Operation Cedar Falls: Search and Destroy in the Iron Triangle

[Vietnam Magazine]

Criticized for advocating a big-unit war, Gen. Westmoreland launched operation Cedar Falls in Jan. 1967 to assault a VC bastion


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[SRV Ron]

As part of the 2-22nd Mech infantry that served as blocking force along the Saigon River, I am highly familiar with that mission.

Col. Garth, ignoring the fact that kilometers of abandoned rice patties were in the way, first ordered the mech companies to use their APCs to set up positions on the river. Results were several APCs buried in the mud of that swamp. We were forced to hike in to the tree line and set up blocking positions which due to the distance we were assigned to block, often resulted in three man positions with up to 1/2 kilometer of separation and no communication with several positions.

The first night I got no sleep as the enemy attempted to cross the river in three man canoes looking for places to land ashore. The position upriver, at a known crossing, was kept busy all night shooting at VC that even tried to cross using water buffalo as boats.

Then, to add insult to the loss of sleep, Garth ordered us to pull out of the blocking positions during daylight and conduce search and destroy missions. While we did find numerous tunnels and bunkers loaded with supplies, his always keeping a timetable on missions would result in units taking shortcuts on roads and trails resulting in the usual delays caused by mines and booby traps. This caused us to arrive back to the blocking line way after dark which we considered way too dangerous to return to crossing all the open rice paddies. Needless to say, the VC raided our positions and took everything not taken back with us.

The final insult was being ordered to abandon the blocking line at 0:400 in the pitch black dark. We now had to notify some 3 man positions that had no radios about pulling out, also very dangerous as you shot first at any movement after dark and asked questions later and then cross kilometers of open rice paddies to where the APCs were parked.

At the very least, the mission was a success as the lost of supplies we had captured set the VC and NVA back in their attack on Saigon during Tet of 68.

The APC buried in the mud, they flew in a 500 meter tow cable to pull it out.