Black april, p.55
Black April, page 55
An placed the 203rd Tank Brigade commander in control of the lead element. To facilitate control, the “brigade command post advanced just to the rear of the lead armored battalion. . . . As the advance guard of 2nd Corps, at this time the 203rd Brigade was responsible for commanding all attached units and performed the role of a combined-arms force commander. To ensure that the road was cleared and the corps could advance quickly, the brigade commander ordered the lead armored units to engage and drive right on through any light enemy resistance encountered along the route. Only if the enemy force was powerful should the armored units stop to organize a strong, certain attack.”9
At 6:00 P.M. on 17 April the new First Element of the 2nd Corps moved out. It immediately came under attack by South Vietnamese forces. As the corps history notes: “The enemy detected our movement down Route 1 toward Saigon. They attacked our column with aircraft and naval gunfire, destroying a number of vehicles, killing, and wounding a number of cadre and soldiers. . . . On the night of 17 April, in spite of repeated attacks by enemy aircraft and warships, and enemy mines, roadblocks, and destroyed bridges, 5th Armored Battalion, supported by local armed forces and civilians, liberated a string of district capitals . . . and crushed and scattered many outposts along the battalion’s route of advance.”10
At Ca Na Bay, Route 1 winds its way down from the mountains and runs along the sea. Here was a natural chokepoint that the South Vietnamese Navy and Air Force could use to halt the PAVN armor. Unfortunately, the Navy’s main ships did not have the armament to provide effective naval gunfire, especially without observers to adjust the rounds. Plus, the Navy’s priority was to rescue escaping civilian and military personnel. One LST, the Vung Tau (HQ-503), was sent on 17 April to Ca Na Bay to pick up some 2nd Division soldiers who had escaped from Phan Rang. Unable to beach his ship because of the rocky shoreline, the captain of the Vung Tau, Nguyen Van Loc, paid some local fishermen to shuttle the men to his ship. Just after the rescue was completed, Communist gunners spotted the Vung Tau. A number of artillery rounds hit it, severely wounding the captain and heavily damaging his ship.11 The cutter Ngo Quyen (HQ-17) moved in to fire back, but artillery shells soon bracketed HQ-17, and it retreated.
On 18 April, units of the 2nd Corps fought several intense battles in the Ca Na Bay section of Route 1. When Second Element reached the area, a number of South Vietnamese Navy ships appeared offshore and began shelling Route 1 where it ran along the seashore. The Chi Linh (HQ-11)—one of the smaller Patrol Escort ships, built thirty years before and equipped with only one three-inch gun—spotted the Communist tanks driving down Route 1 near the district seat. Despite being hopelessly outgunned, the HQ-11’s captain, Lieutenant Commander Phan Dinh San, crept in close. The ship fired over one hundred rounds onto the road trying to stop the advancing column. To make his gunfire more effective, San maneuvered his ship even closer to the beach. As the Chi Linh moved in, PAVN struck back. The 2nd Corps ordered the 164th Artillery Brigade to deploy 130-mm and 122-mm guns in a direct-fire mode. Soon, the HQ-11 was under heavy fire. The captain later wrote: “Enemy tanks fiercely returned fire toward HQ-11; about 3:45 P.M., a shell directly hit the starboard of HQ-11 near the stern, damaging the crew quarters. A shell fragment killed Chief Petty Officer Nguyen Van Bang when he climbed up the mid-deck via a panel to install an alternate antenna cable. His head was blown away and his heavy body dropped into the crew quarters.”12 The damage to his ship forced San to retreat.
With no senior ARVN commander or staff officer coordinating the various ground, naval, and air elements, these scattershot attempts to slow the PAVN advance were hopeless. Even if the South Vietnamese Navy had massed all the ships it had in the area, the combined firepower was minimal. The former U.S. Coast Guard cutters were armed with only one five-inch gun, and the smaller Patrol Escort ships had only one three-inch gun. Even if Hoang Co Minh had sent the four cutters under his command to Ca Na Bay on the morning of 18 April, the firepower of the four cutters combined barely equaled that of a single U.S. destroyer. Moreover, the lead PAVN unit, the 5th Armored Battalion, had already passed through the chokepoint. As for air attack, the Air Force was not capable of flying a significant number of strike missions against the advancing Coastal Column. The PAVN forces were too far away, and the VNAF was heavily occupied hitting Communist forces near Saigon. Moreover, the closest VNAF base, Bien Hoa, was currently under sporadic artillery bombardment.
Undoubtedly Nghi had positioned himself at Thanh Son to boost troop morale in the Phan Rang area, but his headquarters staff and communications should have been in the rear at Phan Thiet. When Nghi and his staff were overrun, and with Phan Thiet under heavy pressure, the next closest major headquarters was III Corps in Bien Hoa, two hundred miles away. There was no South Vietnamese command-and-control organization higher than a district headquarters in the area between Phan Rang and Phan Thiet. The III Corps staff was strained to the limit by the pressures of Communist attacks at Xuan Loc, in the Tay Ninh/Cu Chi area, and on Route 4 south of Saigon. With little coherent information on enemy activities along Route 1, III Corps headquarters failed to coordinate RVNAF defenses in this area. A few brave ship captains, local RF/PF units, and VNAF planes tried to fight, but without a coordinated effort their attempts were useless. The JGS should have taken the reins and synchronized the South Vietnamese forces, but by this time it was completely demoralized. As a result, by noon on 18 April, the entire First Element had arrived in an assembly area only nine miles from Phan Thiet. It immediately began preparations to attack the provincial capital.
The Binh Thuan province chief, Colonel Ngo Tan Nghia, was one of South Vietnam’s better provincial leaders. In March, he had stayed at his post, rallied his Regional and Popular Forces, and fought back against Communist forces attempting to seize Binh Thuan. In early April, implementing President Thieu’s orders to hold the remaining land, Lieutenant General Toan had reinforced Nghia’s provincial RF battalions with the survivors of the 24th Ranger Group who had walked out of Quang Duc province back on March 21. Later he sent the 6th Regiment, 2nd Division, plus an M-113 troop from the 23rd Division. In addition to these forces, Nghia could call on occasional Air Force and Navy fire support. As with Brigadier General Sang at Phan Rang, Nghia’s leadership was the reason the South Vietnamese still held Phan Thiet.
Despite his efforts, however, Nghia’s defenses were slowly being compressed. The city was under constant rocket attack, most of the civilian population had fled, and the PAVN armor was rapidly advancing down Route 1. Following Tran Van Tra’s previous orders, MR-6 forces had already encircled the city. The 812th Regiment, augmented by a local-force sapper battalion and province guerrillas, had captured the district town of Thien Giao on 9 April, dealing a serious blow to Phan Thiet’s northern defenses. Simultaneously, two Communist local-force battalions attacked and slowly pushed back RF units guarding the outlying villages on the western approaches to the provincial capital. Thus, when the 203rd Tank Brigade arrived at the assembly area on 18 April, its commander found an embattled city ripe for “liberation.” He met with the local Party leadership, and they worked out a plan to capture Phan Thiet using the same tactics that had been so successful at Phan Rang. PAVN would send the First Element, in coordination with local forces and the 812th Regiment, straight down Route 1 and into Phan Thiet.
At 5:00 P.M., the PAVN armor began moving. In the lead was an advance guard—standard Soviet armor doctrine—of one tank and six APCs. After crossing a bridge over a river north of the city that ARVN had hoped to use as a defensive line, the 5th Armored Battalion, with infantry and local guides riding on the vehicles, punched through. The ARVN forces had no air support and only limited anti-tank weapons. The results were the same as at Phan Rang. Half an hour later, the lead tanks entered the city and quickly captured the town center and the province headquarters. By 10:30 P.M., Phan Thiet had fallen. The Rangers and most of the RF, seeing they were hopelessly outgunned, retreated to the beaches. The 6th Regiment put up almost no resistance. In despair over the destruction of his regiments at Phan Rang, Tran Van Nhut had earlier ordered his men to flee rather than fight when the main Communist attack hit. In his defense, he was trying to save the lives of his men rather than sacrifice them in what he believed was a hopeless cause. As he later wrote: “I was certain that Phan Thiet would be the next city to fall, so I privately instructed [the 6th Regiment commander] to assemble a number of civilian fishing boats to use when evacuation became necessary. I told him to sail to Vung Tau when the time came.”13
Under intense pressure to continue toward Saigon as fast as possible, the 2nd Corps turned over city administration to local forces and departed that night. The local Communists were not particularly eager to press their advantage, and Nghia, who had escaped to a VNN ship, coordinated the rescue of three thousand of his men from the beaches south of the city. A South Vietnamese RF officer later described the scene: “On the morning of 19 April, although the Communists were in control of Phan Thiet, the area of the ship docks . . . and the airfield were still in ARVN hands. The beach was covered with soldiers from every branch of service: airborne, rangers, and 2nd Division troops still stuck after retreating from the battle of Phan Rang, and provincial RF and PF units. . . . In the end, thanks to their discipline and patience, all the soldiers present along the beach . . . were rescued. At that time the tide was falling, so the large ships had to anchor more than [half a mile] off the coast. However, using LCM landing craft, all the units, even a troop of APCs from the 8th Cavalry Squadron operating in Phan Thiet, were picked up and taken south. . . . The Navy ships docked safely at Vung Tau at 3:00 A.M. . . . 20 April 1975.”14
Meanwhile, the Coastal Column continued rolling south. Trying to stop the advancing PAVN, on the night of 19 April ARVN troops blew up a major bridge on Route 1. It made no difference. Within forty-five minutes, PAVN engineers had improvised a ford to enable vehicles to cross. By 20 April the column had arrived at Rung La, a village only twelve miles from the besieged Xuan Loc.
With the arrival of the 2nd Corps at Rung La, all South Vietnamese positions along the central coast, from Quang Tri to Ham Tan, had fallen to the PAVN armor. By 3:00 A.M. on 24 April, the entire 2nd Corps was gathered in the assembly area near Xuan Loc. For Nguyen Huu An, it was a incredible accomplishment, one of which he was justifiably proud: “The corps had moved through three different enemy military regions, including eleven provinces and eighteen cities and towns. We had covered an average of sixty miles per day, fighting as we advanced. We had fought five infantry battles in coordination with local forces; three division-sized combined-arms battles. We had . . . crushed the long-range defense line protecting Saigon, defeated the enemy’s ‘withdrawal and consolidation’ tactics, and cleared Route 1 from Hue all the way down to the gates of Saigon. The entire corps arrived at the assembly area exactly at the time specified in the General Staff’s time schedule.”15
Another arm of General Van Tien Dung’s mighty army had arrived to face the beleaguered ARVN forces defending Saigon.
17
“I WILL KNOCK THEM DOWN!”
ARVN HOLD AT XUAN LOC
Le Duan sensed the death throes of the South Vietnamese state in the anarchy that engulfed Danang. On 29 March he sent the message to Pham Hung telling him to “act with great timeliness, determination, and boldness,” giving Tran Van Tra the opportunity he had dreamed about. In fact, it was a characteristic Le Duan message: more strategic guidance and high-level thinking than precise details or, in this case, an actual authorization to attack. Nonetheless, Tra had taken full advantage of Le Duan’s ambiguity, and now, while the Coastal Column was barreling down Route 1, the 4th Corps was assembling in the dense brush and banana plantations of Long Khanh province.
What made Xuan Loc the focal point for the PAVN attack was its strategic location. The city, situated thirty-seven miles northeast of Saigon, controlled Dau Giay, the vital junction of Routes 1 and 20, two of the three main paved highways that linked Saigon with the eastern part of the country. With the destruction of I and II Corps, Xuan Loc had suddenly become a critical node on the improvised defensive line the desperate South Vietnamese were trying to form around Saigon. Most observers realized that whatever slim chance ARVN had of defending the capital from the encircling enemy was predicated on holding Xuan Loc. If ARVN could make a stand there, a chance remained that it could regroup its battered forces and save the country from defeat. Because of its importance, Xuan Loc would soon become the site of the fiercest battle of the 1975 offensive.
After the meeting with Tra on 2 April, Hoang Cam and the others returned to the 4th Corps headquarters located near the La Nga Bridge on Route 20, scene of the 18 March battle. On 4 April, Cam ordered the 7th Division, which was near Dalat, to immediately head south to Xuan Loc. Given Tra’s pressure to move rapidly, and with only five days before the opening barrage, Cam decided on the simplest of tactical plans: a frontal assault on the provincial capital. The strategy was to “use a portion of the corps infantry forces, together with all the corps’s tanks and artillery, to launch a direct attack on the Province Military Headquarters and 18th Division. If the enemy collapsed, we would be able to quickly capture Xuan Loc. 7th Division was assigned the mission of mounting the main attack, striking from the east to seize the 18th Division’s headquarters. 341st Division would be responsible for the secondary attack, striking from the north to take the Long Khanh Province Headquarters and other targets in the city.”1
A frontal assault was an odd choice for Cam, since he had just witnessed the failure of the same tactical plan at Chon Thanh. He wrote: “It was obvious that we held a position of strength [at Chon Thanh], but our forces were not employed properly in this attack. Of particular importance was that we had underestimated our enemy and that our preparations for battle had been too cursory. This kind of mistake in the future could cause us to fail to accomplish our mission or [lead] to our paying too high a price for the accomplishment of the mission.”2 He felt the same way about Xuan Loc: that it was too late to attack the city, since the South Vietnamese had prepared their defenses. He was also concerned about the condition of the 7th Division, which had been worn down by continuous fighting. Yet for some unexplained reason he did not deviate from his plan for a frontal assault. Perhaps he hoped the ARVN soldiers were so badly shaken that they would flee at the first sound of gunfire.
Although the 7th was too far away to conduct any reconnaissance of the area, the 341st was close by, and it made a complete analysis of its attack area. The first step was for the commanders to meet with local Party officials. They discussed the terrain, and possible scenarios they might encounter during the offensive. They agreed that local guerrillas would act as guides for the assault units. According to the 341st Division history, after the conference “the cadre group was guided by our reconnaissance cells right up to the perimeter wire surrounding the city. Local armed forces selected teams to guide division and regimental reconnaissance personnel into the various military positions within the city. . . . Division Chief of Reconnaissance Le Anh Thien walked right up to the residence of the enemy Province Chief headquarters. . . . The reconnaissance forces laid out the locations of the attack targets [and] the specific points where the enemy perimeter would be breached, and determined the layout of perimeter wires, fences, and obstacles. . . . On 5 April our cadre reconnaissance group made its final reconnaissance through the enemy perimeter wire. The enemy continued normal activities within the city, proving that he still knew nothing about our operations. The enemy did not suspect that for almost a week our reconnaissance soldiers had been concealing themselves on the ground making observations and marking our targets.”3
After conducting its reconnaissance of the northwestern approaches to Xuan Loc and the city environs, on 6 April the 341st Division commanders met to discuss the attack plan and forward it to the 4th Corps for approval. The corps agreed, and the following missions were assigned: The 266th Regiment would attack targets within the city while the 270th Regiment would strike Kiem Tan and Thi Mountain, which housed an artillery battalion, a communications center, and the ARVN 2nd Battalion, 43rd Regiment. The 273rd Regiment remained with the 9th Division. The 6th Division’s two regiments, the 33rd and the 274th, would circle south of the city and attack the Dau Giay road junction and several key points along Route 1 west of Xuan Loc.
While the 7th Division was assigned the primary role in the assault, it had to travel one hundred miles from Lam Dong province. It did not arrive at its assembly area until the night of 7 April. Its orders were to destroy the 48th Regiment and liberate the intersection of Routes 1 and 2 at the village of Tan Phong south of Xuan Loc. As the 7th’s staff began planning, suddenly their orders changed. The division was to liberate the city first and only then focus on destroying the 48th. With less than one day to develop a new attack plan, the 7th decided that “the 165th Regiment would lead the primary attack against the 18th Division’s rear base and command post in the northeastern part of the city [and the 52nd’s base camp]. . . . The 209th Regiment would liberate Route 1 from Suoi Cat [a small village about five miles east of Xuan Loc] to the Tan Phong intersection, attack up from the south into the city, and stand ready to attack enemy . . . reinforcements. The 141st Regiment would serve as a reserve force.”4
The 4th Corps shifted its headquarters to a position northeast of Xuan Loc, coordinated artillery fire for all elements, and established supply routes to its three main assault units. It also sent a forward headquarters under Deputy Corps Commander Bui Cat Vu to Chua Chan Mountain east of the city to oversee the attack. H-hour was set for 5:30 A.M. on 9 April. If the PAVN assault on Xuan Loc produced another precipitous ARVN retreat, nothing would stand between the 4th Corps and Saigon except the 1st Airborne Brigade. There would be chaos, trapping thousands of Americans and their South Vietnamese allies, employees, and friends in a defenseless city.
