On April 6, a front-page story in The New York Times declared that the siege of Khe Sanh had been lifted. On the first day of battle, a big Communist rocket scored a direct hit on the main Marine ammunition dump, destroying 1,500 tons of high explosives, 98 percent of available ammunition. The pallet slid to a halt on the airstrip while the aircraft never had to actually land. MACV therefore initiated an operation to open Route 9 to vehicle traffic. The Marines pursued three enemy scouts, who led them into an ambush. server. [45] In December and early January, numerous sightings of PAVN troops and activities were made in the Khe Sanh area, but the sector remained relatively quiet.[46]. [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. This article was written by Peter Brush and originally published in the June 2007 issue of Vietnam Magazine. Military History Institute of Vietnam, p. 222. [129][130] Nevertheless, according to Tom Johnson, President Johnson was "determined that Khe Sanh [would not] be an 'American Dien Bien Phu'". U.S. Marines and their allies killed thousands of NVA, but to solve the riddle of Khe Sanh, you have to recount the numbers. [74], During January, the recently installed electronic sensors of Operation Muscle Shoals (later renamed "Igloo White"), which were undergoing test and evaluation in southeastern Laos, were alerted by a flurry of PAVN activity along the Ho Chi Minh Trail opposite the northwestern corner of South Vietnam. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, then began planning for incursion into Laos, and in October, the construction of an airfield at Khe Sanh was completed. [80] Westmoreland insisted for several months that the entire Tet Offensive was a diversion, including, famously, attacks on downtown Saigon and obsessively affirming that the true objective of the North Vietnamese was Khe Sanh. Khe Sanh is a village located near the Laotian border and just south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that separated North and South Vietnam. Siege at Khe Sanh: ~17,200 (304th and 308th Division), Defense at Route 9: ~16,900 (320th and 324th Division), This page was last edited on 1 March 2023, at 15:52. [62], On 20 January, La Thanh Ton, a PAVN lieutenant from the 325th Division, defected and laid out the plans for an entire series of PAVN attacks. None of the deaths associated with Scotland II are included in the official count. The exact number of casualties suffered by both sides during the Khe Sanh battle is very difficult to ascertain, given that in many cases the two warring factions provided their own disparate counts. The official assessment of the North Vietnamese Army dead is just over 1,600 killed, with two . Battle of Khe Sanh The attack finally came on January 21, 1968, when PAVN forces began a massive artillery bombardment of Khe Sanh, hitting the base's main store of ammunition and destroying. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. From the Hu site the communication signal was sent to Danang headquarters where it could be sent anywhere in the world. Sporadic actions were taken in the vicinity during the late summer and early fall, the most serious of which was the ambush of a supply convoy on Route 9. If firepower determined the outcome of the fight, it was airlift that allowed the defenders to hold their positions. [125] The 325C Divisional Headquarters was the first to leave, followed by the 95C and 101D Regiments, all of which relocated to the west. [31] Mortar rounds, artillery shells, and 122mm rockets fell randomly but incessantly upon the base. [24], The plateau camp was permanently manned by the US Marines in 1967, when they established an outpost next to the airstrip. If a battle tallied a sufficiently favorable body count ratio, American commanders declared victory, as they did after Khe Sanh. The Marines withdrew all salvageable material and destroyed everything else. Several rounds also landed on Hill 881. Once the base came under siege, a series of actions were fought over a period of five months. The base was officially closed on July 5. [20] These figures do not include casualties among Special Forces troops at Lang Vei, aircrews killed or missing in the area, or Marine replacements killed or wounded while entering or exiting the base aboard aircraft. New material will be added to that page through the end of 2018. Once the aircraft touched down, it became the target of any number of PAVN artillery or mortar crews. When an enemy rocket-propelled grenade killed 2nd Lt. Randall Yeary and Corporal Richard John, although these Marines died before the beginning of the siege, their deaths were included in the official statistics. 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. At 21:30, the attack came on, but it was stifled by the small arms of the Rangers, who were supported by thousands of artillery rounds and air strikes. [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. [21], PAVN artillery fell on the main base for the first time on 21 January. ~45,000 in total[11]~6,000 Marines at the Combat Base of Khe Sanh[12] [63] Hills 881 South, 861, and the main base itself would be simultaneously attacked that same evening. Due to severe losses, however, the NVA abandoned its plan for a massive ground attack. That was accomplished, but the casualties absorbed by the North Vietnamese seemed to negate any direct gains they might have obtained. After a ten-day battle, the attackers were pushed back into Cambodia. This marked the first time that all three battalions of the 26th Marine Regiment had operated together in combat since the Battle of Iwo Jima during the Second World War. See also Pisor, p. 108. Khe Sanh was one of the most remote outposts in Vietnam, but by January 1968, even President Lyndon Johnson had taken a personal interest in the base. [164] He cited the fact that it would have taken longer to dislodge the North Vietnamese at Hue if the PAVN had committed the three divisions at Khe Sanh to the battle there instead of dividing its forces. This time period does not particularly coincide with the fighting; rather, it dates from before the siege began and terminates before the siege (and the fighting) ended. [28], In early December 1967, the PAVN appointed Major General Tran Quy Hai as the local commander for the actions around Khe Sanh, with Le Quang Do as his political commissar. [1] According to Brush, it was "the only occasion in which Americans abandoned a major combat base due to enemy pressure" and in the aftermath, the North Vietnamese began a strong propaganda campaign, seeking to exploit the US withdrawal and to promote the message that the withdrawal had not been by choice. For some unknown reason, the PAVN troops did not press their advantage and eliminate the pocket, instead throwing a steady stream of grenades at the Marines. "[136], Regardless, on 1 April, Operation Pegasus began. On January 14, Marines from Company B, 3rd Recon Battalion, were moving up the north slope of Hill 881 North, a few miles northwest of Khe Sanh Combat Base. The PAVN 130mm and 152mm artillery pieces, and 122mm rockets, had a longer range than the Marine artillery support which consisted of 105mm and 155mm howitzers. [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. [23][Note 2], James Marino wrote that in 1964, General William Westmoreland, the US commander in Vietnam, had determined, "Khe Sanh could serve as a patrol base blocking enemy infiltration from Laos; a base for operations to harass the enemy in Laos; an airstrip for reconnaissance to survey the Ho Chi Minh Trail; a western anchor for the defenses south of the DMZ; and an eventual jumping-off point for ground operations to cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail. In his memoirs, he listed the reasons for a continued effort: Khe Sanh could serve as a patrol base for blocking enemy infiltration from Laos along Route 9; as a base for SOG operations to harass the enemy in Laos; as an airstrip for reconnaissance planes surveying the Ho Chi Minh Trail; as the western anchor for defenses south of the DMZ; and as an eventual jump-off point for ground operations to cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail. [158] The question, known among American historians as the "riddle of Khe Sanh," has been summed up by John Prados and Ray Stubbe: "Either the Tet Offensive was a diversion intended to facilitate PAVN/VC preparations for a war-winning battle at Khe Sanh, or Khe Sanh was a diversion to mesmerize Westmoreland in the days before Tet. The Siege of Khe Sanh. Westmoreland echoed this judgment in his memoirs, and, using exactly the same figures, concluded that the North Vietnamese had suffered a most damaging and one-sided defeat. [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. [59], Making matters worse for the defenders, any aircraft that braved the weather and attempted to land was subject to PAVN antiaircraft fire on its way in for a landing. Time magazine, in an April 12, 1968, article titled Victory at Khe Sanh, reported General William Westmoreland, commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, after flying into Khe Sanh by helicopter, declaring: We took 220 killed at Khe Sanh and about 800 wounded and evacuated. [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. Click to View Online Archive The Battle of Khe Sanh was conducted northwestern Quaag Tri Province, South Vietnam, between January 21 and July 9, 1968 during the Vietnam War. The Marines knew that their withdrawal from Khe Sanh would present a propaganda victory for Hanoi. GitHub export from English Wikipedia. [Note 5] This event prompted Cushman to reinforce Lownds with the rest of the 2nd Battalion, 26th Marines. [166] This view was supported by a captured North Vietnamese study of the battle in 1974 that stated that the PAVN would have taken Khe Sanh if it could have done so, but there was a limit to the price that it would pay. The Battle of la Drang was considered essential because it sets up a change of tactics for both troops during the conflict. [87], Heated debate arose among Westmoreland, Commandant of the Marine Corps Leonard F. Chapman Jr., and Army Chief of Staff Harold K. Johnson. [43] Lieutenant General Robert E. Cushman Jr. relieved Walt as commander of III MAF in June. Things heated up for the air cavalrymen on 6 April, when the 3rd Brigade encountered a PAVN blocking force and fought a day-long engagement. The official figure of 205 KIA only represents Marine deaths in the Operation Scotland TAORthat is, Marines killed in proximity to the Khe Sanh Combat Base during the period from November 1, 1967, to March 31, 1968. [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. This is the battles end date from the North Vietnamese perspective. One of the first enemy shells set off an explosion in the main ammunition dump. Two further attacks later in the morning were halted before the PAVN finally withdrew.

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