Word: combats
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...South Vietnamese military by surprise. In that sense, and because they continued after five days of fighting to hang on to some of their targets, the Communists undeniably won a victory of sorts. "This is real fighting on a battlefield," admitted Brigadier General John Chaisson, Westmoreland's combat operations coordinator for South Viet Nam. The Communist attack was, he said, "a very successful offensive. It was surprisingly well coordinated, surprisingly intensive and launched with a surprising amount of audacity." Westmoreland himself called the enemy campaign "a bold one," though marked "by treachery and deceitfulness...
Giap's precise intention in launching the general offensive remains to be learned. As always in Communist military doctrine, Giap doubtless considered the political effect at least as important as the outcome on the battlefield. "Guerrilla activities and large-scale combat coordinate with each other, help each other and encourage each other to develop," Giap said in a speech last September. "At the same time, they closely coordinate with the political struggle to score great victories in both military and political fields, thus leading the resistance toward final victory...
Another Price. In the end, however, the Communist victory may be classed as Pyrrhic. The allied command reported nearly 15,000 of the attackers killed. Even if the total is only half that?and some observers think that that may be the case when all the combat reports filed in the swirl of battle are cross-checked?it would still represent a huge bloodletting of the enemy's forces in South Viet Nam. Even the lower estimates leave no doubt about who won the actual battles: U.S. dead numbered 367 and South Vietnamese military dead about...
...Command Center, the nerve centers of U.S. command in the war. The Communists breached the immediate base perimeter, slipping past some 150 outposts without a shot being fired, and got within 1,000 feet of the runways before they were halted in eight hours of bloody hand-to-hand combat. All told, the Communists attacked from 18 different points around Tan Son Nhut, getting close enough to MACV to put bullets through Westy's windows. Westmoreland's staff officers were issued weapons and sent out to help sandbag the compound, and Westmoreland moved into his windowless command room...
...Dalat, pleasure spot for South Vietnamese generals and site of the nation's fledgling military academy, the cadets got an early introduction to combat. The Viet Cong seized the highland town, still held it at week's end. On the Bong Son plain, where the 1st Cavalry (Airmobile) has so often punished the enemy, the Communists hit an Air Cav base, destroyed two helicopters and penetrated the perimeter before being repulsed. At the Dong Ba Thien airfield just north of Cam Ranh Bay, attackers using satchel charges destroyed nine helicopters. In the Mekong Delta, long a Viet Cong haven...