THE 101St AIRBORNE DIVISION's PACIFICATION of THUA THIEN PROVINCE, REPUBLIC of VIETNAM 1968
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
“A FAR MORE FORMIDABLE TASK”: THE 101st AIRBORNE DIVISION’S PACIFICATION OF THUA THIEN PROVINCE, REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM 1968-1972 A Thesis by EDWIN BROOKS WERKHEISER II Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS August 2006 Major Subject: History “A FAR MORE FORMIDABLE TASK”: THE 101st AIRBORNE DIVISION’S PACIFICATION OF THUA THIEN PROVINCE, REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM 1968-1972 A Thesis by EDWIN BROOKS WERKHEISER II Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Approved by: Chair of Committee, Joseph Dawson Committee Members, James Burk Brian Linn Head of Department, Walter Buenger August 2006 Major Subject: History iii ABSTRACT “A Far More Formidable Task”: The 101st Airborne Division’s Pacification of Thua Thien Province, Republic of Vietnam, 1968-1972. (August 2006) Edwin Brooks Werkheiser II, B.S., United States Military Academy Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Joseph Dawson This thesis seeks to identify, describe, and analyze the tactics used by the 101st Airborne Division in the pacification of the Republic of Vietnam’s Thua Thien province from 1968 to 1972. Despite the larger calamity of the Vietnam War, the 101st developed an effective set of measures against the Vietnamese communist insurgency. These measures depended largely on the ability of the division’s lower-level units to attack the Viet Cong political infrastructure, provide security for Thua Thien’s population, and build effective South Vietnamese territorial forces in their areas of operation following the communist 1968 Tet offensive. These findings are based on the official reports, orders, and records generated by the division during its service in Vietnam and currently stored in the National Archives in College Park, Maryland and U.S. Army’s Military History Institute in Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. Additionally, the Military History Institute’s “Company Command in Vietnam” series of interviews conducted from 1982 to 1984 with officers who served in Vietnam provided valuable insight. This thesis looks at counterinsurgency practices at the lowest levels where theory and policy are translated into action. iv Operations Narrative: 3 September 1970. “At 0525 hours D Company, 3d Platoon had two frag grenades tossed into its night defensive position. A member of the platoon threw one of the grenades out of the position before it exploded. He jumped on the other grenade and covered it with his body. The grenade did not explode due to the fact that the safety had not been removed.”1 I was inspired to undertake and complete this study by the courageous and fortunate soldier in 3rd Platoon, D Company, 3-187th Infantry and the thousands of others like him whose exploits I found in the footnotes of the Vietnam War. Their stories were resting uneasily as antiseptic fragments in a hundred reports, giving single-sentence snapshots of their part in a war many more clever people declared lost just as they began their fight in 1968. Their names are forgotten to time and their efforts largely relegated to obscurity by others who occupied a larger, grenade-free stage at much less personal risk. Still, they are the men we all want alongside us in our night defensive position. Their deeds are much easier to comment on than they were to perform. 1. Hq., 3-187 Infantry, “Combat After Action Report: Operation Texas Star, dated 20 September 1970,” p. 5, Box 19, Command Reports, Assistant Chief of Staff Intelligence/Operations (S-2/3), 3d Battalion, 187th Infantry, Infantry Units, Record Group 472, National Archives and Records Administration II, College Park, MD. v TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER Page I INTRODUCTION AND ORIGINS OF U.S. ARMY PACIFICATION OPERATIONS IN VIETNAM: “USING A STEAMROLLER TO CRUSH AN EGG IN THE DARK” ........................................................................... 1 “Our previous methods of operation”: U.S. Army Pacification Techniques before Tet 1968 .......... 5 “Getting off the treadmill”: Pacification Shares the Spotlight .................................................... 13 II “A QUESTIONABLE STATUS OF PACIFICATION”: THUA THIEN, 1968 .............................................................. 21 “The king’s law bows before village custom”: Village Organization and Communist Exploitation ..................................................... 23 “The mistakes as well as successes of the past”: Roles of U.S. and GVN Pacification Forces ..... 28 “The 1968 Provincial RD Plan was lying in the rubble of Hue city”: A Prologue to the Pacification of Thua Thien ............................................................... 39 III “IF WE’D HAD DONE MORE THAN THAT EARLIER IT COULD HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT”: THE 101st AIRBORNE DISCOVERS PACIFICATION, MAY 1968 – DECEMBER 1969................................................................... 43 “Thus far little had been accomplished by the division in the pacification field”: The Transformation of Operation Nevada Eagle ................................... 44 “The most bitter and difficult stage we ever had”: Pacification Begins in Quang Dien District....... 50 “An analysis of past operations”: A Breakthrough in Vinh Loc District ............................................. 54 “Yet he seems to be able to bounce back very quickly”: The Four Pacifications of Phu Vang District .... 59 vi CHAPTER Page “On paper, it seems simple”: An Assessment of Operation Nevada Eagle .................................. 66 “They searched men’s minds”: Pursuit of VCI in the Summer of 1969 ............................................. 71 “The Price of Rice”: Losing Momentum during Operation Republic Square .............................. 76 “A moment like this did not exist before”: Synthesis of 101st Airborne Division Pacification Efforts, May 1968 – December 1969 ............................ 80 IV “THE NAME OF THE GAME FOR THUA THIEN IS CLEARLY SURVIVAL”: A PACIFIED PROVINCE AT WAR, 1970 AND 1971 ........................................................... 83 “The enemy’s plots and schemes”: The Communist Response to Pacification and Operation Randolph Glen ................................................. 84 “Per instructions from the district chief”: GVN Initiatives and Operation Texas Star in the Summer of 1970 .............................................. 96 “This drive did not materialize”: Vietnamization, Operation Jefferson Glen, and Withdrawal ....... 107 V CONCLUSION: “THE EXPERIENCES WE HAVE GAINED” ................................................................... 114 “A far more formidable task”: Implications for Future Counterinsurgency ........................................... 127 WORKS CITED ............................................................................................ 133 APPENDIX A ................................................................................................ 147 APPENDIX B ............................................................................................... 149 APPENDIX C ................................................................................................ 151 vii Page APPENDIX D ................................................................................................ 153 VITA ............................................................................................................. 155 1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION AND ORIGINS OF U.S. ARMY PACIFICATION OPERATIONS IN VIETNAM: “USING A STEAMROLLER TO CRUSH AN EGG IN THE DARK” During the Vietnam War, the United States and South Vietnamese campaigns to increase the legitimacy of the South Vietnamese government with its own people and defeat the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong insurgency became known as pacification. Pacification existed as a concept and practice throughout the conflict, and by 1968 a U.S. Army handbook on the subject gave a formal definition: …the military, political, economic, and social process of establishing or re-establishing local government responsive to and involving the participation of the people. It includes the provision of sustained, credible territorial security, the destruction of the enemy’s underground government, and the initiation of economic and social activity capable of self-sustenance and expansion... The key to pacification is the provision of sustained territorial security. 2 Although pacification programs, agencies, and objectives existed from the introduction of American forces in the advisory period in 1962, pacification only became the primary focus of the U.S. effort in Vietnam in 1968 as a result of changed battlefield dynamics in Vietnam and political dynamics in the United States. ___________________ This thesis follows the style of the Journal of Military History. 2. Hq., Department of the Army, Handbook for Military Support of Pacification, (Washington: Department of the Army, 1968), 2, Box 186, Organizational History Files, Military Historian’s Office, Records of HQ, U.S. Army, Pacific, Record Group (RG) 550, National Archives II, College Park, MD (hereafter referred to as NARA II). 2 As the last U.S. division to fully deploy to Vietnam, the final two infantry brigades and headquarters of the 101st Airborne Division arrived in country during December 1967. Initially operating in the III Corps Tactical Zone (CTZ) immediately north of Saigon, the 101st rushed north to Thua Thien province and the city of Hue in the I CTZ when the surprise North Vietnamese (NVA)/Viet