Word: saigon
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...troops able to regroup in Nha Trang. Throughout the central region, five of seven ranger groups were put out of action, two of four cavalry regiments and eight of twelve artillery battalions; 100 air force planes were also lost. In all, roughly half of Saigon's 179,000 troops in the area were out of action. Of 8,000 regional and popular forces in Pleiku, only 55 men were able to reassemble in Tuy Hoa. "The headquarters are full of officers," said one Vietnamese journalist, "but all their soldiers have gone...
...Ranh abruptly cut off escape routes. In international waters just offshore, U.S. cargo ships waited, unable to move in any closer to pick up the fleeing people. About 60,000, mostly defeated soldiers, made it to Ham Tan and Vung Tau, a coastal resort 50 miles southeast of Saigon that the French called Cap Saint-Jacques...
Fearful that the flood of refugees would only complicate the defense of Saigon and probably bring countless infiltrators in its wake, the government tried to seal off the capital. The road leading from Vung Tau was blockaded, and plans were afoot to resettle refugees in the Mekong Delta. But little was being done to provide food and shelter for the throngs at Vung Tau or even regroup the disbanded soldiers when they arrived...
There were some brave attempts to rally confidence. In a television speech beamed from Saigon, President Thieu aggressively, if unconvincingly, declared, "We must attack and retake the lands captured by the Communists." General Frederick C. Weyand, U.S. Army Chief of Staff who last week ended a seven-day visit to Viet Nam undertaken at President Ford's request, confidently told newsmen that ARVN "still has the spirit and the capability to defeat the North Vietnamese...
Privately, however, Pentagon officials?including Weyand himself, according to some reports?were deeply pessimistic about South Viet Nam's ability to defend what remains of its territory. True, the government has the equivalent of seven divisions within a 50-mile radius of Saigon, including the 4,000 men of the airborne division that moved down from Danang two weeks ago; there are also some 175,000 popular-force and regional-force soldiers, but Saigon's combat-ready troops are outnumbered by the North Vietnamese forces that have been massing in the capital military region over the past several weeks. Small...