ACG Vietnam War Bonus Article!
The October/November 2007 issue of ARMCHAIR GENERAL® magazine is chock-full of articles on America’s longest war, Vietnam, including James Willbank’s outstanding retrospective of the entire war, featuring ACG’s exclusive “VIETNAM” gatefold map. As a special bonus to complement the articles in our magazine and to expand our coverage of the Vietnam War, we present Frederick Lash’s compelling account of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) Easter Offensive.
On March 30, 1972, Hanoi sought to take advantage of the U.S. troop drawdown and attempted to quickly overrun South Vietnam by launching a war-winning “Blitzkrieg” offensive during which its forces abandoned guerrilla war tactics and adopted conventional “fire and maneuver” operations featuring masses of NVA regular infantry supported by tanks and long-range artillery. This “Tet with tanks” was a colossal failure, but it exposed the weaknesses of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and demonstrated that ARVN could not prevail without massive U.S. fire support (mainly airpower and helicopter “tank killers”). Later, when Congress cut off all U.S. support to South Vietnam due to domestic political pressure (1973-75), Hanoi knew it could break the 1973 cease-fire agreement and overpower South Vietnam without U.S. interference.
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The lesson taught by the defeat during the 1972 Easter Offensive and the subsequent victory by Hanoi in April 1975 that can be applied to U.S. policy today regarding the new democratic governments in Iraq and Afghanistan seems clear: fledgling governments struggling against a determined enemy cannot survive without some level of continued U.S. military support.
Jerry Morelock
ACG Editor in Chief
KA-BOOOOM!!
The entire bunker heaved as fine dust filtered through sandbags and the overhead wooden ceiling, filling U.S. Marine Major Walter Boomer’s nostrils and sticking to the sweat on his face and arms. As the last NVA artillery round slammed directly into Boomer’s bunker, he threw himself against the plywood wall of the 10×20-foot underground room. Even with tiny balls of wadded toilet paper stuffed in his ears, the ringing in his head continued. He yelled into his radio handset, demanding to know why friendly artillery had not slowed the incoming enemy barrage.
Major Boomer was the lone American Marine adviser to 200 South Vietnamese Marines at Fire Support Base (FSB) Sarge (see Easter Offensive map), a tiny, remote outpost a few miles south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating South and North Vietnam. On March 30, 1972, three days before Easter, FSB Sarge and several other firebases came under intense artillery barrages and ground attacks lasting day and night. So began the Vietnam War’s largest and most destructive offensive. In the north, 30,000 NVA troops, 400 tanks and armored fighting vehicles, and five artillery regiments attacked across the DMZ into South Vietnam, while an even larger force struck farther south at the heart of the republic.
Click for larger image
The 1972 Easter Offensive established a pattern that the North
Vietnamese would later follow – successfully – in 1975. The two-pronged
offensive combined a major assault across the DMZ with a strong offensive farther
south aimed at cutting South Vietnam in two. Departing from guerrilla
war tactics, the North Vietnamese invasions of 1972 and 1975 were
conventional attacks, using massed troops supported by tanks and artillery.
The South Vietnamese, supported by U.S. firepower, defeated the 1972
offensive. By 1975, American fire support had been withdrawn.
Image Credit: PETHO CARTOGRAPHY
Despite the Easter Offensive’s scope and intensity, this invasion and its outcome largely is unknown to the American public – even most Vietnam veterans know little about it. Stanley Karnow’s definitive work, Vietnam: A History, devotes only four pages to the event. Although the Easter Offensive was reported in the media, relatively few American ground troops were involved in the fighting, and the story never found roots. The ramifications of this last, massive shudder of America’s military presence in Vietnam, however, are significant. Three years later, had the forces of South Vietnam enjoyed the same U.S. airpower and military support as in they did in 1972, they might very well have prevented their final defeat by the invading North Vietnamese. The NVA plan and the forces committed to it in the NVA’s victorious 1975 campaign were virtually identical to those in the Easter Offensive in 1972. Only the absence of U.S. support in 1975 was different – with fatal results for the Republic of Vietnam.
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I also was stationed TDY at Firebase Sarge and wouldd like to hear from anyone that was on the firebase…. I was in Vietnam for19 months total and stationed at Phu Bai Our Commanding Officer was Lt. Col Gerard M. Dirx. Please feel free to contact me.
To Brian Leon,
In late November 1971 the 27th Combat Engineer Bn. based at Camp Eagle designed and built a bunker on Firebase Sarge for the 8th RRFS to house self-contained remote monitoring equipment. I took photos of the firebase in December 1971 including the bunker. Around mid-2000 locational information and the photos were shared with the then J.T.F.F.A. in Hawaii to aid their search for Westcott and Crosby, MIA’s.
I was one of a few 407th soldiers who helped build the bunker on Sarge that December. I remember a nick name of one of the guys from the engineer unit named “Okie”. I ran into him at Phu Bai after we were evacuated from the DMZ area in Mar-Apr. He looked at me like I was a ghost. I was one of the guys who stayed on Sarge after the bunker was built. The other guys name was Crosby. I was moved to Con Thien in the beginning of 72 and Crosby stayed on Sarge. Of course, as you probably know Crosby and Wescott were killed on Sarge 30 Mar 72. Okie didn’t know I had moved to A-4(Con Thien) and of course his reaction to me there at Phu Bai that day. Always have good memories of the engineers. They helped us build up other areas that proved to save our lives from heavy artillery (130 mm) on A-4. We all survived on A-4 and a few of us are still in contact. Over and out.
Richard
I would like to see the pictures from Sarge if possible.
Thanks for the account. If you have pictures of Sarge, Quang Tri or any of the other northern locations on line somewhere, I like Chuck Martin, would surely be interested in seeing them. I was a member of the 407th RRD and have posted an account of the Easter Offensive from our perspective at the detachment (www.geocities.com/gdwhit2001).
thanks again,
- duane
In my opinion and from my research – this statment:
“In this crucial battle, American advisers played a critical role, coordinating B-52 strikes and offshore naval gunfire and, in many cases, planning complex operations. Nonetheless, ARVN ground forces – backed by critical U.S. fire support – were the central players, displaying tenacity, resourcefulness and courage.”
-while it is true…does not tell the whole story that our vets, our American soldiers, that were there and fought, provided multiple support roles and paid dearly, some even with their lives, deserves to be told.
When is the whole story going to be told and not just what we are told to think? Please help do all of our Vietnam vets justice.
Vets, like my husband who was an eighteen year old kid, who wasn’t a medic, doing medivacs with the 571st Evac and on his own helicopter because most of the medivac units were gone due to the U.S. pullout.
The veterans that he served with. The veterans that gave their lives.
How come their story doesn’t get told? They are not just ‘ U.S.fire support’. They are men…men that fought, bled, saved and some died there. They were heros.
Thank you for telling the Marines story. Every single Marine that served in the Easter Offensive should be recognized as all of our men and women that served there then.
Thank you.
Also, March 29-30 1972 at Quang Tri, was the first time that SAMs and regular AAA weapons were used. The NVA introduced the Soviet-built SA-7 (Strella) heat-seeking, shoulder-fired missile, for use against low and slow-flying Allied aircraft. It was deadly, and numerous Allied aircraft losses were attributed to the weapon.
Air cavalry units with the primary mission of supporting South Vietnamese Army forces were the only active Army combat units in Vietnam throughout 1972. Both the 11th CAG and the 12th CAG, (Combat Aviation Group), were there until at least Feb. 1973.
Many of these men fought, supplied logistical lift and provided medevacs in support of the ARVN troops in the biggest battle of Vietnam, ‘The Easter Offensive’ or ‘The Spring Offensive’. ‘The Easter Offensive’ began and ended in ‘The Second Battle of Quang Tri’. Some of these men died there.
Until USAF fire power could be transported back from Saigon, (sent there from the ‘drawdown’), 1st Calvary, Combat Aviation Groups held down the fort with help from the Marines that where still there. There were still some Navy offshore that helped too later with firepower. The Army of the Republic of Vietnam, backed by the United States Army, shelled more than 80,000 tons of ordnance, the destructive capacity equivalent to almost six Hiroshima-size atomic bombs.
When the massive firepower was first unleashed, unsuspecting NVA soldiers reporting for duty were in the city at the time and Quang Tri was referred to as ‘Hamburger City’ by some that saw the aftermath.
As well, leading out of the city was still ‘The Highway of Horrors’ from when South Vietnam had earlier lost its Quang Tri Province on May 1st, 1972 and the NVA cut down masses of panic civilians, war refugees, who were fleeing the city and got stuck at Truong Phuoc Bridge because of the traffic jam after an enemy artillery shell heavily damaged the bridge. Chaos occurred when enemy artillery began a rain of many hundreds shells from their 130mm guns on the refugees. A moment later, Communist foot soldiers attacked the crowd with infantry weapons that included mortars and grenade launchers.
When ‘The Second Battle of Quang Tri’ was over, (Sept. 16, 1972 the city was taken back. On Oct. 22, 1972 Quang Tri Province firebases were secured), not one building remained standing. The intense bombing, combined with U.S. use of the Agent Orange defoliant, turned the land into a virtual moonscape.
This all took place during ‘Operation Ceasefire’ when we were standing down and turning over the bases to the ARVN.
Americans still have little knowledge of this time in Vietnam and the part that brave American troops, including U.S. Army Air Calvary, Combat Aviation Groups, took in it.
As well, the brave nurses and doctors, many that volunteered, during this horrific time.
Hello Fran, very good research. Even though I was there, I am only now becoming more interested in the bigger picture of the strategic situation.
Your point about the SA-7s is right on, for sure. The heat seekers forced us to operate at ground level (nap of the earth). That made it difficult for the SA-7 to lock on. Even so, we lost our company commander and his crew (48th AHC) to an SA-7. Also, the down side to nap of the earth flying was that it made us considerably more vulnerable to small arms fire. Small arms was the lesser of the two evils though.
I was at Phu Bai from December, 70 to August 71. I transferred to Con Thien 407th in August to November, 71. Our bunker several direct hits until a delayed fuse rocket imploded and hit Floyd Youngblood and me. We had to rebuild it anew. others there were Richard Petry, Kelvin ‘kool breeze’ Hunt, Greg Andrews, Ron Messinger, Carrol, and myself , Felix Rodriguez.
I was in the marines and we were brought in because danang was being overrun during this. I can’t find hardly anything to support my va claim on how we got hit with everything almost every night. I have lost hearing due to the fire fights rocket and mortar attacks with the sappers blowing themselves and other up and I still have the dreams of fighting at night. If anyone has anything on this time around Danang please contact me. james.joseph.green@gmail.com
Hello James
Who were you with during the easter offensive? what were nyour circumstances? I too was there, and have had difficulty with obtaining documentation? Hope too hear from you,, semper fi,, oltg
I have enjoyed your article. I am trying to contact G Duane Whitman, I was with him at the 407thrrd the last days of its existence in 1972 Quang tri. I have made contact with other of the last nine there and would like to relay this information to him. Thank you if it is possible for you to do this for me . Larry Smith
Larry, you can contact me at gdwhit2001@yahoo.com or visit my new web site at http://www.thelastsevendays.com and leave a comment … I tried emailing you at the last address I had for you, but did not get a response.
- duane
I was in Attack Squadron VA-94 aboard the USS Coral Sea during Easter, 1971. Our A7-E aircraft had all been grounded due to mishaps on take-offs from carriers caused by engine failures, but when the Easter offensive began the planes were quickly airborne. I copied the following from the VA 94 web site that I found a couple of days ago:
The VA-94 Mighty Shrikes
The Mighty Shrikes flying the A-7E Corsair II first deployment on United States Ship Coral Sea CVA 43. This was the Shrikes’s seventh combat cruise to Western Pacific/Vietnam.
Navy Unit Commendation
15 Dec 1971 to 01 Jul 1972
• April 16, 1972:
Commander D. L. Moss in A-7E BuNo. 156860 was shot down by a SAM, over North Vietnam. Commander Moss was rescued.
• May 1, 1972:
Lieutenant M. D. Surdyk in A-7E BuNo. 156888 was shot down by a SAM, over North Vietnam. Lieutenant Surdyk was was rescued.
• May 9, 1972:
The squadron participated in Operation Pocket Money, the mining of Haiphong harbor. Aircraft from VA-94, as well as the other attack squadrons deployed aboard United States Ship Coral Sea CVA 43, planned and executed the mining of the harbor.
• May 24, 1972:
Lieutenant Commander H. A. Eikel in A-7E BuNo. 156877 was shot down by a SAM, over North Vietnam. Lieutenant Commander Eikel was rescued.
• May through June 1972:
VA-94 participated in operation Linebacker I, heavy air strikes against targets in North Vietnam.
Bill, VA-94 was my first regular duty station and I was onboard Coral Sea when all of the pilots you mention were shot down.
I was with VA94 aboard CVA43 at that time as we. I remember us loading the mines dropped in the Harbor, I also remember Bob Hope not arriving at Xmas and have pictures of my decorating the tree which we eventually threw overboard and the painting of Bob Hopes head on to the Mighty Shrikes aircraft head. This all was a long time ago.
I was at Tan My for the entire offensive and watched a good portion of it from a 40ft tower that shook 24/7 from the B52 strikes. I was USAF Security Police. We were same place as the fox/4th Air Cav. We had two marines and a platoon of the 196th helping with security. The mass exudus of the South Vietnamese was scary when, at night, you are seeing the war getting closer and closer. Spookies and Cobras were awesome to watch. We saw plenty.
Mike Thomas, SSgt
DaNang, 366SPS Det 1 TanMy 1972
Hi Mike
I would really like to chat with you about your time at Tan My,? Do you remember the loading of South Vietnamese Marines on May 23? Do you remember the roles of the 2 Marines you mentioned? Do you remember the landing of the South Vietnamese at wunder beach on the 24th? and the Marine LVT and Navy MIke boats that landed them? How about Shore party personal? film crew? and that exodus of people departing,, a human wave or was it a shield?
I thank you in advance for any information you could provide.
Sincerely , oltg usmc
Thank you General Truong for giving credit to the Americans that were there assisting the ARVN in the Battles of Quang Tri during the Easter Offensive until the very end and calling them by name. It means so much to me – especially since it has been the only reference that I have found on the Internet doing so.
Our own American military have given them no public credit whatsoever, these troops that stayed and fought and served long after the all of the ground troops went home in August 1972.
But you gave them credit where credit was due. Thank you.
May you rest in peace.
Ngo, Lieutenant General Quang Truong, The Easter offensive of 1972. Washington DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1980.
“In addition to support provided the U.S. Air Force, I Corps forces also received much assistance from the U.S. Army 11th Combat Aviation Group whose activities were closely coordinated with those of ARVN units. This group provided essential support with troop lift logistical support and gunships.”
Engineer Command Group MR 1 – I was a 18 yr old acting SSGT in
MR 1 before – during – after tet 72 and yes we/I was in this thick shit and yet no reconition from US Army except 13th unamed campaign metal, a lasting PTSD, and now death due to congested heart failure due to agent orange that is being denied, but I would not trade any one moment of that experience as we/I have been there, witnessed the bull**** and not only survived but thrived to this day! Only thing I request fellow survivors is to not ever ever erver forget our fellow tet 72 survivors as officially it ” never happened – it is all in your head ” as I have been told ” officially ” many times. Percivier and **** them all individuall and collectively. SSGT Ken Terpening EngrCmdGrp 72
God Bless you Brother. I myself have been stricken by the Agent Orange and was in and around Danang during the Easter Offensive. I am suffering from cancer ptsd, hearing loss, not to mention other stuff they claim isn’t related. I to remember the bad days each saw and will continue to dream until we are gone. Take care my brother and Semper Fi.
I was a cobra pilot with the US Army 48th assault helicopter company at Marble Mountain, on the beach, east of Danang during the 72 easter offensive.
I flew gun cover for insertions of the ARVN marines around Quang Tri area. The troop ships were flown off a carrier by US marine pilots.
I really respected the ARVN marines. We were inserting them nearly on top of NVA divisional HQ sometimes. They were really ripped up bad. They fought hard.
I of course respect US marines too. The troop carrying marine helicopter pilots were superb.
Its just I had no experience with any US ground troops when I was there because we were supporting the Vietnamese units. The war was pretty much fully Vietnamized by then, at least on the ground.
But I have known plenty of marines who served in Vietnam in the earlier years of the war and have nothing but the greatest respect for the US marines.
But I would also like to once again mention my respect for the dedication to duty, bravery, and fighting ability of the ARVN marines. So, so many did not survive. Let us remember and honor them too. What’s really sad is they ultimately lost their country.
To all who were in the 48th AHC in the 72 time-frame, I have also not forgotten about the despicable incident that resulted in Specialist Hill’s death. I certainly do not respect those ARVN marines involved with that incident. I do not wish to go into any details here other than to say it was an intentional so-called “friendly fire” incident. My previous comments are directed to those ARVN marines who fought bravely and eventually re-took Quang Tri city.
I was at Bien Hoa during this time…we too got hit bad. I was with the 175thRRFS……(Radio Research Field Station)….just a cover designation.
I was at marble mountain with the 11th cag in 72. Helicopters were in the air 24/7. My brother was there also serving with the 282nd black cats then later with the 48th blue jokers. I was 11b20 but there were no more ground troops operating in the field . i pulled alot of peremiter guard duty and actually flew north near quantri to help stand down one last fire base. little did i know the vast scale of the offensive being fought that close to danang. i am proud to have served with the 11th
I’m wondering about all these replies, why nobody except for Mr Whitman Who has made a comment in his “The Last Seven Days” account, about “Three Star Compound”. Is this also referred to by a different name. A 1st Lt and I were sent up to “Three Star Compound on March 21, 1972,from the 37th Signal Bn in Da Nang, and we were evacuated by chinook on April 1, 1972.
Iwas in da nang 1971_19 72
Iall so have abad heart from agent orange and only get 10% disability because only have one stent so far left side hurts all the time and arm and chest hurts all the time like iam havin a heart attack
I was a 91G20 Medic assigned to USA Support Command, Cam Ranh when Easter Offensive 72 started. Constant guard duty and alerts since my primary mission had changed due to drawdown of US forces. On April 9, 1972, the 510th SIgnal Company was attacked. Four KIA and several injured. Blew the hell out of their billeting. Pure adrenaline for 1.5 hours. I always felt that we who were present and reacted by defending our positions against further enemy attacks should have been recognized. By April 15th, I was sent to Bien Hoa to the Med Detachment. I had volunteered to go to Quang Tri but the situation was pretty much a cluster and the few support soldiers who were left were sent south. I really find the accounts of the events validating and I am honored to read of others’ stories after all these years. Too few accounts of subordinate units are available, with the exception of the bigger strategic picture. For us Joes on the ground, it was a frightening experience. The recognition I have received is PTSD, Ischemic heart disease (4x bypass), skin lesions, and service ribbons. Not one iota from Leadership for our participation. Without our witness, this Offensive and our willingness to defend our ground would fade away.