6th Division.

While Dao agreed with Toan’s decision, he was worried about retreating down a road the Communists had recently attacked. The disasters in I and II Corps were foremost in his mind. To escape, the 18th would have to march twenty-five miles on foot at night along the dirt trail from Xuan Loc to an assembly area in Phuoc Tuy province, a tricky maneuver in the dark. Dao sent an officer in his helicopter to study the road and determine if there were any Communist roadblocks. The officer reported back that the road was passable and appeared to be free of Communist troops. Although local guerrillas still harassed the road, Dao believed he could easily brush them aside. His deeper concern was how to slip away from the enemy still ringing the town. If they detected his maneuver, his columns could be easily overwhelmed.

With only half a day to formulate a strategy to extricate his division from Xuan Loc, Dao decided on the following plan. First, he developed a deception plan to distract his opponent. He ordered the Airborne brigade to mount a major attack against the 7th Division units east of Xuan Loc. The Airborne, backed by a tremendous amount of artillery, fought all day on 20 April against the 7th Division elements.

Meanwhile, Dao himself would walk with his retreating troops while Colonel Ngo Ky Dung would fly overhead in Dao’s helicopter to provide command and control. The first unit to leave from Tan Phong at 8:00 P.M. would be the 48th Regiment, followed by the armor, and then the remaining artillery and logistics units. When the artillery reached the former American outpost at Long Giao, it would establish a firebase, protected by the reconnaissance company, to support the retreat. Next would be the RF units and any civilians. The two battalions of the 43rd Regiment, the 2nd Battalion, 52nd Regiment, and the 82nd Rangers would be last in the column. Acting as rear guard were the 2nd Battalion, 43rd Regiment, and the Airborne brigade. During the night, the 2nd Battalion would abandon Thi Mountain and link up with the Airborne at Tan Phong intersection. These units would both move at dawn on 21 April.

In spite of the tremendous difficulties in moving an entire division, plus attached units and civilians, twenty-five miles along a dirt trail at night, Dao and the 18th Division conducted a masterly retreat. The division slipped out of Xuan Loc and escaped to Phuoc Tuy province with ease. Dao’s personal leadership again made the difference. His chief of staff recalls, “Brigadier General Le Minh Dao walked with the troop columns to provide command and take immediate action in response to problems encountered along the route of march. . . . As a result, all forces were able to safely reach the assembly area early in the morning of 21 April.”²⁸

The North Vietnamese, caught off guard by the sudden move, ordered all elements to pursue the retreating South Vietnamese but were unable to catch them. However, things did not go as smoothly for Dao’s rear guard. According to one former 18th Division officer:

During this withdrawal the 1st Airborne Brigade confronted the most danger and suffered the most losses because it was the last column and was assigned to cover the rear . . . on 20 April, when the order to move out was given, the brigade was still engaged in heavy fighting against communist forces at Bao Dinh, and the brigade’s dead and wounded had still not been evacuated. All of them had to be left behind. . . . This had to be done because, for the survivors, the escape route of more than twenty-five miles through pitch-black rubber forests would be like passing through the gates of hell. . . . At 9:00 P.M., just as the airborne battalions reached Route 2, they encountered a memorable and emotional scene. All the Catholic families from the parishes of Bao Dinh, Bao Toan, and Bao Hoa were gathered along both sides of the road waiting to join the troops in the evacuation . . . The task of covering scores of kilometers down a long-neglected jungle road, Route 2 from Tan Phong . . . was not easy for a column with civilian refugees interspersed among the troops. . . . Only the 3rd Airborne Artillery Battalion, escorted by an airborne reconnaissance company, moved down the road. The brigade’s combat battalions all moved through the rubber trees, covering the rear. At 4:00 A.M. on 21 April the 3rd Airborne Artillery Battalion and the airborne reconnaissance company were ambushed by two communist battalions near the Long Khanh/Phuoc Tuy province border. Almost everyone in Artillery Platoon C and in the reconnaissance platoon escorting it was killed or wounded in a human-wave attack. . . . Aside from these losses, the evacuation down Route 2 went very well.²⁹

There had also been confusion between Dao and the 1st Airborne commander, Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Van Dinh. Dao needed the 2nd Battalion to hold Thi Mountain to protect the northern shoulder of the retreat. The battalion would then slowly withdraw and link up with the Airborne at Tan Phong. Unfortunately, there was a mix-up, and Dinh moved out his Airborne and left the 2nd Battalion behind. Upon arriving at the assembly area, the 43rd Regiment commander reported that the Airborne had run into problems at the Long Khanh/Phuoc Tuy border. Dao immediately grabbed his helicopter and flew toward the Airborne positions to assist them and guide air strikes. As Dao was flying, the 43rd Regiment commander called him on the radio and told him that the 2nd Battalion was still waiting at Tan Phong. Dao switched to the battalion frequency and told the men not to use Route 2, but to cut through the jungle and bypass the PAVN positions. Major Nguyen Huu Che ordered his men to break up into small units. It took them three days to retreat through the jungle, fighting all the way. Their casualties were heavy, with over 50 percent of the battalion lost.

During the retreat from Xuan Loc, ARVN radio direction-finding teams located the 341st Division Forward Headquarters from the heavy communication traffic as the unit frantically tried to catch the retreating South Vietnamese. The VNAF decided to strike using a deadly weapon, the CBU-55, a fuel/air cluster bomb designed originally to clear minefields. As described by CIA analyst Frank Snepp, “With the help of DAO technicians, South Vietnamese pilots rigged up a special bomb rack for . . . the terrifying killing device known as the CBU-55. . . . A C-130 transport with a CBU on board took off from Tan Son Nhut, circled once over Xuan Loc to the east, and dropped its load virtually on top of the command post of the 341st Division just outside the newly-captured town. The casualties were tremendous. Over 250 PAVN troops were incinerated or died from suffocation in the post-explosion vacuum.”³⁰ Once the Communists determined the nature of the attack, they loudly accused Saigon of “flouting all norms of morality” and denounced the officials who ordered the use of the weapon as “war criminals.”³¹

The dropping of the CBU-55 was the last blow struck in the battle for Xuan Loc, although Khoi’s 3rd Armored and the 8th Regiment, 5th Division, continued to fight over Hung Nghia. On 22 April, the 8th retook the town in heavy fighting and was driving for Dau Giay, but was ordered to stop once the 18th retreated. The same day, the 1st Airborne Brigade was detached from Dao’s division and ordered to defend Phuoc Tuy province. On 25 April, the 3rd Armored was ordered to pull back to Bien Hoa to tighten the defensive lines around Saigon.

FINAL EFFORT ON AID

As we have seen, at an Oval Office meeting on 25 March, President Ford ordered General Frederick C. Weyand—who was then the Army chief of staff, but who had been the last commander of U.S. military operations in Vietnam in 1972 and 1973—to travel to South Vietnam and report on the situation there. On 5 April General Weyand returned and informed Ford that the situation was “very critical.” If the South Vietnamese were to survive, “they needed an additional $722 million worth of supplies, primarily ammunition. That money would not enable them to recapture the ground they lost, but it would be enough to let them establish a strong defense perimeter around Saigon. If they managed to stabilize the military situation, there was still hope for a political solution to the war.”³² Ford decided to request the $722 million in military supplies in a speech on 10 April before a joint session of Congress.

That morning, after the first day of the battle at Xuan Loc, Ambassador Martin cabled Washington with news of the ARVN victories there and in the Delta. Aware that the president planned to request the new money, Martin told the White House, “You may wish to consider including in the President’s speech references to . . . the fact that the ARVN is fighting . . . with extreme tenacity and courage.”³³ President Ford’s speechwriters added this news, and Ford told Congress that “the South Vietnamese are willing to fight. At Xuan Loc, although outnumbered, the South Vietnamese have fought valiantly and have held their ground and inflicted heavy losses.”³⁴ Ford then asked for $722 million in military aid and $250 million in economic aid, and requested that Congress appropriate the money no later than 19 April.

Several days later, on 14 April, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee requested a meeting with the president to discuss the Indochina situation. During the session, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger presented the Xuan Loc stand as proof that the South Vietnamese were willing to fight. The senators were impervious to his arguments. Despite the stout defense of Xuan Loc, Congress was in no mood to support the South Vietnamese. In a stinging rebuke, Senator Jacob Javits (R., N.Y.) remarked, “I will give you large sums for evacuation [of American civilians], but not one nickel for military aid to Thieu.”³⁵

Bui Diem, the former GVN ambassador to the U.S. who had been sent by Thieu to solicit aid, was desperately working his old congressional friends, seeking any kind of assistance to help stem the PAVN tide. He too used the 18th Division’s stand as a prod for American conscience. But his efforts also came up empty. Given the apparent lack of congressional support, Martin urged the White House to delay the scheduled aid vote, but Ford went ahead anyway. The result was as expected. On 17 April the Senate Armed Services Committee, reflecting an overwhelming desire to be done with Vietnam, rejected Ford’s request.

On the political front in Saigon, the newly anointed Prime Minister Nguyen Ba Can worked diligently, but it was not until 14 April that he was able to cobble together a new Cabinet. Despite Can’s efforts, the fall of Phan Rang and Phan Thiet irrevocably destroyed Thieu’s credibility as South Vietnam’s leader. The collapse of Cambodia on 17 April further contributed to the sense of doom.

Bowing to the pressure, on 21 April, Thieu resigned. In his farewell speech that night, he voiced his frustrations regarding what he saw as American perfidy. He bluntly declared that he had reluctantly accepted the Paris Accords only after President Nixon promised him that if North Vietnam attacked, the U.S. would respond militarily. He also revealed that the U.S. had threatened to cut off aid if he did not sign the accords. Since people now considered him the main obstacle to more aid or possible negotiations, in order to help his country he was stepping down in favor of Vice President Tran Van Huong. After eight tumultuous years in office, the man who had held South Vietnam together through military invasions, economic depression, and political firestorms was finally gone. Yet although he had been reviled as the obstacle to peace by anti-war activists around the globe, his departure had no impact on Hanoi’s military plans.

The new president, Tran Van Huong, had had a long career on the Saigon political scene. Born in the Mekong Delta, the seventy-one-year-old former schoolteacher was afflicted with declining vision, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart problems, and a recent bout with cancer. His political philosophy was a blend of Confucian morality and peasant pragmatism. While respected for his honesty and patriotism, he had never acquired a large role within the Thieu administration. Yet despite his poor health and the grave military situation, he resisted demands to resign and turn over power to General Duong Van Minh. Whether out of respect for the RVN constitution, dislike of General Minh, or pure obstinacy, Huong vowed to continue fighting, and he ordered the military to defend the nation’s capital.

The battle for the ultimate prize, Saigon, was about to begin.