Word: kontum
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Pleiku fini. Kontum fini. Ban Me Thuot fini. Hué fini. Everything fini...
...Kontum, Pleiku and Darlac provinces in the Central Highlands-a rolling area of rain forest and coffee and tea plantations on the border of Laos and Cambodia-were the first to go (see map). Later, Quang Tri province in northernmost Military Region I was given up. Although not officially abandoned by Saigon, Thua Thien, containing the ancient imperial capital of Hue, was by week's end clearly in imminent danger of falling into North Vietnamese hands. In the South, only 50 miles north of Saigon and next to already fallen Phuoc Long, Binh Long province was relinquished. In addition...
...never came about. The North Vietnamese assault on Ban Me Thuot had caught ARVN defense forces stretched out thinly along a line from Kontum through Pleiku all the way south to Ban Me Thuot along Route 14. In a desperation move, President Thieu ordered the last two regiments of Pleiku's 23rd Division to the defense of Ban Me Thuot. But the North Vietnamese 320th Reserve Division, which was never actually committed to the fighting, set up an impregnable half circle on the western side of the city, forcing the ARVN regiments to take up positions for a counterattack...
Communist forces attacked along an immense arc running down strategic Route 14 from the Central Highlands cities of Kontum and Pleiku all the way to Tay Ninh, 230 miles to the southwest. There were other assaults as well, especially in the northernmost Military Region I. But the Communists' main objective was clearly to create a broad corridor of control straddling Route 14, the major north-south highway in the interior of the country...
...Military Region Two, which encompasses the central part of South Viet Nam, the key cities of Pleiku and Kontum are fortress outposts in an area controlled by highly mobile North Vietnamese and Viet Cong units. In the rice-rich Mekong Delta south of Saigon, where more than one-third of South Viet Nam's population lives, Communist attacks have driven government troops out of many outposts. At the same time, a blocking maneuver aimed toward Route 4 by North Vietnamese troops threatens Saigon's vital connection with the Delta...