Authors: Nigel Cawthorne
By this point, 3/187th were on the brink of mutiny.
'There were lots of people in Bravo Company who were going to refuse to go up again,' recalled one GI. 'There'd been low morale, but never before so low – because we felt it was all so senseless'.
Despite this, on 20 May, a four-battalion attack was organised with the 2nd Battalion of the 501st Infantry and the 2nd Battalion of the 3rd ARVN joining the assault. They fought from bunker to bunker in combat so close that air support was out of the question. But, by the end of the day, the men of the 187th were in control of what was left of Hamburger Hill. Colonel Honeycutt could not praise his men enough.
'My boys were really doing their jobs,' he said. 'I love every one of them'.
It was not reciprocated. Some 50 GIs had lost their lives on Hamburger Hill, and 40 had been wounded. And after the hill had been secured and the bunker complexes searched and destroyed, the peak was abandoned. On a piece of cardboard pinned to a tree along with a black 101st neckerchief, an unknown GI left the scrawled message: 'Hamburger Hill. Was it worth it?'
Back in Washington, DC, Senator Edward Kennedy did not think so. He pointed out that Hamburger Hill had no strategic value and he called the attack 'senseless and irresponsible'.
Soon after,
Life
magazine published the photographs of the 242 young Americans killed in a single week in the war that the Nixon administration was committed to ending. After Hamburger Hill, General Abrams ordered that American troops should instigate no more full-scale actions. For different reasons Hanoi issued similar orders.
If Hamburger Hill proved anything it was that Westmoreland's concept of 'big unit' engagement had finally been discredited. Vietnamisation was proceeding apace. Between 1968 and 1971, the ARVN grew from 820,000 to over a million men. Their heavy World War II-vintage M1 rifles were replaced by lightweight M16s, which were a reasonable match for the Communists' outstanding AK-47. While the ARVN performed well on incursions into Cambodian territory, they did less well at home where the largely city-dwelling ARVN did not win the hearts and minds of the villagers, who they often stole from. A 1969 study found that ARVN soldiers had upset the civilian population in almost half of South Vietnam's hamlets. Their attempts to move peasants into safe areas to limit VC influence was also heavy-handed.
'Putting the people behind barbed wire against their will is not the first step to earning loyalty and support, especially if there is no concentrated effort at political education and village development,' one US study said.
The ARVN also suffered a huge number of desertions. In 1970, over 100,000 men, more than 10 per cent of its strength, deserted, failed to return from leave, or defected to the Vietcong. On the other hand, the VC was not what it had been. Attacks by Communist units fell from 318 in 1969 to 295 in 1970 and 187 in 1971. By 1971, the insurgency was largely confined to ten provinces and more than one million refugees had been able to return home. The Tet Offensive and the Phoenix Program had destroyed the VC command structure – along with a great many innocent people – and with peace talks going on in Paris the Communist soldiers, like their American counterparts, did not want to be the last one to die in the conflict. During 1969–70, the number of VC taking advantage of the amnesty offered by the South Vietnamese government soared. Only a small percentage of these deserters were genuine, according to the US head of the pacification programme William Colby, but even this small number marked significant progress. Even so Communist forces kept up the pressure in Vietnam despite the death of Ho Chi Minh in September 1969. President Thieu attempted to sue for peace by offering elections that would include the NLF, but Vice-President Ky warned that any attempt to form a coalition with the NLF would result in another military coup.
In America, the split in public opinion over the war grew more entrenched when Lieutenant Calley was charged with murder over the My Lai Massacre. Nixon announced the withdrawal of a further 35,000 troops but on 15 October 1969, 'Moratorium Day', hundreds of thousands of Americans demonstrated against the seemingly endless war. To still the protest Nixon made a televised speech promising an 'orderly scheduled timetable' for US troop withdrawals. It did little to quell public feeling. Two weeks later, a quarter of a million people attended an anti-war demonstration in Washington. Despite continuing troop withdrawals, US casualties continued to rise, topping 40,000 by the end of 1969.
The morale of the US troops was now at breaking point. At the beginning of the war, they had faced a guerrilla army, who hit then ran away, and they had longed for a conventional battle where they could use their superior firepower to defeat the enemy. But when they did meet the NVA in set-piece battles, they found that the enemy could suffer enormous casualties without breaking. The Communists mounted a new offensive in January 1970, attacking over a hundred bases with missile fire. Nixon responded by pounding the Ho Chi Minh trail with B-52s. The NVA began a major offensive in Laos and reports circulated that the US was bombing Laos in support of the anti-Communist government there. Many feared Nixon intended to extend the war, although Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird stated that the President would ask for Congressional approval if US ground troops were to be sent into Laos. This was disingenuous. The country had been politically unstable since the withdrawal of the French in 1954, a civil war raged there throughout the 1960s. Both the North Vietnamese and the US covertly took a hand in the fighting and Laos found itself inexorably dragged into the war in Southeast Asia.
In the Geneva Accords of July 1954 that ended the French presence in Indochina, Laos had been set up as an independent country, a buffer state between Western-orientated Thailand and Communist North Vietnam. A royalist government was set up under Prince Souvana Phouma in Vientiane, the capital of Laos. From the beginning he faced opposition from his half-brother Prince Souphanouvong, leader of the Communist guerrilla army, the Pathet Lao – 'Land of the Laos' – that controlled the northern provinces along the Chinese border.
With the Cold War at its height, armed conflict between these two factions seemed inevitable. But most Lao opposed this and a strong neutralist faction grew up, with the aim of keeping out foreign influences that might turn fraternal rivalry into full-blown civil war.
In 1957, Souvana Phouma and Souphanouvong tried to work together in a coalition, but they soon fell out. Souvana Phouma and the Neutralists turned against Souphanouvong and received American backing for their anti-Communist stance. In 1959, the right-wing General Phoumi Nosavan entered the fray. He seized control in 1960, only to be ousted by Captain Kong Le, who was backed by the Neutralists and Souvana Phouma. Fearing that the Neutralists were cooking up a secret deal with the North Vietnam-backed Communists, America shifted its support to General Nosavan.
A new peace conference was convened in Geneva in 1961 and the following year a new agreement was drawn up. Under it, Laos was to remain neutral. This was to be ensured by a tripartite government comprising the Neutralists under Souvana Phouma, the rightists and the Pathet Lao. Again the arrangement was not destined to last.
In 1964, the coalition split and civil war broke out. Both the North Vietnamese and the US used this to increase their influence. The Vietnamese Communists had vital interests in Laos, particularly the Ho Chi Minh trail, which for most of its length ran through Laotian territory. On the other hand, it was vital for the US to break this supply route. Consequently Laos was drawn into the larger war. Covertly, America began bombing Laos to try and stop supplies getting through, further destabilising the country. The CIA armed anti-Communist guerrillas in Laos and formed the ethnically distinct Meo tribesmen into guerrilla army to fight the Pathet Lao. The CIA airlines Air America and Continental Airways provided a fleet of some 60 aircraft to supply anti-Communist guerrillas in Laos via a network of 200 grass airstrips, and the CIA also recruited the best officers from the Royal Laotian Army and used them to set up Auxiliary Defense Companies and thirty-man Special Guerrilla Units that were used in action on the Ho Chi Minh trail. The Green Berets and their Civilian Irregular Defense Forces from South Vietnam were also used in cross-border operations into Laos. When America pulled out of Southeast Asia, these men were left to their fate. Many fought on against the Communists and were wiped out.
US Air Force detachments stripped of all identification manned radio beacons in the mountains along the Vietnamese border to direct American bombers against targets in North Vietnam. These were attacked and, in some cases, overrun by the NVA. Forward Air Controllers were also infiltrated into Laos to direct raids on the Ho Chi Minh trail.
In 1971 there was an incursion into Laos, ostensibly by the ARVN, codenamed Lam Son 719 after a historic Vietnamese victory. Although American ground troops were barred from entering Laos by Congress, the operation was conceived by the White House and planned by US commanders in Saigon. It was begun by a US Air Force bombing raid that flattened the Laotian city of Tchepone. However, the South Vietnamese force that went in was dangerously understrength. Inexperienced ARVN troops were met with a full-scale counter-attack by the battle-hardened North Vietnamese Army. They suffered 50 per cent losses and were forced to withdraw. The US had been confined to a supporting role, but still lost 107 helicopters and 176 aircrew. The debacle left Laos wide open to the North Vietnamese who used it as a springboard for their Easter Offensive in South Vietnam the following year.
The other result of the incursion into Laos was that it helped convinced Pentagon analyst Daniel Ellsberg that the Nixon administration had no intention of ending the war. So he sent copies of the Pentagon papers detailing the government's deception and incompetence in the conduct of the war to the newspapers.
Cambodia was also dragged into the war. Like Vietnam and Laos, Cambodia had been part of French Indochina. When the French left in 1954, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, hereditary ruler of Cambodia, was recognised as the legitimate authority there. However, he was opposed by both Democrats and Communists. In 1955, Sihanouk quit and formed his own socialist party. He won the backing of former Democrat supporters and, with the help of numerous electoral abuses organised by the police, won every seat in the national assembly. As trouble brewed in Vietnam, Sihanouk tried to keep Cambodia scrupulously neutral. At first he courted the US, then when American troops moved into South Vietnam he shifted towards China. As it became clear that the Vietnamese Communists were going to win the war, he allowed them to uses supply routes and bases along the border, believing that the Chinese would prevent them threatening his position.
After the Tet Offensive, General Westmoreland sought approval for attacks on Communist bases in Cambodia. Sensing the danger, Sihanouk began rebuilding his bridges with the US. He invited Jacqueline Kennedy to visit the ancient temples at Angkor Wat and gave an interview to the
Washington Post
, inviting President Johnson to send a special envoy to Cambodia. Sihanouk offered Johnson the right of 'hot pursuit' of the Vietcong and NVA into uninhabited areas of Cambodia, provided no Cambodians were hurt. Johnson did not take Sihanouk up on the offer, but it was still on the table when Nixon came to power. He proposed a secret 'short-duration' bombing campaign against Vietnamese strongholds in Cambodia. Sihanouk's military supplied the intelligence for the raids. However, the bombing continued for fourteen months and strayed into inhabited areas. As Cambodian casualties rose, Sihanouk found his country being destabilised.
In March 1970, when Sihanouk was out of the country, his pro-American prime minister General Lon Nol staged a bloodless, US-backed coup. Lon Nol's ill-trained troops attacked the Vietnamese bases and, for good measure, massacred half a million Vietnamese civilians who had peacefully settled in Cambodia, sending their bodies floating down the Mekong. The NVA counter-attacked, forcing the Cambodians back. Two days later, the US began the illegal bombing and shelling of Vietnamese camps in Cambodia in direct violation of Cambodia's neutrality. Then the ARVN went in. The NVA response was renewed attacks on US positions in Vietnam. Nixon announced a further withdrawal of a further 150,000 men by the following spring. At the same time, he sent US troops into Cambodia in support of the ARVN – ostensibly at the 'invitation' of Lon Nol. Nixon promised to 'scrupulously observe the neutrality of the Cambodian people', but the ARVN had no such scruples. After Lon Nol's massacre of the ethnic Vietnamese, they wanted revenge – and not just against the NVA.
The North Vietnamese fled ahead of the American invasion, only turning to make a stand at the small Cambodia market town of Snuol. This brought into the language of the Vietnam War a new verb, 'to snuol', to obliterate completely. Over 90 per cent of the town was reduced to rubble and cinders by a two-day bombardment of rockets, shells, and napalm. Nearby, US forces found a huge NVA compound in the jungle. The jungle canopy concealed bunker systems, log huts, cycle paths, bamboo walkways, garages for trucks, street signs, mess halls, pig farm, chickens, a firing range – even a swimming pool. The grunts nicknamed the two-square-mile complex 'The City'. There were more than 400 thatched huts, sheds and bunkers stuffed with food, clothes, and medical supplies. In the area, 182 caches of weapons and ammunition were found, including one containing 480 rifles and another with 120,000 rounds of ammunition.
A few days later a helicopter spotted four trucks on a jungle trail. Ground troops went in and, after a fierce firefight, the NVA scattered, leaving behind the biggest cache taken in the war. It contained over 6.5 million rounds of anti-aircraft ammunition, thousands of rockets, half a million rifle rounds, several General Motors trucks, and even a telephone switchboard. The grunts called it Rock Island East, after the Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois. But Nixon had promised something more. Across the border in Cambodia, he said, lay 'the headquarters for the entire Communist military operation in South Vietnam', the fabled COSVN. MACV had a precise map reference for it, but it wasn't there. So it was claimed that The City was it. However, none of the documents or headquarters infrastructure were found there that would back that claim.