Word: danang
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That may be true. But in a broader sense, it could be argued that Hué and Danang were abandoned not because South Vietnamese troops lacked ammunition and equipment, but because of a disastrous failure of leadership and loss of will to fight. Congressional delays in approving the latest request for supplementary aid were seen in Saigon as a demoralizing signal and in Hanoi as an encouraging one. But after a decade of direct involvement, $150 billion and 56,000 American lives, it is hard to see how a few hundred million dollars more would have been decisive...
Thieu gave his officers only six hours' notice before the retreat and not even enough time to fuel vehicles. At Hué it was even worse. "It was like a yo-yo," says a U.S. expert. "First, Thieu gave the order to pull back and defend Danang. Then he countermanded it and ordered that Hué be held...
Then, with stunning suddenness, the war burst upon the U.S. all over again. Hué, Danang, Pleiku, Kontum-hearing the names once more is like suffering a relapse of some virulent disease. It is impossible for Americans to regard the flow of refugees and the anguish of the orphans without pangs of sorrow and even outrage. Every image of a bewildered child, of a weeping mother, makes a claim on the conscience. However disastrous the final results, most Americans once sincerely felt that they were aiding these people. Now one cannot escape the obvious question: If the long American presence...
...alone. As the military situation darkens, newsmen in Saigon sense a rising hostility from the South Vietnamese. The normally bland army newspaper Tien Tuyen (Frontline) last week demanded that the Thieu regime "take strong, hard measures against foreign correspondents" for being "in major part" responsible for Communist gains. As Danang fell, a group of American journalists gave two South Vietnamese marines a lift to the airport. When the marines asked the journalists their nationality, their driver thoughtfully replied that they were English. "That's good," said one of the soldiers. "We're ready to kill any Americans...
...beat." Operating at full throttle in South Viet Nam, Daly had argued unsuccessfully with U.S. AID and embassy officials for authority to fly hundreds of additional orphans out of Viet Nam and wired Secretary of State Kissinger demanding permission to send a 747 mercy flight into beleaguered Danang. He also traded punches with mutinous South Vietnamese troops trying to fight their way onto a 727 refugee flight as it escaped from Danang only hours before the North Vietnamese captured the city. That flight took off despite embassy protests. According to Daly, "people who should have been doing something about...