Word: arvn
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...more than three divisions to defend all of North Viet Nam, compared with at least 16 on the offensive in South Viet Nam. The situation is so bleak for Saigon that some Pentagon analysts hold that there may not be a battle of Saigon. Totally overwhelmed and demoralized, ARVN may just refuse to fight, forcing Saigon to negotiate a surrender...
Meanwhile, more bad news began to arrive. North of the city, ARVN had been making its first real effort since Ban Me Thuot to stem the North Vietnamese. For almost two weeks, the ARVN 22nd Division had held the Binh Khe pass, gateway from the highlands down to the coastal plain, against two North Vietnamese divisions. The price had been high: nearly two-thirds of its men had been killed or injured. Early in the week the outgunned and outnumbered division gave way, leaving open the route to Qui Nhon, third largest city in South Viet...
...interpreted as a political statement by partisans of both sides. Saigon claimed that the refugees were struggling to escape Communist rule; Hanoi attributed the flight to propaganda inspired by the U.S. and South Viet Nam, and claimed that many refugees were forced to flee at gunpoint by panicky ARVN troops...
Sheer contagious panic aside, for most people the immediate motive probably was to escape the fighting, to keep from getting caught in a murderous crossfire. For a variety of reasons, many South Vietnamese had cause to fear their own armed forces. After ARVN abandoned one town last month, the South Vietnamese air force promptly flattened the place with bombs. In city after city, marooned South Vietnamese troops were running wild. A British diplomat noted: "The civilian refugees have as much to fear from the vanquished soldiers as they do from the victors...
...could happen." His bafflement was shared by much of the world after the swift collapse of Saigon's fighting forces with almost no resistance in the face of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops. With rare exceptions, the Army of the Republic of Viet Nam (ARVN) did not even stand its ground and fight, dissolving instead into panic and flight in a historic military debacle...