Word: dak
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Communist terrorism is carried out at random. Thousands of Vietnamese have died in well-planned massacres. In 1967, Montagnard tribesmen, who had fled the Communists a year earlier, were set upon in their new home at Dak Son 75 miles northeast of Saigon. Six hundred Viet Cong, 60 of them armed with flamethrowers, invaded the village, setting fire to the huts and shooting the inhabitants as they fled their burning homes, then executing 60 survivors of the assault. Altogether, 252 unarmed Montagnards, nearly all of them women and children, were murdered, 100 kidnaped, 500 listed as missing...
...commander, Marine Colonel Nguyen Ba Lien of the 24th Special Tactical Zone. In accord with the U.S. policy of continuing to provide fire support for South Vietnamese ground forces, 500 American artillerymen remained dug in at key points in and around Ben Het. The biggest U.S. concentration was at Dak To, ten miles to the east, where 500 American combat engineers were also stationed...
Ominously, the North Vietnamese in early May began to mass two regiments in the area and occasionally to shell Dak To and Ben Het. In the past, the U.S. would have rushed American infantrymen to the aid of the South Vietnamese. This time they did not. In an effort to head off an attack, Lien sent South Vietnamese battalions into craggy mountains around the two bases. At first the South Vietnamese fought well and aggressively. But after a month in the field, they wearied. Unfortunately, the South Vietnamese still seemed incapable of fighting a prolonged and bloody engagement with...
...ensuing siege strained relations between the South Vietnamese and the American battalion at Dak To. As support troops, the U.S. engineers and artillerymen were counting on the South Vietnamese to provide the security force for their base. But Lien refused. As a result, the Americans had to do double duty guarding their own perimeter, leaving the gun crews and work teams overworked and exhausted...
...attempt to counter such bad publicity, Colonel Lien explained his strategy to newsmen in Kontum. In excellent English, the cocky colonel confided that he deliberately used Ben Het as "bait" to lure the North Vietnamese into a position where allied firepower could destroy them. At Ben Het and Dak To, U.S. officers laughed openly at Lien's suggestion. U.S. headquarters in Saigon pointed out that General Creighton Abrams has specifically forbidden ever using allied men as bait...