The Rise and Fall of an American Army: U.S. Ground Forces, Vietnam, 1965-1973 - Hardcover

Stanton, Shelby L.

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9780891412328: The Rise and Fall of an American Army: U.S. Ground Forces, Vietnam, 1965-1973

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0891412328 ISBN 13: 9780891412328

Publisher: Presidio Pr, 1985

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Describes all major combat operations and significant battles of the Vietnam War, assesses the impact of each victory or defeat, and covers war strategies, campaign plans, battlefield tactics, and combat performances of the Army and Marine Corps

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About the Author:

Shelby L. Stanton is a noted military historian. During the conflict in Vietnam, he was commissioned as an infantry officer of the U.S. Army and completed the Airborne, Ranger, and Special Forces Officer courses. His six years on active military duty included service throughout Southeast Asia, where he earned the Vietnam service and campaign medals. He was also decorated for advisory duty in direct support of Cambodian operations. After being wounded in Laos, he was medically retired with the rank of captain.

Stanton received a B.A., M.Ed., and J.D. from Louisiana State University. He is also the author of Rangers at War; Vietnam Order of Battle; and Order of Battle, U.S. Army, World War II.
From the Paperback edition.

CHAPTER 1

Advisors and Special Forces

1. Advisors at War

To many Vietnamese, their narrow S-shaped strip of land stretching along the seaward rim of Southeast Asia resembled a dragon facing the equator. The head and mane formed the southern region, with front legs thrust out into the Gulf of Siam, and the slender body curved around the Gulf of Tonkin to coil its massive tail against China in the north. Since the Geneva Conference on July 21, 1954, this dragon had been chopped in half, divided at a line of demarcation along the 17th parallel. This was the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating North and South Vietnam. Vietnamese geomagicians were quick to point out that, in the position described, the Vietnamese dragon was a portent of national reunification.

Vietnam’s southern half was officially the Republic of Viet- nam, a thin 1,500-mile crescent-shaped country more commonly known as South Vietnam. Its long outer coasts are washed by the Pacific Ocean, and its interior mosaic of moun- tains, jungles, plains, and swamps are hedged in by the spine of the Chaine Annamitique, a western mountain range, which fades south into a vast alluvial plain created by the delta of the Mekong River.

Palm-lined white sand beaches fringe coves and bays where coral reefs can be clearly seen through the glassy sea. A vibrant green mantle of rice paddies extends inland. These stretch almost endlessly across the flat delta, crisscrossed by ribbons of canals. At the time of the war, many areas of South Vietnam remained a wild and exotic wilderness. Mountain slopes dropped deep into luxurious growths of tropical flora, bracken, tuft-twisted bamboos, and majestic jungle trees. Silver rivers and waterfalls laced the deep rain forests. These were steeped in a wonderful variety of folklore and legend. Large rubber and coconut plantations stretched across rolling plains, and tigers stalked pine-forested plateaus.

Tropical monsoons allowed only two seasons; hot and dry and hot and rainy, and the alternation of the monsoons and dry seasons determined the pattern of life. The majority of the eighteen million inhabitants lived in the open lowland plains and rice-bearing deltas. Their hamlets and villages were generally self-governing. An old proverb states that the Emperor’s law stops at the village gate. The people had existed through the centuries by cultivating rice on lands irrigated by primal pumps and sluices. The rugged uplands region was left to the ethnically alien and primitive mountain tribes.

South Vietnam was at war with a North Vietnamese- sponsored Viet Cong insurgency that was aimed at toppling the Saigon regime. The death of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem and the collapse of his regime in the military-led coup of November 1963 ushered in a series of coalition governments replete with successive plots and counterplots. These political upheavals crippled central authority, while the division of military leaders between opposing cliques caused fatal turmoil in the armed forces. In the meantime, the Viet Cong were scoring major victories on the battlefront. The South Vietnamese Army’s morale was wrecked, and its combat effectiveness was practically nil. In the majority of rural areas where governmental authority had collapsed altogether, the Viet Cong enjoyed firm control.

As 1965 was being ushered in, a newly formed and well-equipped VC division overran Binh Gia near Saigon and then stood its ground to challenge and destroy counterattacking South Vietnamese units during a four-day period.1 In previous encounters the VC had withdrawn shortly after attacking, and such a bold success was deeply troubling to South Vietnam’s principal ally, the United States.

America’s field advisory element of its Military Assistance

1. The 9th VC Division attacked and captured Binh Gia on December 27, 1964. Despite intense American helicopter gunship attacks, the Viet Cong demolished the 33d ARVN Ranger Battalion, which managed to reach the edge of the village, and the 4th VNMC Battalion sent in to assist. Command, Vietnam (MACV), contained over 4,700 officers and sergeants during 1964, and their professionalism and dedication was the glue holding the South Vietnamese Army together as the year closed. They could be seen accompanying ARVN soldiers on routine patrols and in combat assaults, their tall lanky figures crowned with maroon berets or faded green, sweat-soaked baseball caps; while strapping shoulder holsters and World War II carbines. Wearing utility shirts adorned with brightly colored Vietnamese and American rank insignia crowding their gold-lettered U.S. ARMY tapes and white name tags, they represented an era that was rapidly slipping into oblivion on the eve of the “big war.” These were the pioneers of a rising United States involvement in Vietnam, the pathfinders in a war destined to consume an entire American Army.

The military advisor’s job was incredibly difficult and hazardous. The very nature of his work exposed him to constant political pressures and extremely dangerous situations. His responsibilities often extended beyond pure instruction to include combat planning, linking up needed communications, assuring the availability of medical assistance, and arranging for logistical support. He was given no command authority yet often had to provide direct leadership on the battlefield. In the midst of combat he was depended on to provide cool-headed advice and a steadying presence, as well as to ensure critical liaison with decisive American airpower. In many cases it fell upon his shoulders personally to rally units on the brink of panic.

One of these advisors was Capt. Donald R. Robinson, who was attached to the 51st ARVN Regiment’s 1st Battalion, part of an undeclared war that was looming larger and more dangerous every month. A company of the battalion, dwarfed by oversized American helmets and clutching cumbersome American M1 rifles, nonchalantly patrolled a road near the small hamlet of Ba Gia west of Quang Ngai on May 26, 1965. Captain Robinson’s Son Tinh district was one of those backwater areas that had not seen battle, and he had been told the Viet Cong in the region were a bunch of ragtag guerrillas incapable of sophisticated military action. He had been gravely misinformed.

The Viet Cong of the 1st Regiment, Region V Liberation Army had carefully prepared their attack positions. They had established a series of strategically placed ambush zones designed to annihilate this battalion as well as expected relief columns. When the lead company walked into the killing zone, the peaceful drone of tropical insects was shattered by a deafening fusillade of combined rifle and machine-gun fire which cut through the frail company ranks like a scythe.

Even at this point the trouble seemed to be little more than a hit-and-run ambush, which by 1965 could be expected anywhere in the Vietnamese countryside. The battalion commander immediately dispatched a second company to the scene of combat, but midway there it was bushwhacked from another direction. Leaving a small reserve behind, the rest of the five hundred-man battalion now went to the relief of its two engaged companies. The VC closed in from all sides, and the battalion disintegrated under a hailstorm of grenades and automatic weapons fire. In less than twenty minutes it had been wiped out. Only sixty-five soldiers and three advisors managed to escape.

It wasn’t until four days later that a three-battalion ARVN relief force finally sauntered out of Quang Ngai, escorted by a mechanized troop of armored personnel carriers. The battalions advanced in three widely separated drives, intending to converge on the original ambush site. The Viet Cong were well prepared for any countermoves and had covered each approach route.

The 39th ARVN Ranger Battalion moved into its selected objective area without incident on May 30, but at two o’clock in the afternoon it was subjected to a furious barrage of recoilless rifle and machine-gun fire. The 2d Battalion of the 51st ARVN Regiment was ordered to reinforce the rangers, but before it could move it was also attacked. When the 3d South Vietnamese Marine Corps (VNMC) Battalion came under simultaneous attack all three battalions were effectively locked in isolated battles for survival.

Throughout the rest of the day each separate battalion perimeter was hit by numerous ground assaults. Viet Cong 75mm pack artillery howitzers sent shells crashing into the broken debris of foliage and toppled trees. Fallen soldiers from the 51st ARVN Regiment’s second battalion were strewn all over the roadway. The tracked carriers hammered the tree line with heavy machine-gun fire as they coughed out clouds of engine exhaust and clanked into reverse. The infantrymen stumbled backwards, some exchanging desultory rifle fire but others tossing away weapons in dazed discouragement. Using the armored personnel carriers as cover, the decimated battalion managed to break away and retreat toward the town.

The other battalions were unable to pull back. Their circular defensive positions, hastily set up in fallen timber and clumps of vegetation, were caving in as the Viet Cong pressed their relentless attacks. With the onset of darkness, mortars began pounding the provincial capital of Quang Ngai and its airfield. The 39th ARVN Ranger Battalion had suffered particularly high losses. Swarms of Viet Cong, some clutching German burp guns, charged forward through the shattered thickets and into the shrunken ranger lines. They stormed past the dead and wounded defenders of the center company and overran the battalion headquarters.

Since that afternoon fighter aircraft had been roaring down to hurl bombs in the burning jungle below. Next came strafing runs over the forested battlefield. These aerial attacks continued throughout the night. Finally, just before daylight and after enduring 446 aircraft sorties, the VC broke off further combat. Airpower alone was credited with saving the South Vie...

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