Word: kham
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Harrowing Operation. Some 5,000 North Vietnamese troops closed in on the Kham Due outpost astride Route 14 about 70 miles from Kontum. The post was defended by 1,300 allied soldiers; most of them were civilian irregulars, reinforced by a U.S. Marine artillery platoon and an element of the U.S. 196th Light Infantry Brigade. Kham Due shaped up as the kind of set-piece battle that General William Westmoreland yearned for in the early days of the massive U.S. presence in Viet Nam, when so much of his military force was expended in fruitless hunts for an enemy refusing...
...instead of reinforcing Kham Due, the U.S. decided to evacuate the camp. There were tactical reasons for the evacuation as well: the mountainous, triple-canopied terrain around Kham Due favored the enemy, and only limited ground reinforcements were available. With the Communists bunched around the camp, the U.S. also hoped to use its airpower to maximum effectiveness -and it did, killing hundreds of the Communists and setting off dozens of secondary explosions. Nonetheless, the evacuation turned out to be a harrowing operation. Two C-130s, a Skyraider fighter-bomber and five helicopters were gunned down by the North Vietnamese, including...