by Eric Hammel
The 810th NVA Battalion, a component of the 4th NVA Regiment, was apparently not slated to enter Hue until around noon on January 31. At any rate, it was not detected in Hue until then.
The four-battalion composition of the 4th NVA Regiment was strange, and it gives some credence to reports that the K4B and K4C battalions were actually amalgams of NVA and VC main-force companies-Indeed, the unit designations are more in line with the VC order of battle. It is possible that the amalgams were conceived to present the appearance of a general uprising— that is, to suggest that southern troops were involved in the liberation of Hue. Alas, what the NVA and VC did in 1968 to obscure their orders of battle from U.S. and ARVN intelligence also obscures it from historians.
(Though it confuses the issue, it must be said that all NVA battalion designations given here are somewhat speculative. To mask their true order of battle and the battlefield situation, VC and NVA regularly relabeled their units when identifying them in documents or broadcasts. It is virtually certain, however, that four battalion-size infantry units and two sapper battalions were employed to invest the city south of the Perfume River, and that all were operating under the 4th NVA Regiment.)
*
To the north and west of Hue, the 6th NVA Regiment began moving out of its jungle camps at 1000, January 30, about the time Brigadier General Ngo Quang Truong was putting his intuitive alert into effect. By 1800, shortly after dark, the lead element of the 6th NVA Regiment left the cover of the jungle and proceeded in orderly columns toward the city. The lead unit stopped on a high hill at 2000 and prepared the evening meal: a special Tet treat of dumplings, Tet cakes, dried meat, and glutinous rice mixed with sugar. After the meal the soldiers received one canteen of tea apiece, and the officers checked the troops' gear. Many soldiers took the opportunity to change from their jungle clothing into fresh khakis, complete with unit tabs and decorations—a sign of their confidence that they would meet little opposition before the planned victory parade.
As soon as all preparations had been completed, the 6th NVA Regiment broke up into three assault groups. The first, composed of forty crack troops and a hand-picked infantry company, crossed Highway 1, passed through a large village, waded across a stream, and approached the northwest wall of the Citadel. When the general attack commenced, this force was to penetrate directly into the ARVN CP compound by way of an old water gate that ran through the center of the compound's northeast wall.
The 6th NVA Regiment's second element, the 806th NVA Battalion, crossed Highway 1 and prepared to attack and occupy an ARVN checkpoint and highway bridge at the western corner of the Citadel. Once its objectives had been seized, this force could fend off counterattacks from the direction of PK 17.
The battle plan called for the 806th NVA Battalion to attack the temporary camp of the 2nd ARVN Airborne Battalion also. This camp was just northwest of the Citadel. But on January 29 the crack ARVN airborne unit had been routinely transferred to another location, out of reach to the north of the city. The Communists were unable to alter their plans on such short notice. Consequently the 2nd ARVN Airborne Battalion and the accompanying 3rd Company, 7th ARVN Armored Cavalry Battalion, remained a potentially dangerous mobile force that would have to be countered if it moved on the city.
The 6th NVA Regiment's main body, composed of the 800th and 802nd NVA battalions, waded across a wide creek due west of the Citadel. This was the force that had nearly walked over Lieutenant Tan's 1st ARVN Division Reconnaissance Company. It was the only Communist force that any ARVN or American unit had pinpointed in advance. However, no action was taken to prevent it from reaching its jump-off positions.
After crossing the creek the 800th and 802nd NVA battalions proceeded to Ke Van Creek, which formed the Citadel's southwestern moat. They crossed this barrier without incident and went to ground in the shadow of the Citadel wall. As soon as NVA and VC units opened the Hue offensive inside the Citadel, the 800th and 802nd NVA battalions were to fan out and seize the Chanh Tay and Huu gates, which were in the southwestern wall; attack Tay Loc Airfield; and then secure the Dong Ba and Thuong Tu gates, at the Citadel's eastern corner.
As the 6th NVA Regiment's infantry and sapper units moved toward the Citadel, an 82mm medium-mortar company veered off in the direction of PK 17. When the attack began inside Hue, this unit was to pin down the 3rd ARVN Regiment's CP, thus preventing a coordinated counterattack by unengaged 3rd ARVN Regiment units before the city was fully in Communist hands.
As the 4th and 6th NVA regiments and other NVA and VC units tightened the rings around their objectives, the senior command group of the Tri-Thien-Hue Military Region broke out special treats at its command post, high atop Chi Voi Mountain, about twelve kilometers southeast of the Citadel. A special Tet message from Ho Chi Minh was read. Then the senior commanders convened in the operations room to monitor the kickoff of the assault.
***
Chapter 5
By 0115, January 31, the entire 6th NVA Regiment and 12th NVA Sapper Battalion, the Communist force assigned to seize the Citadel and the northern approaches to Hue, were poised to launch simultaneous assaults. Spearhead elements had already penetrated the Citadel by climbing the northwest Citadel wall directly opposite the 1st ARVN Division CP compound. The village of An Hoa, right outside the western corner of the Citadel, had been quietly and completely occupied by the 806th NVA Battalion. And the 800th and 802nd NVA battalions, approaching the Citadel's southwestern wall from the west, had stopped in front of Ke Van Creek to reorganize and deploy.
At 0130, January 31, a small NVA sapper detachment crossed Ke Van Creek and advanced across Highway 1 to occupy a bridge across a sluice about halfway along the Citadel's southwestern wall. At the point where the sluice breached the wall, members of the sapper detachment moved up to cut several strands of barbed wire, the only barrier.
North and south of the Perfume River, all the NVA and VC units that could reach their attack positions on time were settled in by 0310, awaiting the signal to attack. The signal was to be a sheaf of rockets fired at Hue from the western hills at 0330.
*
G hour, as the Communists had dubbed the assault kickoff, came and went. Nothing happened. No rockets were fired; no assaults were launched.
As a thick fog covered the approaches to Hue and parts of the city itself, the commander of the Tri-Thien-Hue Front waited at his observation post atop Chi Voi Mountain. Another minute passed in dead silence. And then another. At 0333, a staff officer called the 6th NVA Regiment commander by radio and asked if he had seen the signal yet. The regimental commander, Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Trong Dan, gave a tense, nervous response indicating that he had seen nothing. The front staff officer called an observation post and received this reply: "I am awake; I am looking down at Hue. The lights of the city are still on; the sky is quiet. Nothing is happening."
Silence returned to the Tri-Thien-Hue Front command post, where everyone waited anxiously. What could have gone wrong?
*
After entering the Citadel through the sluice in the southwestern wall, four Communist soldiers—two members of a local VC unit and two NVA sappers—approached the Chanh Tay Gate, the northernmost entrance along the Citadel's southwestern wall. The four, who were dressed in ARVN uniforms, were to overwhelm the gate guards and, from inside, open the way for the assault battalion lying in wait right outside the wall.
The team leader, Comrade Thanh, had scouted the guard post during the day, when twenty civil guardsmen had been on duty. Now, less than a handful would be there. As the four neared their jump-off position opposite the guard post, Comrade Thanh ordered the others to put out their cigarettes and stand in the shadows to await the signal to attack.
In his bedroom in the MACV Compound, Colonel George Adkisson, commander of MACV Advisory Team 3, awoke with a start. Alerted by some subconscious signal, he sat up in bed and fumbled for his field telephone, but the line was dead. Agitated now by an unremitting interna
l alarm, Colonel Adkisson put on his trousers, combat boots, and pistol belt. Then he started out the door of his room.
At 0340, January 31, 1968, the NVA 122mm rocket battalion—burrowed in firing positions in the hills west of Hue-launched the first salvo. Before the first rockets even landed, NVA mortars south of the Perfume River and east of Highway 1 opened fire at multiple targets.
Colonel Adkisson stepped briskly through the door of his bungalow. At that instant, two or three 82mm mortar rounds fired from within nearby Tu Do Stadium detonated directly on the tile roof of a building nearby. Seconds later, several 122mm rockets detonated in the MACV courtyard. Colonel Adkisson stepped back into the doorway just as several more rockets fell. His first thought was that Hue Sector Headquarters, directly across a back street from MACV, was under attack.
*
The whump-whump-whump of the first salvo of NVA rockets woke Jim Bullington from a deep sleep. Bullington listened to the rockets and mortar rounds fall for a few minutes, but none was even close to his guest house in the power plant. Further reflection convinced Bullington that there was nothing he could do to influence events. So, cool war veteran that he was, he drifted back to sleep.
Meanwhile, a short distance to the west of Bullington's guest cottage, his fiancée—Tuy-Cam—was startled awake by shrieking, crying, and pleading in the darkness outside her parents' home. One of her three sisters shrieked, "Oh, God! VC!" and rushed into the adjacent bedroom to wake her other two sisters.
In a moment the household was in a turmoil as the family worked together to hide Tuy-Cam's two brothers, An and Long, who were both home on leave from the service. Quickly the two young men, together with every shred of evidence that might give away their presence, were shoved into the attic. An and Long barricaded the door from within.
Outside the house, VC and NVA were running through the neighborhood, their boots thudding on the pavement. Closer to home, two refugees Tuy-Cam's grandmother had allowed to camp in the backyard were questioned by several VC and then led away. Everyone in the house slipped into the family's bombproof bunker. At length, Tuy-Cam's mother exclaimed, "So, here they are!"
As Tuy-Cam's mother prayed, the sounds of detonations and gunfire continued.
*
At the first flash of the first salvo of incoming rockets, Comrade Thanh and his three companions opened fire and threw grenades into the guard post at the Chanh Tay Gate. Several of the stunned civil guardsmen who stood at the base of the Citadel wall were mowed down. Others turned and fled. Realizing they were under attack, ARVN soldiers patrolling the bridge across the Citadel moat pulled a few strands of barbed wire across the roadway. They were immediately pinned down by fire from Comrade Thanh's team.
At that moment one of Thanh's men signaled with a flashlight, and the 800th NVA Battalion regulars waiting outside the Chanh Tay Gate poured into the Citadel. The soldiers swept over the ARVN bridge guards and the surviving civil guardsmen. The NVA soldiers and Thanh's men exchanged revolutionary slogans as the 800th Battalion fanned out to seize objectives throughout the western Citadel.
*
The forty handpicked NVA sappers assigned the task of infiltrating the 1st ARVN Division CP compound via the water gate were thwarted when they discovered that the gate bridge had collapsed into the moat and had been replaced by a stout barbed-wire barrier. After milling about for several crucial minutes, the sappers and an accompanying company of the 802nd NVA Battalion felt their way southwestward along the Citadel's northwestern wall. Finally, under cover of mortar rounds fired from the south, they launched an unrehearsed attack on the ARVN post guarding the Hau Gate. The four guard bunkers were quickly overrun, but the element of surprise had been lost. The spearhead force barely cleared the Hau Gate in time to link up with the balance of the 802nd NVA Battalion, which was driving eastward along the northwestern wall from the An Hoa Gate.
Under cover of nearly a hundred 82mm mortar rounds, the combined NVA assault force pushed a dozen ARVN soldiers out of their post on the southwestern side of the 1st ARVN Division's CP compound, but other ARVN troops were attracted instantly by the sounds of gunfire. As the NVA crossed the compound's southwestern wall and attacked the ARVN division's medical center, Lieutenant Nguyen Ai, an ARVN intelligence officer, counterattacked at the head of a scratch platoon of thirty ARVN clerks, medics, and several hospital patients.
Only sixty feet from the NVA's forwardmost element, Brigadier General Ngo Quang Truong looked up from his desk in time to see his aide, at the window, empty his pistol at the attackers. Truong wondered whether he, a brigadier general, would be leading infantry before the night was over. He quickly forced himself back to the business of running his entire division while his troops held the enemy at bay.
Lieutenant Ai was shot through the shoulder, but he continued to lead the counterattack in the medical center. Within minutes five NVA soldiers were shot to death inside the compound and another forty were mowed down as the vastly superior but profoundly shocked NVA. force pulled back to the west.
A subsidiary attack, possibly incorporating some VC units, moved on the CP's main gate, in the compound's south wall. The attack drew immediate defensive fire, and an ad hoc reaction force stopped the attackers cold.
*
A second serious setback was dealt to the 6th NVA Regiment at 0400, as a company each from the 800th NVA and 12th NVA Sapper battalions were converging to seize Tay Loc Airfield. An unreported wire barrier forced the NVA units to diverge from their direct route onto the runway. At 0350, as the force sought a way around the barrier, it ran smack into a depot manned by the 1st ARVN Ordnance Company, which conducted a spirited defense of its small compound and forced the NVA soldiers to recoil. Though the NVA companies succeeded in setting fire to an ammunition warehouse, fuel tanks, and quarters, they could not force their way through the ARVN ordnancemen. At 0400, as the NVA. companies were trying to muster a flanking push across the runway itself, Captain Tran Ngoc Hue's 250-man ARVN Hoc Bao Company swept in from the east in the nick of time. The skilled Hoc Bao troopers fired their rifles and volleys of M-72 LAAW antitank rockets directly into the leading NVA files just as the NVA soldiers reached the center of the runway. The shocked NVA soldiers quickly retreated and called for help. Another company of the 800th NVA Battalion was diverted from its objectives east of the Chanh Tay Gate, but it arrived too late to have any impact. Several buildings in the airfield complex remained in NVA hands, but the NVA offensive in the northwestern Citadel was effectively blocked.
As soon as the pressure on the airfield appeared to lift, Captain Hue led his Hoc Bao troops in a long, curving path back to the 1st ARVN Division compound. The stymied NVA apparently never knew that the Hoc Bao soldiers had gone, for they did not renew their attempts to capture the airfield or the ordnance depot.
With the return of the Hoc Bao Company, the 1st ARVN Division headquarters units were able to launch an effective counterattack that drove the 802nd NVA Battalion completely out of the division CP compound. Thus, in the northwestern half of the Citadel, there remained two widely separated ARVN enclaves manned by less than 600 ARVN soldiers, most of whom were noncombatants. Directly facing them were the complete 802nd NVA Battalion, part of the 800th NVA Battalion, and most of the 12th NVA Sapper Battalion—in all, an enemy force numbering as many as 700 crack combatants.
*
Awakened suddenly from a deep sleep, Marine Major Frank Breth, the 3rd Marine Division liaison officer to the 1st ARVN Division, counted three distinct rocket detonations outside the MACV Compound. Then, as Breth was shrugging into his war belt and grabbing his M-16 rifle, the fourth 122mm rocket blew up the province advisor's house, inside the compound itself, right behind Breth's room. As Breth sought shelter in the tiny shower stall in his room, another 122mm rocket hit a nearby jeep; its gas tank exploded. The roof over Major Breth's head fell right in on him. As a company commander and infantry battalion staff officer along the DMZ throughout the latter half
of 1967, Breth had endured countless rocket attacks. This time, he thought he was dead. It took precious moments for him to figure out he was okay. His worst wound was a gouge in the head, a throbbing inconvenience he decided to ignore.
Though thoroughly taken in by the NVA surprise mortar and rocket attack, Colonel George Adkisson's MACV advisors and headquarters troops reacted superbly to the first detonations inside their compound. Provided with an incredible five-minute respite between the end of the bombardment and the onset of the 804th NVA Battalion's planned sapper-and-infantry assault, the officers and men who had been assigned to defensive positions in bunkers and guard towers throughout the compound leaped to action, as did many volunteers. Everyone else headed for shelters to await the outcome or orders from above.
The shelling had a negligible effect, and the first of the NVA assaults against the compound gate and various points around the outer wall facing Highway 1 ran directly into vigorous defensive fire. The main assault, on the main gate, ran smack into the fire of three specially trained Marine security guards who had been sent to Hue several months earlier by the U.S. embassy in Saigon. The Marines were on post in a bunker at the southwest corner of the compound before the initial bombardment ended— ready, willing, and able to blunt the NVA attack coming straight up Highway 1 from the south.
Another key factor in the defense was an M-60 machine-gun post in a tower overlooking all the approaches to the compound. The M-60 gunner, Specialist 4th Class Frank Doezma, was the first to fire at the NVA main assault group, and he temporarily stopped the attackers dead in their tracks. The NVA reacted by firing a B-40 rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) into the six-meter-high tower. The M-60 was knocked out and Doezma's legs were shredded in the blast. The first man to reach the smoking tower was Marine Captain Jim Coolican, who was off duty that night from his advisory job with the Hoc Bao Company. Doezma was Coolican's regular jeep driver. As soon as Coolican deposited Doezma on the ground, he climbed back into the tower to slam 40mm high-explosive grenades at the NVA with the M-79 grenade launcher he had looted from the open MACV armory.