Word: het
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Like Khe Sanh and Con Thien to the north, Ben Het, which was completed in 1968, is an isolated fortification of bunkers and barbed wire that sits astride an important infiltration route. Inside its perimeters were 500 Montagnard irregulars led by a South Vietnamese Special Forces team of twelve and twelve U.S. Green Beret advisers. Initially, Ben Het could rely for added protection on the U.S. 4th Infantry Division, which was operating in the surrounding highlands. As part of a redeployment, U.S. infantry forces withdrew from the Ben Het area in April. The responsibility for the base passed...
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...
...June, the North Vietnamese completely surrounded Ben Het and cut off virtually all ground access to it. Though ammunition remained plentiful, Ben Het's defenders suffered from a lack of fresh water and hot food. They also suffered from the lack of an on-the-spot commander. Directing the battle from his headquarters at Kontum, 30 miles southeast of Ben Het, Lien rarely flew into the besieged outpost. As a result, he was unable to make the most effective use of the massive U.S. air power and artillery that were put at his disposal. Communications between the various defending...
Perhaps in an 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...
...days after Lien's press conference, the siege of Ben Het abruptly ceased, and the enemy faded away into Cambodia. A relief force of 1,500 South Vietnamese troopers last week encountered no resistance on their way to Ben Het. Why did the enemy withdraw? During the height of the attacks, North Vietnamese propagandists boasted that Ben Het represented "a humiliating failure for the U.S. in its plot to de-Americanize the war and use Vietnamese to kill Vietnamese." Having already lost 1,800 men in the battle, the North Vietnamese may have felt that they needed to waste...