Losing Vietnam (16 page)
Authors: Ira A. Hunt Jr.
On 2 April 1974, the joint staff published an exclusive memorandum to the four corps commanders and the heads of the navy and air force, subject: “The President of RVN's Instructions on the Present War Policy.” On the occasion of Tet, the year of the tiger, President Thieu traveled by helicopter to visit many of the military posts. His usual instructions to the troops were:
During the past when the U.S. forces were still here, we fought with unrestricted abundant means, that is fighting on a large scale ⦠employing many means and ammo, bombs lavishly.
Now foreign aid has been restricted and tends to diminish due to difficulties happening right in our allied countries which have assisted us, so it cannot continue indefinitely, as well as the energy crisis in the world which has significantly affected the economy of RVN.
Therefore, we have to resort to the purely Vietnamese tactics to be in conformance with our self-sufficient and restricted means.
In the field of tactics, large scale attacks with combined arms which require ample costly support are no longer appropriate, partly because our supporting capabilities are limitedâ¦. Therefore, we have to return to the purely Vietnamese tactics, putting emphasis on small unit activitiesâ¦. Units will not depend and entirely rely on air and artillery support.
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This was a far-reaching and very important change in military tactical philosophy, definitely an unpopular message. In a way, it showed that President Thieu, far more than others, was reading the minds of the U.S. Congress and instinctively knew that military aid was to be
further cut. He was trying to position the armed forces for the future. This policy was dubbed “the necessity to fight a poor man's war.”
Tong Le Chan, a ranger camp on the Saigon River along the border of Tay Ninh and Binh Long Provinces, had been under siege by the enemy since the cease-fire. Its location, in the heart of enemy-held territory, created problems for the enemy lines of communicationâthus the enemy was determined to overrun the camp. For months, the outpost, manned by the 92nd Ranger Battalion, could only be resupplied by airdrop because heavy antiaircraft fire precluded helicopter resupply. Communist artillery for an extended period pounded the base like rain. The enemy had attempted multiple infantry and sapper assaults but had always been repulsed; air strikes helped keep the communists off balance. However, for the 260-plus survivors, the situation inside the camp was becoming desperate. On 11 April 1974, Lt. Col. Le Van Ngon requested permission for his men to break out, but the corps commander denied this and ordered the battalion to defend at all costs. Everyone recognized the bravery of the 92nd Rangers, and their stubborn resistance against such odds was a source of pride for the nation. Ignoring his orders, that night Ngon ordered his men to break out of the encircled position and withdraw to An Loc, about ten miles to the northeast. The 92nd Battalion brought all its wounded (about thirty) along. The ranger defense had been admirable, but the battalion's breakout was spectacular, and the populace took great pride in its accomplishments.
As always, there were those (many of them newspaper reporters) who sought to put an odd spin on the situation. They claimed that the communists had collaborated and permitted the evacuation. However, Vu Hoa, the deputy commander of an enemy reconnaissance unit that participated in the communist attack, had a different story:
When our [NVA/VC] infantry troops and tanks began to approach the Ranger base, the Rangers knew they could not resist us and evacuated the base. Before evacuating they managed to plant an unbelievably large number of mines. It took our infantry much time and effort to break into the base. When we entered, we found that the base had been deserted, all the equipment destroyed, and nothing left intact. There were more than 50 wounded troops at that base and all of them had been carried out. We found only two dead troops when we followed the Rangers' trail.
It has been widely rumored that we captured about 100 prisoners, but in fact we captured one. I was there when we overran Tong Le Chan, and the Rangers had evacuated the base a day and one half before we entered. The day we overran the base, I saw all the equipment was destroyed and there were no bodies in the base. About 250 men carrying at least 50 wounded had managed to leave the base safely under our fire. Their discipline was very high indeed. If it had been our men, they would have left the wounded behind. Headquarters gave the order to have the Rangers intercepted but a lower echelon disobeyed it. The element that saw them leaving was afraid to attack them for fear of aircraft and artillery fire and let them escape.
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On 16 May 1974, the North Vietnamese Army initiated a coordinated attack with two divisions in the Iron Triangle area, more than twenty miles north of Saigon. The 7th NVA Division attacked in the east, toward Phu Giao, and the 9th NVA Division attacked from the west, toward An Dien and Ben Cat. Tanks and artillery supported them. The enemy attacked to inflict casualties, catalog ARVN weaknesses, and test combined arms tactics. This was the first major multidivisional attack with combined arms since the cease-fire, and we monitored the results most carefully. Although the NVA forces initially were overwhelmingly successful against the South Vietnamese defenders, the ARVN counterattacked on 18 May and by 6 June had regained several key areas. The conflict continued well into November, by which time the RVNAF had regained all territory.
I watched this attack with great interest. My analysis of the enemy's conduct here indicated a lack of effective command and control. Once the attack was launched, the enemy showed no flexibility. The divisional objectives were such great distances apart that there was no mutual support, allowing the RVNAF to deal with each division separately. The enemy also applied its forces in a piecemeal fashion; it did not effectively use its armor and artillery as combined arms teams. There was just enough enemy armor and antiaircraft for ARVN to see its capabilities. When required, the communists did not utilize their reserves. These glaring deficiencies in the use of large-unit tactics made the South Vietnamese more comfortable. However, both sides had steep learning curves. This battle ushered in a new period of corps-type tactics.
The reduced FY 74 military aid authorization had caused great consternation, but the real shocker came in August 1974, when Senator Ted Kennedy and others, emboldened by President Nixon's difficulties, pushed through Congress a bill that limited the FY 75 defense assistance to Vietnam to $700 million. The in-country reaction to such reduced funding was total dismay. Maj. Gen. John Murray summed up the situation succinctly in a message to USSAG on 14 August 1974: “The $700 million level will place the RVNAF in a position of being unable to maintain a viable defense of the country.”
On the same date, shortly after we had been alerted to the potential of major congressional reductions in funding, General O'Keefe met with General Vien; Lt. Gen. Nguyen Khuyen, special assistant to chief, JGS (Operations); Lt. Gen. Dong Van Khuyen, chief of staff; Maj. Gen. Vo Xuan Lanh, deputy commander VNAF; and Brigadier General Tho, J-3. Maj. Gen. John Murray, DAO, Saigon, and I accompanied him. The Vietnamese were obviously preoccupied with the current military situation and the ramifications a $700 million aid program would have upon their military capabilities. Vien mentioned that the current stringent ammo conservation program had caused serious concern among the corps commanders and was having an adverse effect on troop morale. He also foresaw more desertions and ineffectiveness resulting from the lack of fire support. General O'Keefe made the JGS aware that offset charges might reduce the $700 million to between $450 and $500 million and that their planning should proceed within those bounds.
O'Keefe then suggested that the broader question was what effect the new funding ceiling would have on the strategy and associated tactics employed in the defense of the country. He further said that it would be impossible to maintain the level of activity in all areas and on all fronts at the current ratesâand that spreading the reduced resources among all the activities currently consuming them would only cause an early drawdown with no tangible objective, resulting in a war of attrition of resources.
He also said that the South Vietnamese thinking might have to change to a strategy of prioritized defense of critical areas and that their
manpower and resources should be applied more selectively. General Vien agreed with this from a purely military viewpoint. However, he stated strongly that a change in strategy in that direction would have overriding political implications to his country and to his people. The loss of territory and people currently under government control would be unacceptable.
The conversations intentionally avoided the subject of hardware and unit reductions except in general terms, since everyone thought these considerations should follow the development of strategic and tactical planning, which the logistical support provided by any forthcoming program would drive. We then discussed the FY 75 ammunition and petroleum buys under consideration and related them to the current levels of combat activity.
In sum, the proposed level of military aid concerned and dismayed the Vietnamese, and they had to develop military plans for the defense of the country constrained by the support that would be available, even at the expense of loss of territory and people. They probably would be compelled to reduce forces, but until they developed supportable strategies and tactics, they would be hard-pressed to identify which and how much they would reduce. This was all in the face of the current increased level of enemy operations as well as its ongoing logistics offensive, which we were witnessing every day.
In a memorandum for the record, General O'Keefe afterward said it appeared “that if the intent of Congress, as stated in the press, was to force President Thieu to negotiateâthat will happen. But he will not negotiate from strength nor even from parity, but as a loser, or worse, he will hang on until the last dog is dead. A sad return for the level of effort the U.S. had expended over the last ten years.”
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As it turned out, O'Keefe was prescient. Vien made available to us the memorandum he sent to President Thieu reporting on the aforementioned meeting, in which Vien suggested, “There will be additional losses of land and population.” However, Thieu and the JGS never seriously undertook consideration of a change in strategy necessitated by the reduced funding level or initiated negotiations with the communists.
Initially the JGS believed that the full $700 million was to be available; however, the appropriation did not provide this full amount of
assets to the military, because under the new rules being established for the FY 75 Defense Assistance to Vietnam Program, the program's funds were to bear all support costs, including administrative expenditures and the packaging, crating, handling, and transportation of supplies. These were not previously programmed. In all, directed set-asides amounted initially to $230 million, so $470 million was available, only 30 percent of the FY 73 funding (much less, actually, considering the high inflation).
Not only had Congress greatly reduced the funding, but it had established new rules that reduced the funding even more. These set-asides were indeed dire. The DAO would have to fund $55 million for the ammunition pipelineâthat is, the cost of ammo shipped from the States but not yet received in Vietnam. Not only were the pipeline costs set aside, but costs of packaging, crating, handling, and transporting supplies were addedâand these were escalating tremendously. Inland U.S. transportation increased 14 percent. The sealift command rates for deliveries from the West Coast to Vietnam increased from $78.70 to $141.60 per ton of ammo and from $39.90 to $71.80 per ton of general cargo. These costs were estimated to be $47.0 million.
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The inflation of costs hit hard in all aspects of the budget. Another major set-aside was for DAO operations, excluding personnel costs, estimated to be between $34 and $40 million. In an effort to upgrade the Vietnamese Air Force, the JGS had requested that the DAO allot $77.4 million for the purchase of seventy-one F-5E fighter aircraft. This purchase had to be cancelled to provide RVNAF the ability to procure basic war-fighting essentials.
Notwithstanding the seriousness of the initial shock of the congressional action, the funding situation only became more confusing as the Departments of the Army and Defense found additional mandated charges while they tried at the same time to effect relief from these set-asides. Earlier in the funding cycle, a senior official visiting Saigon stated: “The situation is really fouled up. DAO is completely confused as to what they are authorized and where their bank balance stands. The Ambassador refuses to accept any reduction in the level of effort or tell the GVN that there will be a decrease in funding.”
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However, after the congressional action, so that adequate planning could go forward, the South Vietnamese had to be told of the
funding situation. Near the end of August, Maj. Gen. John Murray left for his stateside transfer. During the three weeks between his departure and the arrival of his replacement, Maj. Gen. Homer Smith, I was in Saigon as the acting head of DAO. This was an extremely critical and busy time. The South Vietnamese had just been told of the major cuts in the military funding, and the JGS was shocked at the magnitude of the reductions. However, they set about to make the best of a terrible situation by tightening their belts. At the time, there was no discussion of a possible change in strategy to apply their manpower and reduced resources to a prioritized defense of critical areas. General Vien and others in the joint staff understood the reality of the situationâbut in their guts they knew that additional funding would be forthcoming, because the United States would never abandon them. The hopes of the South Vietnamese political side for a supplement prevented the military from considering strategic alternatives.
