Word: arvn
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Thieu's decision to retreat stemmed from his revised estimates of the North Vietnamese buildup in the country. The Pentagon believes that there are now 16 North Vietnamese divisions in South Viet Nam. Apparently the President also decided that ARVN'S strategic position in the northern and Highlands provinces had eroded beyond repair after the successful Communist attack on Ban Me Thuot two weeks ago. For three days the South Vietnamese forces tried hard to repel a cleverly executed Communist tank and infantry assault on the city, which sits astride Route 14, the main inland north-south road...
...never came about. The North Vietnamese assault on Ban Me Thuot had caught ARVN defense forces stretched out thinly along a line from Kontum through Pleiku all the way south to Ban Me Thuot along Route 14. In a desperation move, President Thieu ordered the last two regiments of Pleiku's 23rd Division to the defense of Ban Me Thuot. But the North Vietnamese 320th Reserve Division, which was never actually committed to the fighting, set up an impregnable half circle on the western side of the city, forcing the ARVN regiments to take up positions for a counterattack...
General Phu also began moving the Military Region II headquarters from Pleiku farther south to Nha Trang. In Kontum, 68 aircraft, grounded because of a lack of spare parts, were destroyed to keep them from falling into enemy hands. As the ARVN forces moved southward, the South Vietnamese air force flew in and bombed every bridge after the ground troops crossed it. It was a last retreat. No one is planning to go back for a long time...
During the evacuation of the Central Highlands, Thieu made another crucial decision in his historic rearrangement of the Vietnamese political map. He flew to Danang for consultations with ARVN'S best field commander, Lieut. General Ngo Quang Truong, and decided to carry out plans that apparently had been drawn up months ago: to pull back the main line of defense from Quang Tri and probably Thua Thien provinces down to the coastal city of Danang. General Truong had already lost the backbone of his defense the week before when Thieu ordered 4,000 men of South Viet...
...surrendered provinces were heavily infested with Communist forces. In the Central Highlands, only the provincial capitals remained firmly in government hands; the surrounding areas had long since fallen into Communist hands. Thus the retreat should allow Saigon to mass its units better in concentrated areas. As it was, ARVN forces were strung out across the country, firing away at dubious targets from thin lines-with few reinforcements available to mount consistent offensives...