RVNAF, the Republic of Viet
Nam Armed Forces, underwent a significant change, both qualitatively and
quantitatively, between 1968 and 1975. It was a change that went unnoticed by
the news media and remains generally unknown to the American public, and is inadequately
identified and described in many would-be “history” books, in part because the
nature and extent of change could not readily be foreseen or predicted based on
RVNAF performance and capabilities up to 1968. None of this is to deny serious
problems existed, or that corruption and poor leadership did not continue to
plague RVNAF’s ability to defend the Republic of Viet Nam, yet to a degree
these problems were being addressed and the positive aspects of RVNAF cannot be
excluded from honest history.
I experienced this
personally, arriving in Viet Nam in late 1971, serving one year with MACV, and
returning for two more years, 1973-1975, with the Defense Attache Office.
Originally scheduled and trained to serve as an advisor, I attended Infantry
Officer Basic at Ft. Benning, Georgia; Combat Tactical Intelligence and
Southeast Asia Orientation at Ft. Holabird, Maryland; and Vietnamese Language
School at Ft. Bliss, Texas. Upon arriving in Viet Nam I was told advisory slots
were being phased out and instead I was assigned to MACV J-2 as an intelligence
analyst, first covering Cambodia and then concentrating on Military Region IV,
covering the entire Mekong Delta. This job expanded informally and encompassed
liaison work with RVNAF staff, US advisory teams, GVN provinces, and RVNAF
units in the Delta. During these three years I was, at one time or another, in
18 of the former RVN’s 44 provinces, dealing with not only US and RVNAF
elements but also with the Australians, USAID, and the CIA. I sat in on very high
level briefings at MACV HQ as well as the RVN JGS, while the next week I might
be in a Kien Phong rice paddy with PF troops, or flying across Dinh Tuong
province in an ARVN Huey, or at Tra Cu Ranger Base along the Vam Co Dong River.
Of great importance was the ability to speak Vietnamese, and within one month
after arriving in Viet Nam it was clearly apparent that nothing I’d heard in
the US, either the “news reports” or rather silly debates on college campuses,
described what I experienced and encountered. In sum, I asked myself “If all
those people in the U.S. are talking about Viet Nam, then where am I?” My
off-duty hours were spent entirely within a Vietnamese dimension of reality.
Whether in Saigon, or Cao Lanh, or Rach Gia, I frequented the “quan nho,” the
card-table soup and coffee stands, eagerly listening to Vietnamese people and
troops, asking questions, and learning far, far more than I’d ever learned in
the States, or even knew there was to be learned. My education did not end in
1975. Since then I have read cubic feet of declassified documents and hundreds
of books (to include works in Vietnamese), interviewed scores upon scores of
Southeast Asia- and US-born veterans of the war, and prowled the internet’s
hundreds of Viet Nam and Southeast Asia websites. There remains much, much more
to Viet Nam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand than is suspected by the American
public, and conclusions presenting themselves do not conform to what most
people think they know.
Yes, there were serious
problems with corruption. Yes, there were examples of inept leadership. Still,
no one told me, or even suggested, that my initial exposure to the ARVN 9th
Infantry Division would reveal the professional and highly competent
performance witnessed at a division FDC (Fire Direction Center for allocation
of supporting artillery fire). Nor had anyone told me that the 7th ARVN
Infantry Division, forever condemned by its lackluster performance at Ap Bac,
years earlier, had evolved into a highly effective unit under the leadership of
General Nguyen Khoa Nam, a man of impeccable integrity and tactical skills who
remains unknown to the American public, while being justly revered by the
Vietnamese people. Nor did any suggest it would even be possible for Hau Nghia
Province’s RF forces, the provincial militia, to thoroughly humiliate not one
but three NVA regular regiments during Hanoi’s 1972 Offensive, systematically
chewing up and spitting out attacking enemy forces that could have feasibly
changed the course of history during this period.(1) The RF did
not have the artillery and air support available to regular ARVN (to include
Airborne and Rangers) and Marine units, and relied heavily on basic hard-ball
infantry skills. Had the NVA broken through they would have posed an immediate and
direct threat to Saigon, a mere 25 miles away, forcing ARVN 21st Division
forces to pull back from QL 13, and thereby allow NVA forces to direct all
their attention to An Loc. As has been noted by James H. Willbanks(2) in
his excellent work, the 21st division, while not succeeding in breaking through
to besieged An Loc, did force the NVA to divert a division away from An Loc,
which conceivably might otherwise have fallen, with dire consequences.
In sum, RVNAF in its
entirety, and often mistakenly referred to as simply “ARVN,” was capable of far
more than I had learned before going to Viet Nam, and far more than was
conveyed to the American people. Then… and now.
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Going back to the period
discussed in this presentation, it is acknowledged that RVNAF had serious
problems. This is obvious. Were this not so, U.S., Australian, South Korean,
Thai and New Zealand combat units would not have been required. Still, there
were indications of what well-led, properly armed and equipped RVNAF forces
were capable of. In 1966 the 37th ARVN Ranger battalion decimated an NVA
regiment three times its size at Thach Tru, receiving a Presidential Unit
Citation from Lyndon Johnson for its feat. An American advisor to the 37th,
Capt. Bobby Jackson, described his counterpart, company commander Capt. Nguyen
Van Chinh, as being “utterly fearless.”(3) The 2nd Marine, or
Thuy Quan Luc Chien, Battalion, whose shoulder patch depicted a “Trau Dien,” a
“Crazy Buffalo,” had likewise bullied VC and NVA units, demonstrating the
appropriateness of their unit symbol (all the more meaningful for those who’ve
encountered an enraged water buffalo). Their accomplishments were unreported in
the US news media and are ignored in later day “histories.”
By 1968, and in the
aftermath of Hanoi’s failed ’68 strategic counteroffensive, it was clear to US
decision makers that “Viet Namization” must be accelerated, which many people
falsely assume is the demarcation between a period when RVNAF wasn’t fighting,
and now would begin to fight. This overlooks the fact that RVNAF monthly combat
fatalities greatly exceeded those of combined allied forces for the entire war.
RVNAF was finally supplied with modern weapons, replacing the WW II equipment
most had been using (by early 1968 only 5% of RVNAF were using the M-16 rifle),
generally inferior to VC/NVA weaponry. Concurrently, RVNAF strength increased
the board:
1968 1972
Regular Forces
Army 380,000 410,000 Plus
30,000/7.9%
Air Force 19,000 50,000 Plus
31,000/163%
Navy 19,000 42,000 Plus
23,000/110%
Marines 9,000 14,000 Plus
5,000/56%
Total Regular 427,000
516,000 Plus 89,000/21%
RF/PF Militia*
RF 220,000 284,000 Plus
64,000/29% PF 173,000 248,000 Plus75,000/43% Total 393,000 532,000 Plus
139,000/35% Overall Total 820,000 1,048,000 Plus 228,000/28% (4)
*The term “militia” is often
used yet may wrongly suggest the final evolution of these elements took the
form of part-time irregulars. Sometimes referred to as “territorials,” the
RF(Regional Forces, or Dia Phuong Quan) and PF(Popular Forces, or Nghia Quan)
were full time military units, typically limited to their home province, or
district, respectively.
As can be seen, “ARVN”-the
Republic of Viet Nam ARMY, was only one component-56%-of the total armed
forces. There were yet other elements, to include the National Field Force
Police, People’s Self Defense Force/Nhan Dan Tu Ve (PSDF), and Rural Developemt
(RD) teams. While the latter were not considered full-time combat troops, and
the PSDF often ridiculed, they were an impediment to the VC/NVA. In one case,
not known to be documented, an RD cadre team turned back a VC battalion in Vinh
Long province, its members skilled in calling in province artillery.(5) While
the PSDF were too young, too old, or too disabled to join the regular military,
serving only as a village hamlet defense force against local VC tax,
recruiting, or agitprop teams, they were another factor the local communists
had to deal with, and one that had not been in place before 1968, when local VC
could freely enter hamlets at night. Sometimes the PSDF were ineffectual, and
sometimes they were propagandized into joining the VC (6), yet
at other times:
“… they (two VC) were trying
to abduct a member of the PSDF when another PSDF appeared on the scene and shot
both of them dead with an M-1. An AK-47 and 9mm Chicom pistol were
captured.”
And…
“Both Prey Vang and Tahou
hamlets received small arms fire and B-40s tonight. The local PSDF managed to
drive off two light ground probes.”(7) It was also an
18-year-old PSDF member who knocked out the first of many tanks destroyed at An
Loc in the 1972 siege.(8)
Hanoi was not pleased:
“They [RVNAF]
strengthened puppet [sic] forces, consolidated the puppet [sic] government, and
established an outpost network and People’s Self Defense Force organizations in
many villages. They provided more technical equipment for, and increased
mobility of, puppet [sic] forces, establishing blocking lines, and created a
new defensive and oppressive system in densely populated areas. As a result,
they caused many difficulties and inflicted losses on friendly [VC] forces.”(9)
This would not and could not
have happened prior to 1968’s creation and arming of PSDF with cast-off WWII
weapons passed down from main force RVNAF elements.
Likewise, the RF/PF, with
assistance of US Mobile Advisory Teams (MATs), belatedly employed in 1968 (10),
and armed with better weapons, began making progress, as witnessed in 1970 by
MAT member David Donovan during a classic infantry assault:
“We had just gotten past the
major infestation of booby traps when we began to receive fire from a tree line
in front of us. Water spouted up around us, bullets whined overhead, and we
heard the stuttered popping of light small arms fire. The men reacted well now,
not like the early days when getting any reaction from them under fire was next
to impossible. Sergeant Abney took the rear of the column and swung around to
the right, using it as a maneuver element while those of us in the front
returned fire. When Abney's troops got to a good protected position they
stopped and began firing themselves. Under the cover of their fire we moved
ahead to yet another position. In this back-and-forth stepwise manner Abney's
and my group finally got to the tree line and into the direct assault. Three
men in the element I was with had been hit, I didn't know how badly, but
everyone kept moving up. We had done well.”(11)
Donovan’s experience was not
unique. Advisor John Cook recalled his optimism of 1970:
"We [Cook and his Viet
Namese counterparts] were riding high, feeling almost indestructible. The
morale and aggressiveness in the district was extremely high, causing us to
pursue the enemy with almost reckless abandonment."(12)
Performance of this caliber
was not universal. There were units that did not respond to changing times and
remained plagued by poor leadership, complete absence of aggressive patrolling
and tactics, and instances in which American advisors may have been killed, or
threatened by, RF/PF counterparts with whom they did not get along.(13) Other
American advisors did not encounter these unpleasantries but were unimpressed
with their advisee charges. Still, accounts of favorable experiences and
observations abound, yet are virtually absent from the national discussion and
common American perceptions, or what is taught in our schools.
Improvement, or outright
excellence, was not limited to the territorial forces, and ARVN infantry
divisions-admittedly not all-demonstrated aggressive tactical brilliance. Quang
Tri Pacification advisor Richard Stevens, who’d served a prior tour in the
Marines, was amazed at the performance of ARVN 1st Division elements
successfully attacking an NVA rocket launch site:
“I was totally impressed and
just dazzled actually, by the way they operated and by their daring in doings
things. … This was the thirteenth operation like this that this guy [a
battalion XO] had led. You’re talking about people that are total experts at what
they’re doing and who have done so many hair-raising things already and are
still doing it. … This regiment’s advisors told me all the time I went there
that ‘… you’re working with the best now. There’s nothing we can tell these
guys about anything. We’re [the advisors] just fire support people. But as far
as knowing how to operate, they’re the ones that teach us.’ We had both
Australian and American advisors; they all said the same thing.”(14)
To the south, in MR IV’s
Dinh Tuong Province, the 7th ARVN division also performed flawlessly, as
testified by advisors and US “slick” pilots who flew 7th division troops on
combat assaults. While the 7th, perhaps by virtue of the Ap Bac debacle of
1963, was termed by some a “search and avoid” unit, those working directly with
the 7th have nothing but praise and admiration for the 7th’s aggressiveness and
tactical expertise. A former NVA infiltrator testified to the ARVN 7th’s
prowess:
“… .the liberated zone was
shrinking. … I spent more and more time moving around, trying to stay away from
ARVN operations. “In Ben Tre [AKA Kien Hoa Province] it was mainly the ARVN 7th
division that was causing problems. Most of the division was recruited from the
Delta so they knew the whole area. They were just as familiar with it as we
were.”(15)
Conditions became even worse
as newly arrived NVA fillers to “VC” units did not know the area at all and
were ill-equipped to wage the tree-line warfare of the northern delta. One POW
indicated he was captured shortly after arriving when he and others were
assigned to ambush a 7th division sweep the following day. In place before
dawn, the would-be ambushers were hit from behind by 7th division flank
elements ahead of the main body. (16) The results of this
became increasingly evident between 1968 and 1971, a period during which US
troop strength was reduced by more than half, and decline in VC/NVA offensive
operations was clear and distinct:
1968-1972 Change
US Forces 537,000 224,000
Down 312,000/58%
VC/NVA Bn Atks 126 2 Down 124/98%
Small Scale Atks 3,795 2,242
Down 1,553/41%
Terrorist Atks 32,362 22,700
Down 9,662/30%
Assassinations 5,389* 3,573
Down 1,816/34%
Abductions 8,759** 5,006
Down 2,573/43%
Percentage Secure 47 84 Up
37/56%
Hamlets
Rice Growing Area 2,296
2,522 Up 226/9.8% (1,000 Hectares)
VN Civilians Ad- 88,149
39,402 Down 48,474/55%
Mitted to Hospital (5.1)
(2.1)
For War-Related
Injuries(% total Population)
VC/NVA Strength 250,300
197,700 Down 52,600/21% (17)
*Excludes assassination
victims at Hue
**Few abductees ever
returned. They are assumed to have been killed. The disparity of change between
VC/NVA strength and offensive actions is illustrative:
Percentage Drop,
1968-1971
VC/NVA Bn. Sized Attacks 98%
Abductions 43%
Small Scale Attacks 41%
Assassinations 34%
Terrorism 30% VC/NVA
Strength 21%
The percentage decline in
all forms of VC/NVA offensive operations declined more than did overall
strength figures, indicating a decrease in overall military capabilities below
that expected from a 21% troop strength drop. This occurred while American troop
strength declined 58%. Not only were there fewer VC/NVA in country but they
less capable of initiating offensive operations.
Little doubt exists that
many Viet Nam statistics were of questionable veracity, and the HES rating
(secure hamlets) in particular is frequently and justifiably damned for
inaccuracies, yet the trend line is clear and there is no body of evidence,
statistical or anecdotal, suggesting anything but a precipitous decline in
VC/NVA fortunes between 1968 and 1971. While the VC, as distinct from the NVA,
were not completely destroyed, and pockets of strong VC influence and control
remained in such provinces as Chuong Thien, Dinh Tuong, Quang Nam and Quang
Ngai, the indigenous VC were no longer a strategic force and had it not been
for massive NVA infiltration and provision of modern weaponry, the war were
have gradually expended itself. Even those VC units and areas that remained
were entirely dependent on the NVA for their survival. “Anti-war” writer
Frances FitzGerald, author of Fire in the Lake (ironically enough thoroughly
lambasted by both Hanoi chief ideologue Nguyen Khac Vien and NLF/Hanoi
supporter Ngo Vinh Long) acknowledged survival odds for both VC and RVNAF
troops, in 1966 was 50-50, yet by 1969 VC survival odds plummeted to 10% while
an RVNAF soldier had a 90% survival chance.(18) Nguyen Van
Thanh, after 23 years as a Viet Cong, defected in 1970, viewing the NLF cause
as hopeless, citing improved RVNAF operations, expansion of district PF and
PSDF programs, and the GVN’s impending land reform program as factors he could
no longer deal with.(19) Stanley Karnow states forthrightly in
his profoundly over-rated book, without ever having explained how this all came
about, that by 1971 “… the Viet Cong alone was no match for the Saigon
government army.” (20)
Don Colin spent years in
Viet Nam and was widely renowned for his gruff, excessively blunt rejection of
anything he viewed as, and vociferously damned, as utter bullsh-t. He suffered
through the frustrating difficulties, false-starts, and the very same problems
viewed as constant unchanging universals, if not harbingers of doom. Yet by
1971 he saw the cumulative results materialize in the delta:
“Thirty months ago the
number of good leaders in MR IV could be measured on one hand. Even the corps
commander, while he was a good, honest and fairly capable leader, was shy,
unimaginative and not capable of stirring his subordinates to aggressive and positive
activity. Division commanders were largely incompetent and most Province chiefs
were largely incompetent and corrupt. Subordinate commanders not only mirrored
but in most case magnified these faults. Now, the overall level of competence,
honesty and dedication has risen to levels I would previously have thought
unimaginable. … This particular change has made me more sanguine regarding the
ultimate ability of the Government to fully control Viet Nam and establish a
stable government.”(21)
Then came Hanoi’s 1972
offensive, a conventional blitzkrieg characterized by modern heavy weapons and
introduction of such lethal devices as the SA-7 Grail anti-aircraft
missile, the AT-3 wire-guided Sagger missile, and a veritable armada of
T-54 tanks supported by several hundred 122mm and 130mm artillery pieces,
superior to anything and everything in the US-supplied RVNAF artillery
arsenal. RVNAF took some heavy hits; it appeared at times as if the end
might be near and collapse imminent, yet RVNAF took a standing 8 count,
recovered and blunted the heaviest offensive to date in Viet Nam. None
other than America’s preeminent VN scholar, Douglas Pike, declared Hanoi’s
invasion failed because “… the South Viet Namese outfought the invaders from
the North.”(22) Many commentators, to include Gen. Ngo Quang
Truong, cite American air power as a decisive factor, and it was pivotal. Yet
the implication that RVNAF would not or could not fight without US airpower
omits consideration of two key points. First, US troops would have expected,
and been entitled to, the exact same air power that was used to support RVNAF.
Secondly, and this point is seldom recognized: US airpower was a compensatory
factor countering both superior NVA armor and, most significantly, superior artillery,
the accurate 122mm and 130mm guns delivering massive destruction at ranges up
to 19 miles. The US did not provide its ally, the Republic of Viet Nam, with as
good an arsenal, especially in the realm of artillery, as the Soviets and
Chinese Communist provided Hanoi. Hanoi had hundreds of 122mm and 130mm guns;
RVNAF had no artillery sufficient to fire counter-battery, and had only two
dozen or so 175mm guns, which are not as accurate as and have a lower cyclic
rate of fire than 122s and 130s. Not even reinforced bunkers can withstand
130mm rounds with delayed fuses. Finally, again addressing the subject of
airpower, RVN’s own air force performed admirably during the 1972 battles, yet
remain ignored by American commentators. An American FAC admired the VNAF A-37
pilots with whom he conducted an air strike against NVA positions:
“His dive took him down
within range of automatic weapons and sure enough as I saw several lines of
tracer ammo arcing toward Pepper lead, I shouted a warning. I saw him release
his bombs at the very low altitude and score a perfect hit on the wall. In
their succeeding passes, the VNAF pilots scored perfect hits each time and each
time they were met by a hail of ground fire. … ground fire [against the
aircraft] was extremely intensive. The North Viet Namese seemed to know their
antagonists were South Viet Namese.
"I fully expected the
A-37s to be shot down but both delivered all their ordnance unscathed. The two
VNAF pilots put on quite a show and I admired their bravery if not their good
sense."(23)
This was not an isolated
incident, as attested by another American observer:
“VNAF came into its own
during the 1972 offensive. … In the defense of Kontum the VNAF has been
magnificent, absolutely magnificent.”(24)
RVNAF took Hanoi’s best shot
in 1972, a shot far exceeding ’68 Tet battles in terms of troop numbers and
firepower. Roughly 150,000 NVA were believed to have been committed in the
offensive’s first phase, and another 50,000 deployed as the battles ensued. Tet
’68 on the other hand, saw 84,000 VC/NVA committed, with limited artillery and
armor (excepting MR I).
RVNAF continued to do
reasonably well after the fraudulent Paris “Peace” Accords were signed and
promptly violated. By late September 1973 an RVNAF task force had driven the
1st NVA division out its Seven Mountains redoubt and inflicted such heavy
casualties that the 1st was disbanded, its surviving members parceled out to
other units. A few months later the ARVN 7th division launched a major
operation to drive NVA units out their Tri Phap base area in the Dinh
Tuong-Kien Tuong-Kien Phong tri-border area, inflicting heavy casualties. Tri
Phap had never been penetrated throughout the war and was characterized by
hardened defensive positions; the defeat was so humiliating that communist
authorities were cautioned to hide this defeat from their troops lest they
become demoralized.25 The Polish and Hungarian delegates to the impotent ICCS
(International Commission for Control and Supervision (of the “cease fire”))
doubled as spies for the Hanoi’s communists. One of their 1973 reports stated
no VC units (what few there were) were equal to RVNAF regulars, and even the
NVA’s best weren’t comparable to RVNAF’s Airborne or Marines.(26)
By mid-1974 however US aid cutbacks
began to slowly strangle RVNAF, and it would only get worse from thereon out.
By 1975 the Available Supply Rates (ASR) for artillery rounds had plummeted to
unacceptable low levels (per tube, per day):
1972 1975
105mm 180 10 Down 170/94%
155mm 150 5 Down 145/97%
175mm 30 3 Down 27/90% (27)
Everything was cut to the
bone, and into the marrow. Some infantry troops were provided a basic load of
60 M-16 rounds, per week. Some units forbid troops from firing M-16s on full
automatic. Infantry units in contact were sometimes limited to two artillery
rounds on call unless being overrun. Lack of spare parts forced mothballing of
tanks, river patrol boats, and aircraft. Worse yet, RVNAF troops and their
families suffered under an economy shredded by 50% inflation and a 25%
unemployment rate. A US DAO study conducted in 1974 revealed 82% of RVNAF did
not receive enough food to meet family needs.(28) Hunger and
malnutrition eroded morale and combat capabilities. The situation worsened in
following months, and was sickening to watch, a veritable death by a thousand
cuts. A year later, when the GVN finally collapsed and, as can be inferred from
reading would-be history books, many Americans were apparently surprised,
wondering how everything could collapse overnight. The more intriguing question
is how RVNAF fought on as long as it did after mid- 1974, with inadequate
weapons, equipment, munitions, fuel, medical supplies, a constantly empty
stomach, and an equally hungry family.
Once the dam broke and the
rout began following Thieu’s order to pull out of the Highlands, chaos and
panic took over, helped in part by confusing and changing orders emanating from
the Presidential palace. As ignominious as the final collapse was, there were
more than a few little “Alamos” as RVNAF defenders fought to the end. The 18th
infantry division’s stand at Xuan Loc was an epic battle, yet the 1st Airborne
Brigade’s presence and role in this very same battle is virtually unknown.
While MR II was collapsing and the end appeared near, ARVN 7th division troops
defeated an NVA attempt to cut QL 4, the sole highway connecting the Mekong
Delta to Saigon. On the final day, the “ngay quoc han (day of national
indignation),” an AC-119K gunship flown by Lts. Thanh and Tran Van Hien circled
Saigon providing fire support for the last units engaged. Out of fuel and
munitions, they landed to refuel and re-arm and were told by their operations
officer they need not take off again, all was lost. Lt.s Thanh and Hien stood
firm, received their fuel and munitions and, accompanied by two A-1H Skyraiders
piloted by a Major Truong Phung and a Captain Phuc, resumed their desperate
battle. Only Capt. Phuc survived, strafing until he ran out of ammunition. Lt.s
Thanh and Hien, along with Major Truong Phung, all met their deaths, shot down
by SA-7 missiles. They fought to the very end. (29)
Overall, no military, as
starved as RVNAF was, could have withstood the NVA onslaught, as engorged as
the NVA were with communist bloc artillery, armor, weapons, fuel, troop
transport trucks, and munitions. As it was, even though RVNAF was gutted by aid
cutbacks, it took everything the NVA had. Approximately 400,000 communist
forces, almost 90% NVA, were required to defeat RVNAF. Hanoi had never before
fielded a force as large and as modern as it did in 1975. It had never pulled
all its units out of Laos and Cambodia. Quantitatively, the 400,000 is just
under 5 times the VC/NVA forces committed in Tet ’68, yet qualitatively,
enhanced by hundreds of long range artillery pieces, hundreds of tanks,
thousands of trucks, and a complete arsenal of modern weaponry, the 1975
legions had more than 5 times the combat capability of Tet ’68 forces.
Examining matters from another perspective, it can be safely asserted that had
the NVA been as enervated by supply cuts as was RVNAF, it could never have
launched much less sustained its final offensive. Superior fire power proved
decisive, hardly a novel development in military history. By the end, RVNAF
suffered a total of approximately 275,000 combat fatalities (excluding
assassinations), from a country whose average population during the course of
the war was about 17 million. Had the United States, with a population average
of 200 million during the same time frame, sustained proportional fatalities,
the death toll would have exceeded 3,200,000, necessitating another 56 “Walls”
to record the names of the fallen. This did not go unnoticed by some observers.
Sir Robert Thompson, while fully cognizant of RVNAF’s shortcomings and growth
pains, concluded:
“They [RVNAF and the GVN]
surmounted national and personal crises which would have crushed most people
and in spite of casualties which would have appalled and probably collapsed the
United States, they could still maintain over one million men under arms after
more than ten years of war. The United Kingdom did just that, proportionately,
in 1917 after three year of war but never again. The United States has never
done it (emphasis added).”(30)
Correspondent Peter Kann,
far more enlightened than many of his journalistic colleagues, also weighed in,
following Saigon’s defeat: “South Viet Nam did manage to resist for a great
many years and not always with a great deal of American help. Few nations or
societies that I can think of would have struggled so long.”(31)
Did “Vietnamization” work?
Had RVNAF matured and grown into a capable fighting force? It can be argued it
did, only to be eviscerated by lethal aid cutbacks. A 1974 survey of U.S.
generals who served in Viet Nam asked how well “Vietnamization” had succeeded.
The answers:
1) ARVN is very acceptable
fighting force 8%
2) ARVN is adequate and
chances of their holding in the future are better than fifty-fifty 57%
3) Doubtful ARVN will make
it against a firm 25% push in the future by VC/NVA
4) Other/No Answer 10% (32)
Thus, 65% of commanding
generals gave RVNAF (in this case ‘ARVN’) a positive vote, yet these responses
may have a built-in downward bias. It is not known how many of the U.S.
generals served their tours in, say, 1966 or 1967, before RVNAF had embarked on
its greatest improvement. It is not revealed just what role any of these
officers served, with whom, and to what extent they were intimately familiar
with RVNAF as a whole, the increasing effectiveness of RF/PF, etc. Nor was the
question asked: “How would US troops have fared, in 1974-1975, under supply
cutbacks suffered by RVNAF?” What can be said with certainty is that RVNAF,
from 1968 on, accomplished far more than is generally known, that RVNAF units
developed such proficiency that they were able to withstand and eventually
defeat, NVA invaders in 1972, often, in the case of RF/PF, without massive
artillery or tacair fire support. What also can be said with certainty is that
American understanding of this is abysmally and disgustingly low.
Another very important
factor that many commentators overlook and remain ignorant of was the younger
generation of RVNAF officers and NCOs who were dedicated to the cause of a
non-communist Viet Nam. They were open, candid, rational and honest,
acknowledging, for example, that the Montagnards should not be treated as
inferiors, that corruption need to be attacked, and that the a new Viet Nam
need be forged, freed from shackles of the past. Many of these people were
well-positioned to dodge the draft or secure a safe non-combat position; they
did neither, and could be found in serving in high-risk combat positions, as
volunteers. Their attitudes were articulated by one young RVNAF officer:
“....the people my age
joined the military [RVNAF] because we had an ideal and we understood what it
was to live in a free world and to live in a Communist world. It was not like
people said, that those who joined the military were just conscripted into the
service and didn't have any ideas of their own. But the Americans never seemed
to understand that.”(33)
Tran Quoc Buu was chairman
of RVN’s Labor Confederation, equivalent to America’s AFL-CIO. He had influence
and could have arranged for his son to find safe duty, much safer than his
position as an ARVN infantry officer. In the closing weeks of RVN’s existence,
while pounded with NVA artillery and desperately short of munitions, Buu’s son
wrote him a letter:
“You must explain to them
[Americans] the gravity of our situation. … They have to provide the military
and technical aid they had promised. I beg you Father, to intervene with them.
Otherwise, we will be crushed and defeated. We are not cowards. We have no fear
to die. … In any event, I will hold my position and not withdraw.”(34)
Tran Quoc Buu’s son was
killed in action. Dr. Phan Quang Dan was minister of refugee resettlement, a
former opponent of Ngo Dinh Diem, and known for his honesty. He had the power
and influence to keep his son, Phan Quang Tuan, out of harm’s way. Neither
accepted this option and Tuan volunteered to fly A-1E Skyraiders, used solely and
expressed for close tactical air support. After killing 7 NVA tanks along the
DMZ during Hanoi’s ’72 offensive, Captain Tuan was shot down and killed by NVA
anti-aircraft fire.(35) These individuals were not unique. This
author routinely encountered young gunship pilots, rangers, marines, airborne,
all volunteers for hazardous combat duty, and all of whom were repulsed by the
idea of a communist Viet Nam, and the continuation of business-as-usual
corruption emanating from Saigon. One of the more poignant examples of
dedication to the nationalist cause occurred when cadet officers from RVN’s Da
Lat military academy prepared to make their last stand, as witnessed by French
correspondent Raoul Coutard who encountered them moving out to block advancing
NVA units:
"'You are going to be
killed?'
'Yes,' answered a warrant
officer.
'Why? It is finished.'
'Because we don't want
communism.'
And, bravely, these young
cadets in their beautiful new uniforms, their well-polished shoes, went
to get themselves killed."(36)
The Truong Thieu Sinh Quan,
in Vung Tau, was a boarding school and military academy for Viet Namese youth
whose fathers died in the war. When the end came, the 12- and 13-year boys sent
the smaller children home, barricaded the school, and engaged advancing NVA
units:
"They kept fighting
after everyone else surrendered! ... Many of them were killed. And when the
Communists came in the cadets fought them. The Communists could not get into
that academy."(37)
People of caliber were
rising in RVNAF’s ranks, and exigencies of the situation forced greater
reliance on promotion based on ability, not political reliability or family
connections.
The American news media
failed, utterly and pathetically, in Viet Nam, far, far more than the military
forces, RVN, US and allied, they frequently condemned with smug and
presumptuous inferences. A survey of 9,604 broadcasts by NBC, CBS and ABC, from
1963 to 1977, clearly showed the inadequacies of television reporting(sic). 67
(0.7% of total) dealt with RVNAF training. 79 (0.8%) with Pacification. 256
(2.7%) with either RVN or Cambodia government or military. A total of 392
broadcasts, comprising 2.7% of all television news coverage of Viet Nam.38
There was nothing about the more than 200,000 VC/NVA hoi chanh vien(defectors),
nothing about RVNAF forces that fought well. Nothing about the famed
“Kingbees,” RVN helicopter pilots who saved lives of US Special Forces elements
under fire along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Most if not all Americans recall the
dramatic photo of the Chinese man who stood before a tank in Tiananmen Square
yet no one knows of RVN Marine Sergeant Huynh Van Luom who stood on the Dong Ha
Bridge and stopped an NVA tank column, firing his LAW anti-tank missile:
"The spectacle of this
95-pound Marine lying in the direct path of a 40- tank, which had no intention
of stopping, was in one respect incredibly mad. In another, more important
respect, it was incredibly inspiring to a pathetically thin defensive force and
to many refugees, few of whom had ever witnessed such an act of defiance and
bravery. ...The extraordinary bravery of this one South Viet Namese Marine had
caused an armored attack, which until that moment had been almost certain of
success, to lose its momentum.”(39)
In a telling instance of
news media myopia, reporter Donald Kirk exhibited absolutely no interest in
visiting the ARVN 7th division, where, under the leadership of Gen. Nguyen Khoa
Nam, the 7th had become an extremely effective unit, whose members appreciated
the division farm Gen. Nam established to alleviate economic hardships of his
troops. Yet when Kirk and other reporters were detained at an NVA road block,
and later set free, Kirk was upset that he didn’t have the chance to talk with
the NVA:
"I kept thinking how
much they looked like they were right out of the movies. ... They seemed to be
like regular guys, you know. I only wish we could have stayed and talked to
them longer."(40)
Mr. Kirk can rest assured
that 7th division troops were “regular guys,” well worth talking to, and
learning from. He, like the much of the news media, was not interested and
there is little mystery as to why most Americans who served in Southeast Asia
view the news media with bitter contempt.
Had the news media made any
attempt to connect with the Vietnamese people and troops they would have found,
as I did time and time again, that they viewed Hanoi’s communism with contempt
and disgust, as a betrayal of Viet Nam’s culture and values. They were not
fighting, and dying, to protect the “corrupt Thieu regime” but to secure a
better life for their people, their children, and their country. In an extreme
expression of this view, one Vietnamese Marine enlisted man told me that after
they’d finished with the NVA they were going to turn their guns on Saigon
corruption. The dismal and tragic events that followed after 1975 verify the
logic and validity of their commitment.
The entertainment media and
American education have done no better and remained content to repeat if not
embellish media-established mythology. A widely used high school history
textbook’s Viet Nam chapter has no mention of RVNAF to speak of, saying only that
“Vietnamization failed,” and otherwise incorporating over 200 demonstrably
false or grossly misleading statements in just over 13 pages of text. There is
mention of the Cambodian Incursion, yet no indication that more RVNAF troops
were involved-29,000-than the 19,300 US troops committed, or that RVNAF had
previously conducted spoiling raids against NVA positions in the Cambodia.
RVNAF, as will be the topic of another presentation here, was “invisible.”
Movies and television are,
some historical documentaries notwithstanding, even worse. Even the film
“Bat 21,” purporting to depict the rescue of LTC Iceal Hambleton in 1972,
inexplicably leaves out the fact that an RVN SEAL, Nguyen Van Kiet,
conducted the rescue with US SEAL Tom Norris, earning a US Navy Cross for his
valor and heroism. How can the American public expect to learn anything when de
facto censorship erases any and all indications of exemplary RVNAF
performance?
Finally, it needs to be
acknowledged that RVNAF was saddled with one serious burden that proved
impossible to overcome: an amazingly inept and disturbingly ignorant ally in
the form of the U.S. government. An entire seminar could be given on this
subject— and should be. Pseudo-strategies emanating from Washington were, in
essence, criminally negligent. Nothing was ever done to block and hold the Ho
Chi Minh Trail, without which Hanoi’s war could never have been prosecuted.
Nothing was ever done to engage in the propaganda/counter-propaganda
information war, which was, in the form of dich van, a sine qua non for Hanoi’s
strategy, and one that was conducted with diabolical deceitful brilliance.
Nothing was done, until late in the game in May 1967 when CORDS was set up, to
plan and intelligently coordinate military and pacification operations. Nothing
was done to develop a theater-wide coalition among Viet Namese, Laotians,
Cambodians and Thais against a common enemy, while Hanoi did just that,
building an Indochina Theater command structure to integrate all factors into a
coherent regional strategy. America’s excuse for leadership was “mu loa”,
blind, and fumbled like a hog on ice, like a “coc vang,” a golden toad, very
wealthy but very dumb.
Counter-historical
propositions can seldom be proven with complete certainty, and perhaps the war
was “unwinnable.” Maybe. Yet those Americans and Australians who served
alongside their RVNAF comrades, “chien huu, ban be, giong nhu anh em ruot,”
carry with them the profound sadness of having lost the venture, of having lost
scores of dedicated friends, and also the great honor of having tried to attain
a better world for the common people of Viet Nam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand.
They were not driven by sophisticated 19 concerns over world geo-politics, but
rather by respect and admiration for the many Southeast Asians who valued their
country, who “the bao ve giang son que huong.”
Much history remains
unexplored, reflecting a continuation of the American propensity to see only
through American eyes, filtered by American pre-conceptions. Some books refer
to Viet Nam as an “American ordeal,” never once asking what type of ordeal the
Southeast Asians experienced. An abundance of valuable historical information
and astute observations, without which full comprehension is impossible, is
found in books written by Vietnamese (and Laotians). Works by Ly Tong Ba, Ha
Mai Viet, Phan Huan, Phan Nhat Nam, Tran Van Nhut and others cry out for
translation, as do the dozens of articles published in Vietnamese military
journals and publications each year, many of them describing battles,
developments, and personalities that are completely unknown to American
historians. Failure to consult these sources ensures that Viet Nam, and Hanoi’s
Indochina war, will both remain indecipherable enigmas, and that RVNAF’s real history
will remain buried under layers upon layers of myth, ignorance, and unfounded
conjecture.
1. Stuart Herrington’s
Silence Was A Weapon (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1982), later republished as
Stalking the Viet Cong, remains the sole narrative of Hau Nghia RF 1972
battles.
2. James H. Willbanks, The
Battle of An Loc (Bloomington, ID: Indiana University Press, 2005), pp.
140-141.
3. Personal interview with
author, December 1993.
4. Brigadier General James
Lawton Collins, Jr., The Development and Training of the South Viet Namese Army
(Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 1975), p. 151.
5. The author saw the report
on this event, which occurred in Vinh Long Province, sometime in early 1975. It
is not known if the report still exists or even made it out of Viet Nam.
6. See Herrington, Silence
Was A Weapon for commentary on abduction and proselyting of PSDF.
7. Frank Brown, Delta
Advisor (Bennington, VT: Merriam Press, 1990), (both incidents) p. 12.
8. General Lam Quang Thi,
Autopsy-The Death of South Viet Nam (Phoenix, AZ: Sphinx Press, 1986), pp.
49-50.
9. Dr. Lewis Sorley, A
Better War (New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1999), pp. 274-275.
10. No known comprehensive
study of MATs has been conducted. There were approximately 350 of these small
teams deployed after 1968, primarily assisting RF and PF units. This topic
needs and deserves research.
11. David Donovan, Once A
Warrior King (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1985), pp. 151-152.
12. John Cook, The Advisor
(Philadelphia, PA: Dorrance & Company, 1973), p. 167. Reprint: (NY, Bantam
Books, 1987), p. 181.
13. One former advisor told
the author he was and is sure his fellow advisor was shot by bad elements of
the troops he advised. Another told the author he was directly threatened by
his counterpart and was reassigned to another province. This was not a common
occurrence.
14. Howard C.H. Feng, The
Road to Ben Hai, master’s thesis, University of Hawaii, 1987, pp. 108-
109.
15. David Chanoff and Doan
Van Toai, Portrait of the Enemy (New York: Random House, 1986), pp. 74-75) p.
185.
16. Author read this POW’s
interrogation report, which included description of circumstances of
capture.
17. American forces in Viet
Nam: Michael Clodfelter, Viet Nam in Military Statistics (Jefferson, NC:
McFarland Press, 1995), p. 253; VC/NVA battalion-sized attacks and small scale
attacks: Clodfelter, p. 151; terrorist attacks: Philip Davidson, Viet Nam At
War (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1988), p. 633; percentage of secure hamlets:
Gunter Lewy, America In Viet Nam (London/New York: Oxford University Press,
1978), p. 192; Viet Namese civilian hospital admissions: Lewy, p. 443;
assassinations and abductions: Lewy, p. 454; rice planting area: Nguyen Anh
Tuan, Viet Nam-Trial and Experience (Athens, OH: Ohio University Center for
International Studies, 1987), p. 399. [[Note: Clodfelter’s excellent work is
badly mis-titled. While it does have abundant statistics it also contains a
great deal of narrative history, regarding both Viet Nam adjoining countries of
Laos, Cambodia, Thailand. Highly recommended.]]]]
18. Cited in Michael
Charlton and Anthony Moncrieff, Many Reasons Why-The American involvement in
Viet Nam (New York: Hill and Wang, 1978), p. 159.
19. Jeffrey Race, War Comes
to Long An (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1972), p. 270.
20. Stanley Karnow, Viet
Nam, A History[sic] (New York: Viking Press, 1983), p. 595. Author of this paper
is willing, at any time, to discuss how and why Karnow’s work is, and there’s
no other way to put it, sloppy, shoddy history.
21. Mark Moyar, Birds of
Prey (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997), p. 180. The author knew
Colin personally; he was caustically honest and candid and was not reluctant to
verbally demolish fatuous statements.
22. Douglas Pike, Viet Nam
and the Soviet Union (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1986), p. 93.
23. Norbert Simon, "The
Nails-FACs in Viet Nam," Military, Vol. XIX, No. 4, September 2002,
p.12.
24. Sorley, A Better War, p.
338.
25. Col. William E LeGro,
From Ceasefire to Capitulation (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military
History, 1981). Seven Mountains: pp. 66-67. Tri Phap: 89-91. Captured document
read by author in Viet Nam, 1974. No known copies exist.
26. Oliver Todd, Cruel April
(New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1987), p. 438.
27. Thi, Autopsy-The Death
of South Viet Nam, p. 7.
28. Anthony B. Lawson,
Director of Special Studies, US Defense Attache Office, Saigon, RVN: Survey of
the Economic Situation of RVNAF Personnel(Phase III). Tab B, unnumbered 8th
page, Question A15.
29. http://www.vnaf.net/
30. Sir Robert Thompson,
Peace Is Not At Hand (New York: David McKay, 1974), p. 58.
31. Cited in Anthony
Buscaren, editor, All Quiet on the Eastern Front (Old Greenwich, CT: Devin-
Adair Company, 1977), p. 122.
32. Douglas Kinnard, The War
Managers (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1977), p.153.
33. Compendium of Viet Nam
news broadcasts, by subject matter, prepared by Professor Lawrence Lichty,
submitted to The Viet Nam Project, WGBH Television, Boston. Author photocopy
undated.
34. Larry Engelmann, Tears
Before The Rain-An Oral History of the Fall of South Viet Nam (New York/Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 233.
35. Thi, Autopsy-The Death
of South Viet Nam, pp. 17-20.
36. Ray Fontaine, The Dawn
of a Free Viet Nam (Brownsville, TX: Panamerican Business Services, 1992), pp.
100-105.
37. Raoul Coutard, “L’Adieu
Saigon,’ (Date/publication unk.) cited in Phan Vinh Kim, Viet Nam-A
Comprehensive History (Solana CA : PM Enterprises, 1992), p. 520.
38. Engelmann, Tear Before
the Rain, p. 256.
39. Col. G. H. Turley, USMC,
Ret. The Easter Offensive (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1985), pp.
134-135.
40. Sam Anson, War News (New
York: Simon & Schuster/Touchstone, 1989), p. 85. The author met Kirk in Viet
Nam and strongly suggested he write a story on the ARVN 7th and its
accomplishments, elaborating on Gen. Nam’s integrity, tactical brilliance, and
dedication to a free Viet Nam. Kirk received this with all the enthusiasm of
someone hearing a phone solicitation for aluminum siding. He asked no questions
and simply walked away. Other advisors experienced the same disdain, asking
reporters to come and see how well their counterparts were doing, only to be
shunned with blank stares of utter indifference.
Reprinted with permission of
Bill Laurie.
SOURCE:
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