Word: arvn
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...outnumbered and outgunned government forces finally appeared to be crumbling at week's end. Only 15 miles north of Saigon, Communist artillerymen launched first assaults on the huge South Vietnamese airbase at Bien Hoa. Using 130-mm. artillery with a range of 15 miles, they momentarily disrupted ARVN'S fighter-bomber traffic...
...extraordinarily rapid change in the fortunes of war in South Viet Nam has caught the world-not to mention the participants-unawares. Scarcely a month ago the ARVN was one of the largest and best-equipped armies in the world; today it is shattered. Three-quarters of the country and at least 40% of its 19 million people are under Communist rule...
...prolonged fighting at Xuan Loc was interpreted, in the beginning, as a test of the ARVN's remaining will to fight. "I vow to hold Xuan Loc," declared the 18th Division commander, Brigadier General Le Minh Dao. "I don't care how many divisions the other side sends against me, I will knock them down...
...left to fight over. "Virtually every building was in ruins," Halstead reported later. "Blackened bodies of North Vietnamese soldiers littered the streets, where heavy house-to-house fighting had obviously taken place not long before. Except for the troops, the town was empty of its 38,000 people." The ARVN fought hard and well at Xuan Loc. But by the time Halstead and other journalists got back to their helicopter they found it surrounded and overrun, not only by frightened civilians but by soldiers who were understandably trying...
...approaching Battle of Saigon, the odds against the ARVN are growing. The three divisions defending the Mekong Delta are comparatively well trained and disciplined. As for the rest, says a veteran military observer in Saigon, "ARVN has probably the worst morale of any army since the collapse of the French in World War II. In three weeks they have been put through general retreats, separated from their own units and officers, walked and fought their way down half the country, survived mass panic and mutinies, and now they are being asked to fight again to save their capital city from...