Vietnam

by Nigel Cawthorne

  General Abrams was to press ahead with Vietnamisation and produced a 'glide path' of fourteen incremental withdrawals which would extricate US ground troops completely by November 1972. The first phase would remove 25,000 men, largely the 9th Infantry Division, between 1 July and 31 August 1969. The 3rd Division of the Marine Corps and the 3rd Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division – some 40,500 – were withdrawn in phase two between 18 September and 19 December. By the end of 1969, some 51,670 men had left Vietnam. For those who remained behind, of course, the fighting became more intense. With the Americans going home, the Communists now knew they were winning. But America was not about to give up without a fight and Nixon was determined to keep up the pressure on Hanoi by intensifying the bombing campaign.

  'I would rather be a one-term president than see America accept the first defeat in its 190-year history,' Nixon told a TV audience.

  Even before President Nixon entered the White House, it soon became clear to the Communists that he was going to play hardball. He believed that the Soviet Union and Red China wanted the North Vietnamese to enter into constructive negotiations. So, while widening the war in Southeast Asia, he would put pressure on the Soviet Union – and later the Chinese – to abandon their North Vietnamese ally. Both Communist powers sought to improve relations with the US. Nixon also toyed with the idea of what he called the 'Madman Theory' – hinting that he might be crazy enough to use nuclear weapons in Vietnam to encourage the Communists to negotiate.

  However, once in power, Nixon found that the Soviets exerted no influence over the North Vietnamese. On 4 August Nixon's National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger held a secret meeting with Xuan Thuy in Paris. He restated America's position that the North Vietnamese should withdraw and allow the Saigon government to come to some compromise with the Vietcong. Xuan insisted that the Saigon government be dissolved. Nixon tried appealing to Ho Chi Minh directly, but was rebuffed. The war on the battlefield would continue.

  In March 1969, the Vietnam War had turned, briefly, into a conventional conflict when an armoured column pushed up Route 9 to Khe Sanh, which had been virtually a no-go area since the Marines had pulled out in July 1968. The road was in a terrible state. In places it was washed out and NVA sappers had left hardly a bridge or culvert intact. The 1st Battalion of the 77th Armored Regiment took with them armoured vehicles carrying bridges to cross ravines and giant bulldozers to cut away cliffs where mountain roads were too narrow for tanks to pass. The column was supplied by a shuttle service of CH-47 Chinook helicopters and CH-54 Skycranes. On 18 March, lead elements reached what had once been one of the most beautiful valleys in Vietnam, now a moonscape honeycombed by B-52 raids: a wasteland of unexploded bombs, mines, abandoned fortifications, barbed wire, rotting parachutes, devoid of vegetation. The armoured column arrived in the ruins of Khe Sanh at 1300hrs, taking the NVA completely by surprise. They fled into Laos. Lieutenant-Colonel Carmen P. Milia commanding the armoured column wanted to follow and engage the enemy in conventional tank warfare. Instead, he was ordered to cut south across country to interdict traffic on the Communist-controlled Route 926. The bulldozers went first, cutting a path through the jungle. The column reached Route 926 five days later on 26 March. But on 30 March, it was ordered to withdraw. The operation was declared a success. In 43 days, it had swept a hundred square kilometres of 'injun country'. However, only 73 enemy had been killed.

  To the south, the US Army's last large-scale action of the war was about to get underway. In the aftermath of the Tet Offensive, Westmoreland had committed forces to the A Shau valley on the Lao border, one of the least hospitable parts of South Vietnam. The valley was a thirty-mile-long funnel which connected the Ho Chi Minh trail to Thua Thien province in the northwest. Its rolling terrain was covered with eight-foot-high elephant grass and the hills around its rim were lush with triple-canopy jungle. This had been one of the major staging areas for Tet. In April 1968, the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) and the ARVN had helicoptered deep into the valley. They encountered heavy antiaircraft fire but little resistance on the ground. In August, the 101st Airborne Division swept along the valley floor. They uncovered supply caches, but the NVA melted away leaving their anti-aircraft guns behind them.

  Early in 1969, MACV intelligence discovered activity in the valley again, and the 101st were sent back. This time, they established firebases along the edge of the valley and helicoptered men in. Again they uncovered supplies but the enemy proved elusive. In May, the 101st, the 9th Marines, and the 3rd AVRN regiment planned a number of hit and run raids. This time they were in for a surprise. On the morning of 11 May, B Company of the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry – part of the 101st – landed at the foot of Hill 937. Covered in lush green vegetation and spiked bamboo, this rugged peak was known to the Vietnamese as Dong Ap Bia or Ap Bia mountain. Americans would learn to call it Hamburger Hill.

  Bravo Company were on a routine search-and-locate operation. They knew that the enemy was in the area, but expected them to melt away as they always had before. As they moved cautiously up the north slope of Hill 937, the undergrowth suddenly erupted with machine-gun fire from hidden bunkers. Those a fraction slow in hitting the deck were cut down. Survivors returned fire with M16s and light anti-tank weapons, then retreated down the hill with the wounded, their job done. They had located the enemy: the rest was up to the artillery and air support. Within minutes the firebase at Ta Bat opened up, then the USAF pummelled the bunkers with high explosives and incendiaries.

  When the smoke died down, Bravo Company advanced up the hill again to mop up, but once again they came under withering fire. Again they withdrew and more fire support was called in. For the rest of the afternoon and the following night, bombs and shells pounded in the NVA positions until logic demanded that, if there were any enemy left on the slopes, they would be in no condition to fight. Logic was wrong. One of the GIs on the next advance was Spec 4 Jimmy Spears. He recalled that they ran 'into garbage' – automatic fire, rocket grenades and lethal claymore mines hanging from the undergrowth. Again B Company was forced to withdraw. As they prepared a new LZ to medevac their growing casualties out, more air and artillery support was called in and the enemy position was pounded for another day and night.

  It did no good. At Hamburger Hill an irresistible force had met an immovable object. The irresistible force was the commander of the 3rd Battalion Lieutenant-Colonel Weldon Honeycutt. Codenamed Blackjack, he was a tough son-of-a-bitch who liked nothing better than walking point. His determination to shift the NVA from Hamburger Hill whatever the cost earned him a price on his head. The immovable object was the NVA's fortifications. The 7th and 8th Battalions of the 29th Regiment had built bunkers flush to the ground, hidden by dense undergrowth. They were practically indestructible and their interlocking fire converged on every approach to the hill. What's more, the air and artillery support was systematically stripping the hill of any cover and it soon became clear to the men of the 187th that, if they continued to attack up the denuded slopes, it was not a question of if they were going to die but when. But attack they did.

  On 12 May, B and C Companies made another attempt on the blasted hill. The attack lasted just 30 minutes before it was decisively repulsed. Rocket and automatic fire accounted for another thirty-seven casualties. The following day, B, C, and D Companies went up the hill in separate lines of attack. Charlie Company was in the lead, but their commander fell wounded, his radio fell silent, C Company fell back, and the attack fell apart. The hill was blasted with artillery shells and bombs once again. The night was spent listening for activity, but the men who advanced again the following dawn expected a bullet with their name on it.

  The attack on the morning of 15 May was reinforced by elements of the 3rd ARVN Brigade. But the thinned ranks of Bravo Company, supported by A Company, moved out again. With helicopter gunships rocketing the enemy positions, they inched forward desperately searching for any scrap of cover. Even the odd patch of undergrowth provided no haven
: the NVA had spent the night rigging up more claymores. However, this time the grunts broke through and began clearing out the bunkers, slowly, one by one. But then disaster struck. Lead elements of B Company were strung out across the exposed hillside in sight of the crest of Hill 937 when a helicopter gunship bore down on them and let rip with its rockets and machine guns. Bodies flew through the air. The mutilated lay there screaming. After everything they had suffered the last four days, the last thing B Company needed was 'friendly fire'.

  Later that afternoon, battalion headquarters came under fire by enemy RPGs. Honeycutt was wounded for the third time in the battle. He refused to be medevaced out. Many of his men wanted to see him go – in a body bag, preferably.

  There were no attacks on 17 May. For 36 solid hours, the hill was bombarded with high explosives, napalm, and CS gas. The GIs were issued extra-heavy flak jackets. They were almost unbearable to wear in the heat, but everyone cursed that they had not been issued a week earlier. On 18 May, two full battalions attacked with the 3/187th being joined by the 1st Battalion of the 506th Infantry. Amid desperate fighting the grunts reached the summit of Hamburger Hill. Then the heavens opened. Visibility dropped to zero and the thunderstorm turned the soil of the slopes, already churned up and loosened by repeated bombardment, into mud chutes where men could not keep their footing. They were bombarded with grenades and mines that were detonated within the enemy's perimeter. Another retreat was ordered.

  By this point, 3/187th were on the brink of mutiny.

  'There were lots of people in Bravo Company who were going to refuse to go up again,' recalled one GI. 'There'd been low morale, but never before so low – because we felt it was all so senseless'.

  Despite this, on 20 May, a four-battalion attack was organised with the 2nd Battalion of the 501st Infantry and the 2nd Battalion of the 3rd ARVN joining the assault. They fought from bunker to bunker in combat so close that air support was out of the question. But, by the end of the day, the men of the 187th were in control of what was left of Hamburger Hill. Colonel Honeycutt could not praise his men enough.

  'My boys were really doing their jobs,' he said. 'I love every one of them'.

  It was not reciprocated. Some 50 GIs had lost their lives on Hamburger Hill, and 40 had been wounded. And after the hill had been secured and the bunker complexes searched and destroyed, the peak was abandoned. On a piece of cardboard pinned to a tree along with a black 101st neckerchief, an unknown GI left the scrawled message: 'Hamburger Hill. Was it worth it?'

  Back in Washington, DC, Senator Edward Kennedy did not think so. He pointed out that Hamburger Hill had no strategic value and he called the attack 'senseless and irresponsible'.

  Soon after, Life magazine published the photographs of the 242 young Americans killed in a single week in the war that the Nixon administration was committed to ending. After Hamburger Hill, General Abrams ordered that American troops should instigate no more full-scale actions. For different reasons Hanoi issued similar orders.

  If Hamburger Hill proved anything it was that Westmoreland's concept of 'big unit' engagement had finally been discredited. Vietnamisation was proceeding apace. Between 1968 and 1971, the ARVN grew from 820,000 to over a million men. Their heavy World War II-vintage M1 rifles were replaced by lightweight M16s, which were a reasonable match for the Communists' outstanding AK-47. While the ARVN performed well on incursions into Cambodian territory, they did less well at home where the largely city-dwelling ARVN did not win the hearts and minds of the villagers, who they often stole from. A 1969 study found that ARVN soldiers had upset the civilian population in almost half of South Vietnam's hamlets. Their attempts to move peasants into safe areas to limit VC influence was also heavy-handed.

  'Putting the people behind barbed wire against their will is not the first step to earning loyalty and support, especially if there is no concentrated effort at political education and village development,' one US study said.

  The ARVN also suffered a huge number of desertions. In 1970, over 100,000 men, more than 10 per cent of its strength, deserted, failed to return from leave, or defected to the Vietcong. On the other hand, the VC was not what it had been. Attacks by Communist units fell from 318 in 1969 to 295 in 1970 and 187 in 1971. By 1971, the insurgency was largely confined to ten provinces and more than one million refugees had been able to return home. The Tet Offensive and the Phoenix Program had destroyed the VC command structure – along with a great many innocent people – and with peace talks going on in Paris the Communist soldiers, like their American counterparts, did not want to be the last one to die in the conflict. During 1969–70, the number of VC taking advantage of the amnesty offered by the South Vietnamese government soared. Only a small percentage of these deserters were genuine, according to the US head of the pacification programme William Colby, but even this small number marked significant progress. Even so Communist forces kept up the pressure in Vietnam despite the death of Ho Chi Minh in September 1969. President Thieu attempted to sue for peace by offering elections that would include the NLF, but Vice-President Ky warned that any attempt to form a coalition with the NLF would result in another military coup.

  In America, the split in public opinion over the war grew more entrenched when Lieutenant Calley was charged with murder over the My Lai Massacre. Nixon announced the withdrawal of a further 35,000 troops but on 15 October 1969, 'Moratorium Day', hundreds of thousands of Americans demonstrated against the seemingly endless war. To still the protest Nixon made a televised speech promising an 'orderly scheduled timetable' for US troop withdrawals. It did little to quell public feeling. Two weeks later, a quarter of a million people attended an anti-war demonstration in Washington. Despite continuing troop withdrawals, US casualties continued to rise, topping 40,000 by the end of 1969.

  The morale of the US troops was now at breaking point. At the beginning of the war, they had faced a guerrilla army, who hit then ran away, and they had longed for a conventional battle where they could use their superior firepower to defeat the enemy. But when they did meet the NVA in set-piece battles, they found that the enemy could suffer enormous casualties without breaking. The Communists mounted a new offensive in January 1970, attacking over a hundred bases with missile fire. Nixon responded by pounding the Ho Chi Minh trail with B-52s. The NVA began a major offensive in Laos and reports circulated that the US was bombing Laos in support of the anti-Communist government there. Many feared Nixon intended to extend the war, although Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird stated that the President would ask for Congressional approval if US ground troops were to be sent into Laos. This was disingenuous. The country had been politically unstable since the withdrawal of the French in 1954, a civil war raged there throughout the 1960s. Both the North Vietnamese and the US covertly took a hand in the fighting and Laos found itself inexorably dragged into the war in Southeast Asia.

  THE POSITION OF LAOS

  In the Geneva Accords of July 1954 that ended the French presence in Indochina, Laos had been set up as an independent country, a buffer state between Western-orientated Thailand and Communist North Vietnam. A royalist government was set up under Prince Souvana Phouma in Vientiane, the capital of Laos. From the beginning he faced opposition from his half-brother Prince Souphanouvong, leader of the Communist guerrilla army, the Pathet Lao – 'Land of the Laos' – that controlled the northern provinces along the Chinese border.

  With the Cold War at its height, armed conflict between these two factions seemed inevitable. But most Lao opposed this and a strong neutralist faction grew up, with the aim of keeping out foreign influences that might turn fraternal rivalry into full-blown civil war.

  In 1957, Souvana Phouma and Souphanouvong tried to work together in a coalition, but they soon fell out. Souvana Phouma and the Neutralists turned against Souphanouvong and received American backing for their anti-Communist stance. In 1959, the right-wing General Phoumi Nosavan entered the fray. He seized control in 1960, only to be ousted by Captain Kong Le, wh
o was backed by the Neutralists and Souvana Phouma. Fearing that the Neutralists were cooking up a secret deal with the North Vietnam-backed Communists, America shifted its support to General Nosavan.

  A new peace conference was convened in Geneva in 1961 and the following year a new agreement was drawn up. Under it, Laos was to remain neutral. This was to be ensured by a tripartite government comprising the Neutralists under Souvana Phouma, the rightists and the Pathet Lao. Again the arrangement was not destined to last.

  In 1964, the coalition split and civil war broke out. Both the North Vietnamese and the US used this to increase their influence. The Vietnamese Communists had vital interests in Laos, particularly the Ho Chi Minh trail, which for most of its length ran through Laotian territory. On the other hand, it was vital for the US to break this supply route. Consequently Laos was drawn into the larger war. Covertly, America began bombing Laos to try and stop supplies getting through, further destabilising the country. The CIA armed anti-Communist guerrillas in Laos and formed the ethnically distinct Meo tribesmen into guerrilla army to fight the Pathet Lao. The CIA airlines Air America and Continental Airways provided a fleet of some 60 aircraft to supply anti-Communist guerrillas in Laos via a network of 200 grass airstrips, and the CIA also recruited the best officers from the Royal Laotian Army and used them to set up Auxiliary Defense Companies and thirty-man Special Guerrilla Units that were used in action on the Ho Chi Minh trail. The Green Berets and their Civilian Irregular Defense Forces from South Vietnam were also used in cross-border operations into Laos. When America pulled out of Southeast Asia, these men were left to their fate. Many fought on against the Communists and were wiped out.