Article about Khe Sanh

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363-04676 to 363-04684.pdf
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Title
Article about Khe Sanh
Description
Original title: "Khe Sanh", Keever's title: "How Khe Sanh Became a Worldwide Headline - And a Peace-Talk Pawn." Article draft about the background of the Battle of Khe Sanh. Written for the Christian Science Monitor
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Draft transcripts were automatically generated via Google Document AI and are currently under review. Please report significant errors to Archives & Special Collections at archives@unl.edu.
Transcript
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- Page 1
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Beverly A. Deepe
38. Vo Tanh, Saigon
Khe Sanh-first of a three part series
Page 1
(This is the first of a three-part series on past and present
developments in Khe Sanh).
KHE SANH? SOUTH VIETNAM, JUNE 11-"The world caved in on Khe Sanh" at
5 a.m. on January 21, a staff officer there recalled when a small-scale Communist
indirect weapons barrage touched off the U. S. Marine ammunition dump. Like a
mid-winter blizzard, American artillery and mortar rounds flew through the air,
above-ground
descending on the American Marines who nosedived from their "hard-back",above-ground
huts
hooches into shallow trenchlines. The 77-day siege of Khe Sanh had begun--and
d
soon was exploding into worldwide headlines, especially when General William
C. Westmoreland called, the Communist countrywide Tet offensive a diversion for
a massive assault on
KhamSanim the for. four-square-mile outpost.
----more
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Deepe
Khe Sanh--page 2
Came as
The Communist bombardment as no surprise to the Marines.
had disclosed
Five weeks before,
in early December, Marine intelligence showed "Charles" (the Cenah Communists)
WAS
building up.
"The whole intelligence community was getting electric information;
talking
agents started talks and we could feel the pressure in Khe Sanh," one staff officer
explained. On December 13, the Third Bar Battalion of the 26th Marine Regiment
was helicoptered on a moment's notice to reinforce Khe Sanh--the troops arrived with
ja flak jackets and fixed bayonets--d much to the amusemont of the Marines sitting
around the camp sunbathing. The reinforcements gave the commanders "the legs"
for more active patrolling; more and more contact with "Charles" resulted and soon
the Marines verified the presence of what was believed to be two divisions "up tight"
around Khe Sanh One Communist division was 325C, an old-time unit along the
demilitarized zone, and the second was a new arrival, the 304th, Di
there
Division, an elite
unit that had been in the battle of Dien Bien Phu 14 y_ears before and earned the
nickname of "The Iron Division."
Then, on sun-up at sun-up on January 20, the first North Vietnamese Army (NVA)
defector, a lieutenant commanding an anti-air-craft company,
walked into Khe Sanh
over the east end of the runway, waving a white flag. He gave the Marines their best
Som
inteleg intelligence to date revealed the Communist battle plan to overrun attack t
QUE Marine (88150 861, 861A, 558, 950 HE
the
the
hill postions and then attack Khe Sanh, and told the Marines that 356 325C Division
was deployed The north and é west of Khe Sanh the base, especially in the 881 and 861
hill complex, and that the 304th Division was also present in the hills to the South.
more r
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Doepo
Khe Sanh-page 3
The intelligence roport on the Communist lieutenant was immediately
flown to J. Gen. Rathbon McClure Tompkins, the commanding general
of the Third Marine Division, headquartered in Dong Ha, which defends
the demilitarizod zone from Khe Sanh to the concoast. The distinguished,
highly-decorated South Carolinian judged the intelligence report to be
It was
acourate, "since we had alot to gain and nothing to lose."
the general who was soon to become the pivotal tactical commander;
he laid out his battle strategy and defense plan for Kheny Sanh and
none of his superiors-from General Westmoreland even to rumors of
President Lyndon Johnson--telephoned "the old as dad"
orders. It was he who, like
presemon,
His
to change his
subordinate Marinos and Western
made the hectic air journey to the Sanh regularly-three times
a weekend one day he recalled his holicoptor was under machinegun fire
as it approached Khe Sanh.
He shranks to the floor of the chopper
end tried to remember whether the tank mines next to him were live or
inert; he decided it did not matter and honded machinegun armo
to the doorgunner.
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Deepe
Khe Sanh-page 4
hady
Rep
Ton the
Soon after he read the Communist liete lieutenant's
had
words,
and after the
siege began, General Tompkins outlined how he ev envisioned the battle of Khe Sanh
would unravel. This outline seems now to have been the basis of the official
He said he believed the battle of Khe Sanh
American viewpoint at that time.
would evolve in four phases; the first two phases belonged to the NVA;
to the Marines.
the last two
Phase 1-the enemy reconnaissance phase"-"The enemy would bring troops in
to scout out of our positions," he said, "and he would get himself set to
probe our positions." Since early January, the Marines had already witnessed this.
Phase 2-The main battle by the enemy"-an all-out effort including "intensive
and continuous bombardment of the base and the hill positions. I visualized the
bombardment lasting at least 24 hours hours and then the assault units would try to
reach our defenses and re fences."
Phase 3-The Marines at Khe Sanh would "eject" the NVA, begin mopping up and
Phase 4 with reinforcements, the Allied forces would counter-attack.
"Until the enemy made his move we would hold our positions with four battalions,"
he explained. With his assessment of four Marine infantry battalions versus
two NVA divisions,
"we couldn't afford any adventures. I had given Col. (David)
Lownds (commander at Khe Sanh) not to patrol more than 500 meters; otherwise they'd
mousetrap our first patrol-and I'd be sending in battalions to extract the first,
The Enemy
unit. The enemy would nick and nickel and dime us to death...I decided he'd have to
come to us on the ground of our choosing"--at Khe Sanh itself.
-more
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Deepe
Khe Sanh-page 5
this
Why didn't the battle unfold as he had predicted--and as his superiors
officially publicly said they expected To ascertain this question question,
correspondent talked with American officers of the four military services involved
in the siege of Khe Sanh-the Air Force commanders,
forward air controllers and
who directed the tactical air strikes, the Navy officers diverted from missions
over North Vietnam to Khe Sanh, the Marine coma field commanders and officers
involved during the critical period and
subsequently relieved the ground siege on April 1--the same day President Johnson
reduced the bombing over North Vietnam as a prelude to the Paris peace talks.
besiege and the in
Anne
Army staff officers whose units.
a definitive
The net conclusion of these sources at this time indicated that the al
The R
analysis
istory of the Khe Sanh siege can not yet be written-that reading/history backwards
is no easier than reading it in turbulent motion. For one thing, the facts
about what the Hanoi High Command was thinking and doing at that time is not
#
may be
are kro
not known; for another the battle of Khe Sanh is still evolving--with almost daily
the interpretation
moderate-sized contact reported around the base. For another reason, events have
has
Also, on
become politically controlversial withing the official military family. On some.
of
Furthermore
specific points, military security precludes public knowledge at this time and since
its massive
the NVA never launched their mass ground assault on
one of the most controlver
Will of Khe Sanh,
controversial questions debated in the future is whether the Marines would have held out,
as General Tompkins expected, or whether it would have become another Dien Bienh Phu.
While many sources had accepted General Tompkins outline of the first two phases, they
doubed doubted his conclusion that the Marines4-mainly because of poor bunkering--could
with stood
have held out against a sustained artillery barrage syncho synchronized with a massive
ground assault.
more
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Deepe
Khe Sanh
Three main points, however, do stand out from interviews with these
first-hand military sources.
First, in early 1968, highly-placed American officials hakk knew there
was a "real and serious" threat at Khe Sanh and believed there the Communists
would try for a sensational victory as a prelude to their accepting to begin
peace talks.
This was before the view was held before the Tet offensive in
late January, in which the Communists moved dramatically to assault more than
100 South Vietnamese cities, district and provien provincial headquarters and military
The fear in the minds of official Americans was not simply that
installations.
Khe Sanh would be a victory for the Communists--and enhance their political
bargaining position during peace talks--but that they would capture a number of
Marines. One informed source explained.
"Everything we did (at Khe Sanh) was conditioned by the real fear at the highest
levels (within the American officialdom) that 5,000 Marines would be killed or
captured and that we wouldn't be able to get those prisoners back. Prisoners to
Americans are a great concem and 2,000 to 3,000 American prisoners would be a great
thing (for the Somaj Communists) at the bargaining table."
--more
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Deepe
Khe Sanh 7
No North Vietnamese
Second, the Allied commanders still do not have hard-fact, ex first-hand
evidence as to why the North Vietnamese Army did not launch their expected massive
ground assault on the base--or why they partially withdrew.
prisoner, defector or document of enough import has yet been seized to snatch a
glimmer into Hanoi's "ere "grand strategy" about Khe Sanh, informed sources report.
But, there is ample, although not conclusive evidence, to support two divergent,
altough not necessarily contradictory, schools of thought within the military
establishment.
This
The first school-the one often publicized-maintains that the 304th and
3250 Divisions did not attack because of the great weight of American firepower; in
short, "the enemy was bombed out of the hills," as one officer explained.
view is held by some Marine officers who fought at Khe Sanh and some senior Air Force
officers who claim credit for their service's expertise and efficiency. Officially,
and publicly, this view has been expounded by sucker officers
at the senior American
headquarters in Saigon and by high-ranking American officials in Washington.
Their evidence: descriptions by some NVA prisoners, defectors and documents of the
impact of American firepower.
-more
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- Page 8
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Deepe
Khe Cari
The second school, more subtle, controversial and less publicized, maintains
that the whole Khe Sanh affair in early 1968-although the Communists did pose a
real and serious threat--was primarily a divi diversion; specifically, that Khe Sanh
was the diversionary effort which allowed Communists troops in the northern pri
provinces to charge into Hue and towards Quant Quang Tri city; and more generally,
that Khe Sanh was a symbol of the Communist border strategy, which sought to divert
Allied command attention there, while, in fact, the Communists shifted their
military effort into the populated heartland of government areas. Their evidence:
captured prisoners and documents indicated at least two regiments from the suspected
Communist divisions around Khe Sanh were actually fighting in Hue in February-
rather than laying siege to Khe Sanh. These two schools of though will be discussed
in detail in subs the following two articles.
The third main point is the "battle of Khe Sanh" may bax still be evolving.
There is still significant and regular contact around the base camp; there are still
eight to ten Communist battalions-roughly the equivalent of an infantry division--around
Khe Sanh. The Communists are known to be reinforcing the area, particularly on the
are BEEVED to
Laotian flank, and have sent in at least one new regiment of the 308th Division.
More sophisticated anti-aircraft weapons have been spotted in the area. The Communist
artillery located in Laos, that continually pounded Khe Sanh during the se siege, is
still there--and still pump pumping several hundred rounds a week into the base camp
that now houses only 2000 Marines,
more
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Deepe
Khe Sanh-page 9
But, Khe Sanh has changed. The siege is o state of siege has been broken for the
time being. The Marines are on the offensive. In effect, Khe Sanh has come full
circle, becoming again a small operating base from which infantry battalions patrol
the hills and attempt to keep open the only road, Route 9. This was the
role of Khe Sanh in 1967, --before its siege days.
Khe Sanh is no longer dependent
on airsupply-in fact, supply aircraft are rarely welcomed at Khe Sanh because they
draw enemy fire-but significant ambushes of supply convoys and patrols
occur along Route 9, where Marine units are positioned at 18 bridges and culverts
to keep the road open.
Can there be another Khe Sanh? siege? Even those senior sources who believe
in the tremendous deterránce of American firepower say yes. "The NVA are still around
Khe Sanh and they're operating in mult- multi-battalion force,"
General Tompkins
explained. Or as another informed source explained: "There can be another Khe
Sanh (siege) anywhere along the DMZ. Con Thien could become one. It could happen
anywhere if the Communists want to spend the manpower."
NO
But, the Marines would probably use different tactics. They might be more will
to consider withdrawing from another base operating base, rather than becoming
besieged. When Indicative of this thinking was the decision high-level decision
to destroy Khe Sanh when the siege was officially lifted on April 1. Keh Key officers
knowledgeable in the lay out of the camp and skilled in demolitions were sent into
Khe Sa the base camp "to blow Khe Sanh off the map," as one explained. But, at the las
moment, with the Paris peace talks shaping up, the decision was rescinded because
it "wasn't the right political moment to relinquish terrain," one source said.
-end
Date
1968, Jun. 11
Subject
Khé Sanh (Vietnam); Khe Sanh, 2nd Battle of, Vietnam, 1968; Tet Offensive, 1968; Vietnam War, 1961-1975
Location
Khe Sanh, South Vietnam
Coordinates
16.6193; 106.7323
Size
20 x 26 cm
Container
B10, F38
Format
dispatches
Collection Number
MS 363
Collection Title
Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers
Creator
Keever, Beverly Deepe
Copyright Information
These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.
Publisher
Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries
Language
English