Word: overran
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...Communist offensive. Government positions were abandoned with scarcely a fight. Leaderless, demoralized troops dropped their weapons and joined hundreds of thousands of civilians in a panicky southward flight. In the most stunning Communist victory in more than two decades, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops and tanks on Sunday overran Danang, the country's second largest city. According to reports by South Vietnamese officials, this victory gives the Communists nearly complete control of the entire northern half of South Viet Nam; Saigon's forces now hold only a number of coastal enclaves, and it is only a matter...
...assault began with a series of attacks on bridges and roads leading from the Central Highlands to the coast-apparently an effort to cut the area's major cities and garrisons off from the rest of the country. The Communists overran six district capitals, three in the highland region, two in Military Region I and one in Military Region III, before zeroing in on their primary target: Ban Me Thuot, a sleepy Montagnard city of 80,000 and the capital of Darlac province, where in a quieter era the Emperor Bao Dai used to hunt for tiger...
...made several hazardous Channel crossings as liaison between the underground and De Gaulle's London headquarters. Named army chief of staff in 1953, he made the final unsuccessful French appeal for American intervention in France's colonial war in Indochina. When Ho Chi Minh's troops overran the French fortress of Dien Bien Phu, Ely assumed command in Indochina, and it was he who announced in Saigon the Geneva accord dividing Viet Nam at the 17th parallel. He later played a key role in De Gaulle's effort to disengage from Algeria without provoking civil...
...Communist offensive began in mid-December, when the North Vietnamese 7th Division overran the district town of Due Phong on Route 14. Gradually moving southwest, the Communist forces captured a series of government outposts, eventually pushing South Vietnamese troops into the outskirts of Phuoc Binh. Just after the New Year, the North Vietnamese began a heavy shelling of Phuoc Binh, although they allowed civilians to escape along footpaths to the South...
Ominous Change. Though Phuoc Binh itself is of little strategic importance to Saigon, the ease with which the Communists overran Phuoc Long province was a major psychological defeat. "Its fall showed that the central government in Saigon is quite weak," conceded one State Department analyst. "A year ago it would have gone in to defend or recover the place." Equally important, the offensive against Phuoc Long was an indication of an ominous change in the Communists' overall strategy in South Viet Nam. Since the Paris Accords, the Communists have concentrated on building up their hold on rural areas...