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Home , Battle of Khe Sanh, Khe Sanh Combat Base, Sandbag, Vietnamese Rangers

By John T. Correll

forward combat base at Khe Sanh land, MACV commander, who persuaded eyes of the nation and the eyes of the entire in was rough and tem- President Lyndon B. Johnson and the Joint world—the eyes of all of history itself—are porary, a fortifi ed sprawl of trenches Chiefs of Staff of its value. Westmoreland on that little, brave band of defenders who and sandbag with a concertina believed in the importance of Khe Sanh, hold the pass at Khe Sanh,” he said. wire perimeter and an airstrip running but he was also using the marines as bait to Khe Sanh was surrounded. The only down the back side. lure the North Vietnamese into a decisive way in or out was by air. The garrison was It was in a mountain valley in a remote set-piece battle. sustained through the by airlift and corner of , just below the Such a battle seemed in prospect Jan. airdrop and the NVA—which outnumbered Demilitarized Zone and eight miles from 21 when the North Vietnamese Army the marines by more than four to one— the border. attacked Khe Sanh. It was the precursor came under devastating counterattack by The principal garrison was four US of the and the concurrent air strikes, including carpet bombing by Marine Corps battalions, there at the in- strikes on more than 100 population Air Force B-52s. sistence of Military Assistance Command centers and military installations all over On Feb. 9, the New York Times reported, Vietnam. The marines had been at Khe South Vietnam. “High military offi cials said yesterday that Sanh in varying strength since 1966, but For the next 77 days, Khe Sanh held the was prepared to defend they did not share MACV’s assessment the attention of the world as the longest Khe Sanh at all costs.” of its importance. battle of the unfolded there. Khe Sanh not only held; it was also a re- “When you’re at Khe Sanh, you’re not No event during Tet stimulated more news sounding defeat for the North Vietnamese. really anywhere,” said Marine Corps Brig. coverage. Khe Sanh was the subject of They failed to take the base and sustained Gen. Lowell E. English in 1966. “It’s far fully 25 percent of all Vietnam fi lm reports far greater casualties than they infl icted. away from everything. You could lose it on network TV evening news in February However, the tactical US victory occurred and you haven’t lost a damn thing.” and March. in the context of the strategic calamity of The main advocate for holding Khe Johnson kept a scale model of Khe Sanh Tet when US commitment to the Vietnam Sanh was Gen. William C. Westmore- in the White House situation room. “The War disintegrated.

A C-130 delivers a skid of supplies to Khe Sanh in a low-altitude parachute ex- traction. Airlift and airdrop kept the base alive while air strikes, including B-52 carpet bombing, held the enemy back.

60 AIR FORCE Magazine / March 2016 Khe Sanh was the Newsweek cover story on March 18. The siege gener- ated more press coverage in the United States than any other aspect of the Tet offensive.

By March, Johnson had dropped his can- didacy for reelection, halted the bombing of , and opened negotiations to seek a peaceful settlement to the war. By summer, the United States had aban- doned Khe Sanh, redeployed the forces, and closed the base. In an interview 20 years later, Westmo- reland was asked which of his decisions he was proudest. “The decision to hold Khe Sanh,” he said.

GIAP AND HIS LEGEND Everybody on the US side—includ- ing Westmoreland—was certain that Khe Sanh and Tet were the handiwork of North Vietnam’s great military hero, Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, and that he was attempting to repeat his famous victory over the French at Dien Bien Phu. He was reported to be present at Khe Sanh, personally directing the battle. In fact, Giap had been shunted aside. He opposed the Tet strategy and was not Click Americana Americana Click image

USAF photo

AIR FORCE Magazine / March 2016 61 even in Vietnam when the operation began. There were defi nite similarities. In 1954, stream that ran parallel with the perimeter, He returned in from his the Viet Minh army commanded by Giap but was about 150 yards outside. self-imposed exile in eastern Europe but laid siege for 56 days to Dien Bien Phu, a At the beginning of 1968, the main remained on the sidelines. French army in a remote mountain complement at the combat base was four The driving force behind the Tet of- valley. Land access was cut off and Giap’s Marine battalions that also occupied fensive was Le Duan, fi rst secretary of bombarded the base relentlessly. fi ve hills—designated by their height in the Vietnamese Communist party, who However, there were differences. meters—to the north and west. The Long had managed to marginalize both Giap Whereas Giap controlled the hills at Vei Special Forces camp, several miles and the aging North Vietnamese leader Dien Bien Phu, the marines occupied the away, was defended by four companies of . He recruited Gen. Van Tien key hills around Khe Sanh. The biggest irregulars and 24 US Army Dung to implement his strategy. difference was airpower: airlift, airdrop, advisors. Le Duan’s plan was called GO-GU close air support, and heavy bombing. In addition, the Special Forces and a (General Offensive-General Uprising) At Dien Bien Phu, Giap’s artillery closed battalion of South and anticipated that dramatic large-scale the airstrip. At Khe Sanh, airplanes and had their own compound, FOB-3, along attacks would spark a mass uprising to helicopters continued to land during the the south side of the main base and were overthrow the South Vietnamese regime siege. French bombers did little damage further deployed around the eastern end. in Saigon. It supplanted the strategy of Ho in 1954, but the air strikes at Khe Sanh, The marines distrusted indigenous forces and Giap, which emphasized a protracted especially those by the B-52s, were enor- and would not allow the Vietnamese inside struggle. mously effective. their lines. The Special Forces were not “It remains unclear whether Hanoi particularly welcome either. intended Khe Sanh as a diversion to pave THE FOGGY MOUNTAIN TOP Strength estimates for the battle and the way for Tet, or if the countrywide Khe Sanh was supposed to be the far siege vary, but the matchup was about attacks were supposed to preoccupy the western end of the “McNamara Line,” a 7,000 defenders—6,000 marines plus allies while Khe Sanh was overrun,” said string of strong points and barriers across the indigenous troops—against a North Vietnam War historian John Prados. Vietnam below the DMZ ordered by Sec- Vietnamese Army attacking force of some Westmoreland himself was in no doubt. retary of Defense Robert S. McNamara in 30,000. “I believed then, and I continue to believe 1966. The project was never completed. The airstrip, built by the , was that the ‘General Uprising’ was in reality a The marines went to Khe Sanh in Oc- 3,895 feet long and made of pierced steel feint, a secondary attack,” he said in 1993. tober 1966 and increased their presence planking. The runway overshot the base Westmoreland was aware of Giap’s stated during a series of attacks and challenges perimeter on the eastern end by 150 yards, opposition to the plan but in his memoirs in 1967. There had been no land access with machine guns covering the exposed dismissed it as “camoufl age, a planned to the base since August 1967 when the extension. deception.” North Vietnamese cut National Route 9, Air Force twin-engine C-123 transports Khe Sanh was compared constantly to a glorifi ed name for the one-lane dirt road did not need the entire runway to land. Dien Bien Phu. “As the enemy build-up that ran through Khe Sanh village. A side They could turn off onto a parking ramp, at Khe Sanh developed, almost every mail road branched off toward the combat base. but the four-engine C-130 turboprops had from the United States brought me letters The base was situated on a plateau, about to go all the way to the end and taxi back, warning that I was inviting another Dien four miles wide, with rugged mountains tracked by mortar shells all the way. Bien Phu and urging me to abandon Khe and densely vegetated jungle on all sides. Nearby, a deep ravine dropped to lower Sanh,” Westmoreland said. The sole source of drinking water was a elevations, forming a channel through

USAF photo Artillery bombardment was relentless, but the marines, in their trenches and fortifi ed bunkers, took relatively few ca- sualties. They responded effectively with their own artillery, armor, and rifl e fi re.

62 AIR FORCE Magazine / March 2016 which moist air rose, creating fog and of the Lunar New Year holiday. The North Army perspective. MACV regarded the mist. The sun seldom burned through until Vietnamese and the Viet Cong struck in Marines as ill-suited for anything except late morning, so the airfi eld was usually locations from the DMZ in the north to “over-the-beach operations” and thought below minimum conditions for landing the Mekong Delta in the south. their defensive preparations at Khe Sanh until then. Fog obscured the view again It undercut assurances by Westmo- were inadequate. in the late afternoon. reland, given in a speech two months In later years, Westmoreland denied The fog was a factor for artillery and previously, that the enemy was “cer- repeatedly that he had clashed with the mortar batteries as well, but spotters could tainly losing” and that his hopes were marines, but shortly after Tet began, see well enough to direct their barrages as “bankrupt.” Further damage ensued when he sent a cable to Army Gen. Earle G. soon as the overcast began to dissipate. the New York Times reported that West- Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of The Marines had heavy artillery at Khe moreland was asking for 206,000 more Staff, saying “the military professional- Sanh, as well as fi ve tanks they could move troops—in addition to the 510,000 he ism of the Marines falls far short of the around for best advantage. There were already had—and that tactical nuclear standards demanded by our armed forces.” marine guns on the hilltops, plus additional weapons had been considered for the Westmoreland lost confi dence in them artillery support from , 14 defense of Khe Sanh. altogether after the fall of the Lang Vei miles to the east but still within range. Meanwhile, Westmoreland was hav- Special Forces camp the night of Feb. ing more trouble with the Marines. The 7. The NVA, using PT-76 Soviet tanks THE SIEGE BEGINS independent-minded Marines were an in battle for the fi rst time, overran the The began half an uneasy fi t in the joint command struc- camp, killing or wounding almost 300 hour after midnight on Jan. 21, with a ture. In particular, they chafed under of the 487 defenders. The contingency rocket and infantry assault on Hill 861, the control of Westmoreland and his plan committed the marines at the combat northwest of Khe Sanh. It was a limited staff who ran MACV with a near-total base to reinforce Lang Vei if required. action, easily thrown back, and a prelude to the main event, an attack on at 5:30 a.m. Water Supply The airstrip, bunkers, and trenches were hit by massive artillery, mortar, and rocket fi re. “Within minutes of the opening salvo, enemy shells hit the base’s ammunition supply point,” the offi cial Marine history of the battle said. “More than 1,500 tons of ammunition began exploding. At 1000, a large quantity of Drop Zone C-4 [plastic explosive] and other explo- sives went up with a tremendous blast, Command Post rocking the entire combat base.” KHE SANH The siege at Khe Sanh was already 10 Combat Base days old when the Tet offensive opened FOB-3 on the night of Jan. 30-31, the beginning Compound SVN Rangers Special Forces Below: The biggest champion of the and SVN stand at Khe Sanh was Westmoreland. Rangers Below right: National Security Advisor Walt Rostow (far right) briefs President Johnson (second from left) on develop- ments at Khe Sanh, using a scale model. Staff illustration by Eric Lee

USMC photo by Lance Cpl. D. J. Brusch

White House photo by Yoichi Okamoto

AIR FORCE Magazine / March 2016 63 When called upon, they did not come, The North Vietnamese scored one of Even so, more than half of the deliver- regarding the situation as too hazardous their few triumphs of the battle Feb. 10 ies were made by parachute drop from an and the chances of success as too low. when they hit a Marine KC-130, laden altitude of a few hundred feet. (By contrast, On Feb. 9, Westmoreland established with fuel for the base, on its fi nal approach. the French at Dien Bien Phu airdropped “MACV Forward” at Phu Bai, commanded It burst into fl ames as it rolled down the their deliveries from 10,000 feet and more by his deputy, Gen. Creighton W. Abrams runway and exploded. The wreckage was than half of them fell into enemy hands.) Jr., in charge of both Army and Marine pushed off to the side, where it became The drop zone at Khe Sanh was just forces in the northern part of the country. the standard backdrop for fi lmed television beyond the western end of the runway, The Marines took it as “a slap in the reports from Khe Sanh. protected by a forward detachment of face” and were not altogether mollifi ed After that, C-130s were prohibited dug-in marines. A few bundles fell long or in March when MACV Forward was dis- from landing. The C-123s, a poorer target wide of the drop zone, but 99.5 percent fell solved and its assets converted to form the because they used less runway, continued within the boundaries and were recovered. Provisional Corps Vietnam, subordinate to to come and go, but they carried only a During the siege, Air Force airlifters the III Marine Amphibious Force. third as much cargo as the C-130s. fl ew 1,120 sorties over and into Khe Sanh, including regular landings to deliver pas- sengers and bring out the wounded.

USAF photo USAF Operation Niagara—the concentrated effort to disrupt the NVA attack by air- power—began Jan. 22. Over the course of the siege, Air Force, Marine, and Navy tactical aircraft averaged 300 strike sor- ties a day, but the heavy damage was infl icted by the B-52s, which fl ew about 35 sorties a day. Each three-ship cell of B-52s carpet- bombed a 1.2-mile strip, which created havoc among the besiegers. About 15,000 NVA and Viet Cong troops were killed, most of them by airpower. “The thing that broke their backs was basically the fi re of the B-52s,” Westmoreland said. The marines expressed their apprecia- tion for the B-52 strikes but regarded air- power at Khe Sanh as a “supporting arm.”

77 DAYS “By the end of February, the Americans and the South Vietnamese had erected some 510 bunkers, dug miles of trenchline, and laid hundreds of minefi elds and trip fl ares,” Nothing hurt the North Vietnamese attack force more than carpet bombing by Air said Marine Corps historian Capt. Moyers Force B-52s. The stripes of white dots seen above aren’t street lights—they are the damage from B-52 bomb runs. S. Shore II. “Each sector was guarded by a maze of double-apron, tanglefoot, and THE “SUPPORTING ARM” From then on, the C-130s made their concertina obstacles.” Airplanes and helicopters were the deliveries by low-level extraction and The enemy shelling was constant. favorite targets of the North Vietnamese parachute drop. With the Low-Altitude The worst day was Feb. 23, when 1,307 gunners, so they got in and out as quickly Parachute Extraction System (LAPES), rounds landed on Khe Sanh combat base. as they could. the aircraft skimmed in a few feet above According to Detroit News correspondent “The aircraft landed in the assault the runway, the cargo door open, and Robert Pisor, enemy rockets and shells left confi guration,” said Air Force Maj. Gen. released a roller-mounted cargo pallet the camp looking like “a shanty slum.” Burl W. McLaughlin, commander of the that was yanked out by a blossoming As the days passed, clutter accumulated MACV airlift . “At touchdown, parachute. and many accounts mention the prolif- the loadmaster opened the ramp and door LAPES worked fairly well, but the eration of rats. There were rat-killing and upon reaching the offl oad area, pushed Ground Proximity Extraction System contests, and according to Time magazine, the pallets out while the aircraft continued was better. The C-130 swooped in low, one sergeant killed 34 rats to establish a taxiing slowly. Passengers scampered trailing a cable with a hook on the end. base record. aboard the aircraft. Three minutes from It snagged a cable stretched along the Sharpshooters and were effec- touchdown to gear up was average; several ground, effi ciently pulling the cargo tive on both sides. NVA marksmen had times it took only 55 seconds.” pallet out the door. rifl es and scopes comparable to those of

64 AIR FORCE Magazine / March 2016 the Americans. When the marines picked to approve the evacuation of the base of battle and Khe Sanh has reverted to off one especially accurate shooter, his on his watch. obscurity. Sometimes, American veterans replacement was inept, expending up to 30 Westmoreland left Vietnam June 11 endure the long bus ride from Hue or Da rounds a day without hitting anyone. The and the next day, the new MACV com- Nang to see it again. marines had him spotted but let him alone mander, , ordered There is a small museum where visi- lest he be replaced by a better shooter. Khe Sanh’s . tors can inspect a “restored” sandbag Incredibly, the NVA never made any Nothing would be left for the enemy. and a trench. Displays include attempt to interrupt or contaminate the Convoys of trucks hauled away supplies, the wreckage of two American heli- water supply, which was outside the base materials, and equipment. Work parties copters, a 155 mm howitzer, and the perimeter. Nor was there any serious ef- destroyed 800 bunkers and three miles of hulk of a tank. The museum caretakers fort to destroy the radio relay site on a . Sandbags were slit and do not disclose that the wreckage was hill defended by a single Marine platoon. spilled. The Seabees ripped up the runway. brought in from elsewhere and that Operation Pegasus, to re-establish Vehicle hulks that could not be salvaged they fi lled the sandbags themselves. ground contact with Khe Sanh, began were cut up with torches and bulldozed Souvenir sellers offer US dog tags and April 1. It was spearheaded by the Army’s 1st Air Cavalry Division with substantial participation from the and the South Vietnamese army. Within a week, the operation had reached the Khe Sanh plateau. There is disagreement about when the siege offi cially ended, but April 7 is gener- USMC Reed, M. Jim Sgt. by Photo ally recognized as the 77th and fi nal day. For their part, the marines refer to it testily as the “so-called siege,” and are even more insistent that they were not rescued by the Operation Pegasus relief force.

THE OUTPOST ABANDONED Casualty estimates for Khe Sanh vary. A credible compilation by John Prados fi gures the overall allied loss, including collateral actions, indigenous forces, and the relief effort, at 730 dead, 2,642 wounded, and seven missing. The offi cial casualty count says 205 of those were marines. Guesses at the NVA loss range from 10,000 to almost 30,000, with the most likely number somewhere around 15,000. Aerial view of the west end of Khe Sanh taken by a helicopter squadron HMM-364 Negotiations with North Vietnam began member on a supply fl ight to the base during the siege. in Paris May 10. The United States was clearly headed for the exits. Fighting con- into trenches. The ground was dusted other “artifacts,” most of them “recently tinued sporadically around Khe Sanh, but with tear gas to discourage scavengers. forged by industrious villagers,” accord- what was left of the main NVA force had Khe Sanh combat base was closed July 5 ing to the Los Angeles Times. scattered. North Vietnam did not again try with evacuation completed July 6. A vertical slab marker declares a major offensive until the Easter Invasion Of all of the retrospectives, none that during the battle, the NVA killed of 1972 when most of the US forces had were more upbeat than Westmoreland’s. 112,000 enemy troops and shot down gone home. That initiative was foiled as “Khe Sanh will stand in history, I am 197 US airplanes in driving the Ameri- well, primarily by US airpower. convinced, as a classic example of how cans from Khe Sanh in what amounted Westmoreland’s senior Army and to defeat a numerically superior besieg- to “another Dien Bien Phu” for the Marine offi cers told him it was time to ing force by coordinated application United States. abandon Khe Sanh. In his memoirs, West- of fi repower,” he said in his memoirs. Fifty years after it all happened, much moreland says that, given the developing With the passage of almost half a cen- about the history of the stand at Khe Sanh political situation, he “agreed in principle” tury, vegetation has grown over the scars depends on who is telling the story. ✪ but “decided to leave the decision on Khe Sanh to my successor.” John T. Correll was editor in chief of Air Force Magazine for 18 years and is now He was going back to the United States a contributor. His most recent articles, “The Lost Art of Naming Operations” and to be Army Chief of Staff and refused “Command and Control Evolution,” appeared in the February issue.

AIR FORCE Magazine / March 2016 65