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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-05257 to 363-05271.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-05257 to 363-05271
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Title
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First article on the encirclement and psychological warfare operations of the U.S. Army
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Description
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Original title: "donut", Keever's title: "'Donut-Making' Encirclements [?]", Article draft about encirclement tactics used in Vietnam, for the Christian Science Monitor, page 1-15
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AI Usage Disclosure
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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.
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Transcript
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zczc sag
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donut 1 (normass/deepe)
(This is the first of a two-part series on the synchronized military
encirclement and psychological warfare operations of the 1st Brigade,
U. S. Army 9th Infantry Division).
TAN AN, SOUTH VIETNAM, SEPTEMBER 25--The words "checkerboard,"
"jitterbugging" and "donut-making" are common American G. I.
expressions here. The terms do not refer to any fun-filled evenings of
relaxation, but instead to the successful refinement of well-coordinated
military and psychological operations.
"Checkerboard" and "jittergu "jitterbugging" refer to the small-unit
hunts by the American brigade to find Communist bands or organized units;
once a Communist unit of some size is found, then American infantry
companies "pile on" around them to make a "donut" of complete
encirclement to block escape routes.
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donut 2 (normass/deepe)
For the American troopers who must wade through the waist-deep
mud of the upper Mekong Delta, the watchword for them is to keep their eye
on the hole-where the Communists are-rather than on the donut formed by
U. S. cop companies.
The 1st Brigade of the U. S. 9th Infantry Division has thus far
successfully engaged the Communist organized battalions in Long An province-the
gateway to the Mekong Delta situated less than 15 miles south of Saigon, and has
secured the southern arc of the capital's defense. Flying at 1800 feet altitude,
Helicopt
American commanders can often look out on3 one door of their command
to give orders battlefield orders to their units below--and.
CHOPPER
bebicopters
R
look out the other door of the
ter to see the high-rise skyline of
Saigon.
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donut 3 (normass/deepe)
"Our tactical encirclements have evolved over the past four or five
months," one 1st Brigade officer explained. "Encirclements are classical
military tactics which have been on the books for a long time.
"But, here we have been coming out with a new edition. We emphasis
more firepower and more psyops (psychological operations) with the idea of
American units surrounding the enemy completely so that he must make the
BEING
choice of surrendering or else killed."
The synchronizedem emphasis of the 1st Brigade's tactics is significantly
following po.
characterized by these peines
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donut 4 (normass/deepe)
Fest,
Ax Concentrated usage of every availal available electronic,
airborne and human means of tracking down Communist units. These means
include treetop level helicopter reconnaissance, small small-unit
reconnessi reconnassance by aero-riflemen, intellgience intelligence
reports from villagers or prisoners, people-sniffing machines that detect
human ef chemicals in non-populated areas /sn and ground radar trac trackings.
Once a Communist unit is tracked down, then American infantry companies
are heli-dropped into the area to encircle it.
In the past, the emphasis
was on using American larger American infantry units on search-and-destroy
sweeps to find the Communists-and then to fight them. But, the exhaustive,
time-consuming job was first finding the elusive Communists, rather than
engaging him.
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donut 5 (normass/deepe)
2. Once the Communist units have been locat pinpointed, then
American commanders begin the encircle-or "making the donut"--by using
overwhelin overwhelmingly superior numbers of American troops to prevent
the Communist escape, using helicopter mobility to move the troops in
quickly-using firepower supr superiority of air, artillery and gunships to
instead of ground troops to fight the Communists. Sometimes as Once,
as many as 17 American companies were shuttled in to encircle a reinforced
Communist companies; sometimes the shuttling of American troops in the
battlefield encirclement takes as long as 12 hours, and runs is finished
during night-time under the light of illuminating flares.
In the past,
The encirclement alleviates or solves one of the problems of the past.
"before, whever we found the Communists, they were so elusive, they'd just
fall through the crcke oro cracks, as we used to say, and he'd avaly
always escape, one 1st Brigade officer explained. "So, they we began
envolv evolving our encirclement concept to prevent this."
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donut (normass/deepe)
Well-coordinated emphasis on psychological operations during the
encirclement to coax or convince the Communists either to voluntarily
give up or to become surrender as prisoners of war.
"We'd
much rather capture the enemy or cause him to surrender than
to kill him, " an American 6 officer explained. "Our dream is to get a
whole unit to defect to us-ratyer has rather than getting a high
bodycounty by killing them all.
"Some of over prisoners and defectors have said they were afraid to
die--this is their most common statement. So, during the battles, we try to
emphasize that they have a choice-either to either be killed or that they
I do not have to die that they will be treated well if they surrender to us.
We use the doctrine that 'this-is-your-last-chance-to-be-saved". It does not
always work, but we keep trying."
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The results of the refinement and coordination of the donut operations
has been a an impressive, if not consistently remarkable, kill ratio
for the 1st Brigade-generally more than 20 Communists killed and captured
for every American killed in action. For the first 19 days of September, the
Brigade has killed 303 Communists, captured 50 individuals and 182
weapons.
Eighteen Americans were killed in this time period-and 100 wounded.
Even with this lop-sided kill-ration, however, American commanders
are unhappy at that rate, roughly sixty or seventy per cent of the
American br brigade fighting in the rice paddies will be killed or wounded
in action within a year's time.
American commanders believe they actually kill even more Communists
than they keep count of only those bodies that are physically recovered
are counted; no estimates of others killed are allowed; Communists who
are wounded, but not captured are not tallied; the battlefield bodycount
of the brigade is not exaggerated as the American command in Saigon
had allowed at times in the past. The commanders admit that being
"bodycount oriented" is an inadequate way to measure their work in the
province, but that as long as the brigade's mission is destruction of
Communist big-unit formations,
index of their effectiveness.
it seems to be the single most appropriate
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donut 8 (normass/deepe)
Since the brigade assumed responsibility for big-unit fighting in
Long An province on June 23, the it has so weakened so badly three of the
eight Communist battalions in the province they have merged with other battalions
and has whittled down a third battalion to 37 men.
"Three months ago, there were six enemy battalions active in the area,
province, excluding a guerrillas and district companies," one brigade
officer explained. "And since then they have reinforced with two more
entire battalions and elements of another to total more than eight battalions.
"Now there are four battalions combat effective and able to
meanterer maneuver at all. And the average strength of these four battalions
are down from 300 men to 150 men each. We have also emphasized taking prisoners
of war--and have been relatively successful at that."
AMERICAN
The brigade would in time be able to win the big-unit var in Long An-
except for constant reinforcements filtering back into the area.
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donut 9 (normass/deepe)
"But, now we're getting a big influx of North Vietnamese in down here,"
the officer continued. "Many of the battalions in the province have just
come back from Cambodia for refitting, retraining and replacements.
Many of their replacements are now North Vietnamese, where before they
mothe the units were predominantly local Viet Cong. In early June,
about 20 per cent of the composition of the units here were North Vietnamese;
HAVE
now the battalions here are 50 per cent or more North Vietnamese troops and
30 to 40 per cent of their commanders are North Vietnamese.
"In early June, one North Vietnamese replacement unit came into Long
An with 500 men. e caught it their first day in the province and hit them four
days in a row, killing 300 of them. That battalion was broken up and the 200
survivors were redistributed to the local force battalions.
"Now, the enemy is avoiding contact and is breaking up into platoons; many
of our recent contacts are less than platoon strength (roughly 30 men). When
our i brigade proves and finds the Communist units, we smash them--so the
alternative for the enemy is to fragment. It becomes increasingly difficult to
find and fight him. A week ago,
the Communists began to get up and run we
when we came into an area. This was unique; usually they hide until night and
The last two times, they started jumping in the streams to
then sneak away.
get away from us
and the helicopter gunships would shoot them up."
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donut 10 (normass/deepe)
Since mid-June, the brigade has launched 18 to 20 encirclement
donut" encirclement operations, of which about half dozen were significantly
fruitful for them. One of these was on August 12 and 13, when the 520th
Viet Cong local force battalion was contacted.
More than 100 Communist
on the battlefield,
bodies and several prisoners were recovered the
mak mainly from the use of artillery and C/S tear non-lethal tear gas-vomiting
gas that was dropped consistently throughout the night. Often, as much as
2000 rounds of artillery are pounded it into the hole of the donut throughout
one night as a means of routing out the Communists or inducing them to surrender.
On another occasion, 17 companies were rushed into in to form the
donut; the results were 93 Communists dead, four def voluntary defectors,
14 prisoners of war and a number of weapons.
in action and 23 wounded.
American losses were 11 killed
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The "checkerboard" technique was used by the brigade before arriving
in Long An province, while it was operating near the Cambodian border in the
non-populated, marshy prairies of the Plain of Reeds. Then, the bir
brigade commander heli-dropped a handful of American troops into each
of the one ll one kilometer grid squares on his map of their area of
responsibility. Each small unit swept their its individual grid square
as a thorough means of a finding the Communists.
This technique was later modified in the more diversified terrain of
Long An province into a an "advanced checkerboard," which became known
as "jitterbugging." Instead of using infantry troops to sweep each grid square
on the made, the brigade placed more emephasis on the problem of detecting
the Communists by more sophisticated and synst systematic means.
Each morning the brigade staff scrutinized all the their rada ground
radar and intelligence data from the prvou previous night. Then, it dispatched
ten helicopters to these hotspots. These ten helicopters formed the
brigad brigades's Air Cavalry unit and included one peoplep people-sniffing
helicopter, three light scout helicopters, several armed gunships for
protection and four troop-carrying helicopters loaded with their organis
organic rifle platoon.
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dnak
donut 12 (normass/deepe)
If the people-sniffing helicopter, which detected human ammonia body
ede odors, got a "hot reading" from the non-populated area,
then tear gas
cannisters were dropped by the scout helicopters which hovered so low over
the nipa palms that the back blast from the engine brushed aside the palm leaves
hiding the Communists. If the target still looked suspicious, the airborne
rifle platoon was dropped in to inspect. If contact was developed with the
Communists, then "jitterbugging" was employed. Another covey of 10
ten helicopters carried two-thirds of an infantry company-about 60 or 70 men-
and the battalion commander would insert troops from either five of these
hoep helicopters or else all ten of them to sweep through the area.
commander inserted all ten
however,
sen
,
and the target was insignificant,
he had wasted his air mobility; the American units could travel no faster
in the waist-deep rice paddies than the Communists. Generally, only five
troops from only five helicopters were inserted, with the the other five
kept on airborne alert. Then, if the initial target turned out to be
insignificant, the troops from the five airborne helicopters were rushed
elsewhere to search out another hop hotspot area, while the ground troops
on
the ground were picked up by their five helicopters.
If the
then
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donut 13 (normass/deepe)
"All this hopping around with multiple insertions to sweep many targets
with a minimum of time and human fatigue became known to the brigade as the
jitterbug technique," one officer explain explained. "Sometimes we make
17 of these small insetions in one day throughout the brigade just to find a
good Communist target.
"If we make contact with troops from the first five helicopters, then
the first major decision to be made is whether this contact is just a few
snipers or if it is a big unit that should be encircled. The brigade
commander must decide this-and if it is really a hot target, then he
come commits every company in the brigade and a few times we've even
received help from companies in another brigade.
thus far,
of
we
"We've had 18 to 20 successful encircles encirclements
which six were really significant. If we get an early morning contact,
have the whole day to pile on the other companies. But sometimes we must
insert during the night-time, using illumination. We do not have enough
helicopters to move all the brigade at one time-so the choppers shuttle
the /troops into the donut area for hours at a time.
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decision
"Then the key question is to make subsequent insetio insertions far enough
away from the contact area to block/ the major routes of exit. But the
Communists are not in a neat configuration in neat little nipa palem. api
palms If we try a narrow encirclement,
other insetio insertions will be
Also the use of tactical air and
and our problems of indirect
tied down and won't cut the escape routes.
artillery is very tricky in such a small area
fire are compounded ten fold.
meters from the first contact
By nightfall, we might
DONUT
"Generally we insert troops 1000 to 1500
and then bring in subsequent lifts to plug the gaps.
have 10 or 11 companies 1 (roughly 1000 x troops) in a circle narrowed
Then, during the night, they
Down
to 600 to 800 meters long by nightfall.
we pour artillery into the hole of the donut; this is such a this demands
such great accuracy that the artillery commander helicopters over the area
and personally directs the battery fire. During the night we may fire
2000 rounds into the middle of the donut. We haven't had any American casulaties
artillery errors yet, but sometimes the rounds come in so close that the
artillery fragments Berubeh the American troops. After the all-night
bombardment, the troops at dawn begin sweeping the area.
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American officers concede that the donut operations are suited to the
flat terrain of the rice-paddies, where the "det "delta region is
one giant landing zone for our helicopters." In the jungled highlands,
suitable places to land troop-carrying helicopters are limited,
would constrict an American commander attempting encirclement or "jitterbugging"
in this area.
and this
Thus far, the Communists have not developed a consistent counter-domut
plan, although they have in some areas foiled the team American moves.
If there is not a high density of American troops, some times the Communists--
especially local guerrillas, rather than North Vietnam Vietnamese-share
still manage to sneak out of the donut under ma the nipa palm leaves or
through the streams. In other cases, the Communists allow the American
troops to come as close as two year ye yards from their bunkerline before
fining opening centeet
American killed or wounded
troops so near the bunkerlines prevent use of airplan air and artillery bombardments.
The So far,
the Communists have not attempted to break out of the encircelemnts
be of the be brigade by massing all their forces inside the hole of the donut
and spearheading a drive on one point of the donut. But, the Communists have
MAD
used/ this technique to break out of an encirclement by the U. S. Army 101st
Airborne Brigade in the nigr neighboring province of Hau M Nghia--and a bloody,
human wave attache
LEF
maximum
103 Communists and 30 Americans dead.
D. D
-end reuter
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Date
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1968, Sep. 25
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Subject
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United States. Army. Infantry Division, 9th; Vietnam War, 1961-1975; Guerilla warfare; Strategy; Tactics
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Location
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Tân An, South Vietnam
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Coordinates
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10.5366, 106.4130
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Size
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20 x 26 cm
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Container
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B10, F39
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Format
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dispatches
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Collection Number
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MS 363
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Collection Title
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Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers
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Creator
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Copyright Information
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These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.
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Publisher
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Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries
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Language
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English
