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Marine Khe Sanh veteran Peter Brush is Vietnam Magazines book review editor. The PAVN forces were in the process of gaining elevated terrain before it launched the main attack. While I was in training, my motivation was to get these wings and I wear them today proudly, the airman recalled in 2015. Airpower at Khe Sanh | Air & Space Forces Magazine - Air Force Magazine [117], Cumulative friendly casualties for Operation Scotland, which began on 1 November 1967, were: 205 killed in action, 1,668 wounded, and 25 missing and presumed dead. The fact that the North Vietnamese committed only about half of their available forces to the offensive (6070,000), most of whom were Viet Cong, is cited in favor of Westmoreland's argument. It was not sufficient to simply be an American military person killed in the fighting there during the winter and spring of 1967-68. What is the 25th Infantry known for? In March 1968, an overland relief expedition (Operation Pegasus) was launched by a combined MarineArmy/ARVN task force that eventually broke through to the Marines at Khe Sanh. At the same time, the 304th Division withdrew to the southwest. [81] The sensors were implanted by a special naval squadron, Observation Squadron Sixty-Seven (VO-67). [138], On the following day, the 2nd Brigade captured the old French fort near Khe Sanh village after a three-day battle. The microwave/tropo site was located in an underground bunker next to the airstrip. 1st Marine Aircraft Wing records claim that the unit delivered 4,661 tons of cargo into KSCB. [12] Further fighting followed, resulting in the loss of another 11 Marines and 89 PAVN soldiers, before the Marines finally withdrew from the area on 11 July. "[159] In assessing North Vietnamese intentions, Peter Brush cites the claim of Vietnamese theater commander, V Nguyn Gip, "that Khe Sanh itself was not of importance, but only a diversion to draw U.S. forces away from the populated areas of South Vietnam. The origin of the combat base lay in the construction by US Army Special Forces of an airfield in August 1962 outside the village at an old French fort. It was later renamed "Dye Marker" by MACV in September 1967, just as the PAVN began the first phase of their offensive by launching attacks against Marine-held positions across the DMZ. Battle of la Drang Valley (26 October - 27 . On January 31, while approximately 50,000 U.S. and South Vietnamese troops were occupied in defending or supporting Khe Sanh and other DMZ bases, the communists launched an offensive throughout South Vietnam. Besieged, Khe Sanh could only be resupplied by air. Among the dead Marines was 18-year-old Pfc Curtis Bugger. The distinctions between Operations Scotland, Pegasus and Scotland II, while important from the command perspective, were not necessarily apparent to individual Marines. The Hill Fights - Wikipedia [147] The official closure of the base came on 5 July after fighting, which had killed five more Marines. [135] The Marines had constantly argued that technically, Khe Sanh had never been under siege, since it had never truly been isolated from resupply or reinforcement. [105], Lownds estimated that the logistical requirements of KSCB were 60 tons per day in mid-January and rose to 185 tons per day when all five battalions were in place. The Marines knew that their withdrawal from Khe Sanh would present a propaganda victory for Hanoi. 528 of them include images. At least 852 PAVN soldiers were killed during the action, as opposed to 50 American and South Vietnamese. From the Hu site the communication signal was sent to Danang headquarters where it could be sent anywhere in the world. After failing to respond to a challenge, they were fired upon and five were killed outright while the sixth, although wounded, escaped. One of the first enemy shells set off an explosion in the main ammunition dump. A 77 day battle, Khe Sanh had been the biggest single battle of the Vietnam War to that point. The badly-deteriorated Route 9 ran from the coastal region through the western highlands and crossed the border into Laos. While suffering less significant casualties (around 10,000 dead), ARVN units had only turned back the attacking PAVN forces with massive American air support. With Khe Sanh facing a full-scale. Consequently, and unknown at the time, Operation Scotland became the starting point of the Battle of Khe Sanh in terms of Marine casualty reporting. U.S. Marines and their allies killed thousands of NVA, but to solve the riddle of Khe Sanh, you have to recount the numbers. [75] On 22 January, the first sensor drops took place, and by the end of the month, 316 acoustic and seismic sensors had been dropped in 44 strings. [33], On 27 October, a PAVN regiment attacked an Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) battalion at Song Be, capital of Phc Long Province. January 30 marked the first day of the Vietnamese lunar new year celebration, called Tet. [170][140], One argument that was then leveled by Westmoreland and has since often quoted by historians of the battle is that only two Marine regiments were tied down at Khe Sanh, compared with the several PAVN divisions. The Hill Fights (also known as the First Battle of Khe Sanh) was a battle during the Vietnam War between the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) 325C Division and United States Marines on several hill masses north of the Khe Sanh Combat Base in northwest Qung Tr Province . [89] As a result, on 7 March, for the first time during the Vietnam War, air operations were placed under the control of a single manager. That afternoon, as a rescue force was dispatched to the village, Army Lt. Col. Joseph Seymoe and other soldiers died when their helicopter was attacked. The assault began on 10 May 1969 w ith the 101st Airborne Division and troops of the 9th M arine Regiment, the 5 th Cavalry Regiment, and the 3 rd ARVN Regiment. The Pegasus force consisted of the Army 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) plus the 1st Marine Regiment. After a ten-day battle, the attackers were pushed back into Cambodia. While climbing, the C-123 was struck by several bursts of heavy machine gun and recoilless rifle fire. Over 100,000 tons of bombs were dropped by US aircraft and over 158,000 artillery rounds were fired in defense of the base. Lima Company finally seized the hill after overcoming determined NVA resistance. The Americans wanted a military presence there to block the infiltration of enemy forces from Laos, to provide a base for launching patrols into Laos to monitor the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and to serve as a western anchor for defense along the DMZ. Ho Chi Minhs oft-quoted admonition to the French applied equally to the Americans: You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours, but even at those odds, you will lose and I will win. The calculation by Stubbe that approximately 1,000 Americans died on the Khe Sanh battlefield is especially compelling, given that Stubbes numbers are accompanied by names and dates of death. "[97], Ladd and the commander of the SOG compound (whose men and camp had been incorporated into the defenses of KSCB) proposed that, if the Marines would provide the helicopters, the SOG reconnaissance men would go in themselves to pick up any survivors. As a result, 65% of all supplies were delivered by paradrops delivered by C-130 aircraft, mostly by the USAF, whose crews had significantly more experience in airdrop tactics than Marine air crews. On April 15, Operation Pegasus ended and Operation Scotland II began. As a result of this intelligence, KSCB was reinforced on 22 January 1968 by the 1st Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment. [132], On 2 March, Tolson laid out what became known as Operation Pegasus, the operational plan for what was to become the largest operation launched by III MAF thus far in the conflict. The base was officially closed on July 5. The NVA used Hill 881 North to launch 122mm rockets at the Marines during the siege. At about 0640 hours the NVA 7th Battalion, 66th Regiment, 304th Division, attacked the Huong Hoa District headquarters in Khe Sanh village. Scotland was a 26th Marine Regiment operation, so only the deaths of Marines assigned to the regiment, and attached supporting units, were counted. GitHub export from English Wikipedia. [77] When weather conditions precluded FAC-directed strikes, the bombers were directed to their targets by either a Marine AN/TPQ-10 radar installation at KSCB or by Air Force Combat Skyspot MSQ-77 stations. The NVA 304th Divisions history notes that on 9 July 1968, the liberation flag was waving from the flag pole at Ta Con [Khe Sanh] airfield. On July 13, 1968, Ho Chi Minh sent a message to the soldiers of the Route 9Khe Sanh Front affirming our victory at Khe Sanh.. TBKQS / Trung tm TBKQS - BQP - H Ni: QND, 2004. [140] Total US casualties during the operation were 92 killed, 667 wounded, and five missing. If a battle tallied a sufficiently favorable body count ratio, American commanders declared victory, as they did after Khe Sanh. [172], On 30 January 1971, the ARVN and US forces launched Operation Dewey Canyon II, which involved the reopening of Route 9, securing the Khe Sanh area and reoccupying of KSCB as a forward supply base for Operation Lam Son 719. [40] The 2nd and 3rd battalions of the 3rd Marine Regiment, under the command of Colonel John P. Lanigan, reinforced KSCB and were given the task of pushing the PAVN off of Hills 861, 881 North, and 881 South. 20,000-30,000 men Battle of Khe Sanh Overview Not including ARVN Ranger, RF/PF, Forward Operation Base 3 U.S. Army, Royal Laotian Army and SOG commandos losses. [25], Marino stated that "by 1966, Westmoreland had begun to consider Khe Sanh as part of a larger strategy." Minor attacks continued before the base was officially closed on 5 July. The official, public estimate of 10,000 to 15,000 North Vietnamese KIA stands in contrast to another estimate made by the American military. Tolson was not happy with the assignment, since he believed that the best course of action, after Tet, was to use his division in an attack into the A Shau Valley. At 04:15 on 8 February under cover of fog and a mortar barrage, the PAVN penetrated the perimeter, overrunning most of the position and pushing the remaining 30 defenders into the southwestern portion of the defenses. Historian Ronald Spector, in the book After Tet: The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam, noted that American casualties in the 10 weeks after the start of Operation Pegasus were more than twice those officially reported during the siege. A limited attack was made by a PAVN company on 1 July, falling on a company from the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, who were holding a position 3km to the southeast of the base. On April 5, 1968, MACV prepared an Analysis of the Khe Sanh Battle for General Westmoreland. The village of Khe Sanh was the seat of government of Hng Hoa district, an area of Bru Montagnard villages and coffee plantations about 7 miles (11km) from the Laotian frontier on Route 9, the northernmost transverse road in South Vietnam. There are still debates about the true number of casualties, but estimates range that 1,000 to 3,500 US soldiers died, and a secret report from the US Military Assistance Command, Vietnam,. By the end of January 1968, he had moved half of all US combat troops, nearly 50 maneuver battalions, to I Corps. However, the PAVN committed three regiments to the fighting from the Khe Sanh sector. The United States Marines gave the actual body count of the NVA troops killed to be 1,602, but estimates show that the total number of NVA troops . [69] The Marine Direct Air Support Center (DASC), located at KSCB, was responsible for the coordination of air strikes with artillery fire. The battle of Khe Sanh is one of the most well-known battles of the Vietnam War. Two Marines died. Ten American soldiers were killed; the rest managed to escape down Route 9 to Khe Sanh. Historians have observed that the Battle of Khe Sanh may have distracted American and South Vietnamese attention from the buildup of Viet Cong (VC) forces in the south before the early 1968 Tet Offensive. Of the 500 CIDG troops at Lang Vei, 200 had been killed or were missing and 75 more were wounded. At 00:30 on 21 January, Hill 861 was attacked by about 300 PAVN troops, the Marines, however, were prepared. Because of washed-out bridges and heavy enemy activity, however, the only way for Americans to get to Khe Sanh was by helicopter or airplane. This article was written by Peter Brush and originally published in the June 2007 issue of Vietnam Magazine. [36], Things remained quiet in the Khe Sanh area through 1966. Once the base came under siege, a series of actions were fought over a period of five months. Khe Sanh was situated on Route 9, the major east-west highway. By comparison, according to another Army general, a 10:1 ratio was considered average and 25:1 was considered very good. The 26th Marine Regiment (26th Marines) is an inactivated infantry regiment of the United States Marine Corps. [30], In early October, the PAVN had intensified battalion-sized ground probes and sustained artillery fire against Con Thien, a hilltop stronghold in the center of the Marines' defensive line south of the DMZ, in northern Qung Tr Province. The fire of PAVN antiaircraft units took its toll of helicopters that made the attempt. Battle of Khe Sanh : American Casualties We have 535 casualty profiles listed in our archive. [152] The Marines occupied Hill 950 overlooking the Khe Sanh plateau from 1966 until September 1969 when control was handed to the Army who used the position as a SOG operations and support base until it was overrun by the PAVN in June 1971. [98] The Marines continued to oppose the operation until Westmoreland actually had to issue an order to Cushman to allow the rescue operation to proceed. The main US forces defending Khe Sanh Combat Base (KSCB) were two regiments of the United States Marine Corps supported by elements from the United States Army and the United States Air Force (USAF), as well as a small number of Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) troops. [117][20] The PAVN acknowledged 2,500 men killed in action. Beginning in October 1967, the Communists greatly increased their forces in the Khe Sanh area to total two infantry divisions, two artillery regiments and an armored regiment. The link-up between the relief force and the Marines at KSCB took place at 08:00 on 8 April, when the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment entered the camp. Had the plane been shot down departing Khe Sanh, the casualties would have been counted. [108] The most dramatic supply delivery system used at Khe Sanh was the Low Altitude Parachute Extraction System, in which palletized supplies were pulled out of the cargo bay of a low-flying transport aircraft by means of an attached parachute. The presence of the PAVN 1st Division prompted a 22-day battle there and had some of the most intense close-quarters fighting of the entire conflict. . Battle of Khe Sanh : American Casualties - Honor States How many white soldiers died in Vietnam? - 2023 The PAVN claim that during the entire battle they "eliminated" 17,000 enemy troops, including 13,000 Americans and destroyed 480 aircraft. Site will be misbehaving during our migration to new (better!) Khe Sanh is a village located near the Laotian border and just south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that separated North and South Vietnam. today! Since late in 1967, Khe Sanh had depended on airlift for its survival. During the 1968 Tet Offensive, as many as 30,000 Communist Vietnamese forces surrounded roughly 6,000 U.S. marines defending a combat base on .. Week of February 21 Battle of Khe Sanh - Wikipedia The relief of Khe Sanh, called Operation Pegasus, began . A myth has grown up around this incident. Taking place between March and July 1970, the Battle of Fire. [100][Note 6], Lownds infuriated the Special Forces personnel even further when the indigenous survivors of Lang Vei, their families, civilian refugees from the area, and Laotian survivors from the camp at Ban Houei Sane arrived at the gate of KSCB. On April 6, a front-page story in The New York Times declared that the siege of Khe Sanh had been lifted. They asked what had changed in six months so that American commanders were willing to abandon Khe Sanh in July. U.S. battles of the war in Vietnam had young GIs or Marines humping into the boonies in search of the enemy. The report continues to state, "this prompted Air Force chief of staff, General John McConnell, to press, although unsuccessfully, for JCS (Joint Chiefs of Staff) authority to request Pacific Command to prepare a plan for using low-yield nuclear weapons to prevent a catastrophic loss of the U.S. Marine base. The last of the American casualties were finally lifted off Hill 861 on March 17. [53] Two divisions, the 304th and the 325th, were assigned to the operation: the 325th was given responsibility for the area around the north, while the 304th was given responsibility for the southern sector. Since the official duration of the battle ends even earlier than the termination of the siege itself, a wider definition of the Khe Sanh battlefield to include Operations Scotland, Pegasus and Scotland II also seems reasonable. Cushman, the new III MAF commander, supported Westmoreland perhaps because he wanted to mend Army/Marine relations after the departure of Walt. With a view to gain the eventual approval for an advance through Laos to interdict the Ho Chi Minh Trail, he determined that "it was absolutely essential to hold the base." SOG Reconnaissance teams also reported finding tank tracks in the area surrounding Co Roc mountain. Five days later, the final reinforcements arrived in the form of the 37th ARVN Ranger Battalion, which was deployed more for political than tactical reasons. The Battle of Khe Sanh (21 January 9 July 1968) was conducted in the Khe Sanh area of northwestern Qung Tr Province, Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), during the Vietnam War. On 18 January, Westmoreland passed his request for Air Force control up the chain of command to CINCPAC in Honolulu. The strike wounded two more Strike Force soldiers and damaged two bunkers. Battlefield:Vietnam | History [59], During the rainy night of 2 January 1968, six men dressed in black uniforms were seen outside the defensive wire of the main base by members of a listening post. For additional reading, see: Valley of Decision: The Siege of Khe Sanh, by John Prados and Ray W. Stubbe; and the official Marine Corps history, The Battle for Khe Sanh, by Moyers S. Shore II.