[140] Total US casualties during the operation were 92 killed, 667 wounded, and five missing. The deaths of U.S. Air Force personnel, estimated between five and 20, are also omitted. The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. But Pisor also pointed out that 205 is a completely false number. One had to meet certain criteria before being officially considered KIA at Khe Sanh. [129][130] Nevertheless, according to Tom Johnson, President Johnson was "determined that Khe Sanh [would not] be an 'American Dien Bien Phu'". Operation Pegasus: ~20,000 (1st Air Cavalry and Marine units), U.S. losses:At Khe Sanh: 274 killed2,541 wounded (not including ARVN Ranger, RF/PF, Forward Operation Base 3 US Army and Royal Laotian Army losses)[15]Operation Scotland I and Operation Pegasus: 730 killed2,642 wounded,7 missing[15]Operation Scotland II (15 April 1968 July 1968):485 killed2,396 wounded[1]USAF:5 ~ 20 killed, wounded unknown[1]Operation Charlie for the final evacuation:At least 11 marines killed, wounded unknown[1] Westmoreland had been forwarding operational plans for an invasion of Laos since 1966. That was accomplished, but the casualties absorbed by the North Vietnamese seemed to negate any direct gains they might have obtained. At the same time, the 304th Division withdrew to the southwest. It reveals that the nuclear option was discounted because of terrain considerations that were unique to South Vietnam, which would have reduced the effectiveness of tactical nuclear weapons. The Battle of Khe Sanh began 50 years ago this week when roughly 20,000 North Vietnamese troops surrounded an isolated combat base . Click to View Online Archive The Battle of Khe Sanh was conducted northwestern Quaag Tri Province, South Vietnam, between January 21 and July 9, 1968 during the Vietnam War. For example, I served with a Marine heavy mortar battery at Khe Sanh during the siege. [99] The relief effort was not launched until 15:00, and it was successful. The Marines at KSCB credited 40% of intelligence available to their fire-support coordination center to the sensors. The village of Khe Sanh was the seat of government of Hng Hoa district, an area of Bru Montagnard villages and coffee plantations about 7 miles (11km) from the Laotian frontier on Route 9, the northernmost transverse road in South Vietnam. TBKQS / Trung tm TBKQS - BQP - H Ni: QND, 2004. The ground troops had been specially equipped for the attack with satchel charges, tear gas, and flame throwers. Two days later, the PAVN 273rd Regiment attacked a Special Forces camp near the border town of Loc Ninh, in Bnh Long Province. Contribute to chinapedia/wikipedia.en development by creating an account on GitHub. Marine Khe Sanh veteran Peter Brush is Vietnam Magazines book review editor. WALKI NA WZGRZU: PIERWSZA BITWA KHE SANH Edwarda F. Murphy'ego - twarda okadka w bardzo dobrym stanie | Books & Magazines, Books | eBay! History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. On March 6, two U.S. Air Force C-123 cargo airplanes departed Da Nang Air Base en route to Khe Sanh. [125] On the night of 28 February, the combat base unleashed artillery and airstrikes on possible PAVN staging areas and routes of advance. A press release prepared on the following day (but never issued), at the height of Tet, showed that he was not about to be distracted. They attacked 36 of 44 provincial capitals, 64 district capitals, five of the six major cities, and more than two dozen airfields and bases. [110], As more infantry units had been assigned to defend KSCB, artillery reinforcement kept pace. Lownds feared that PAVN infiltrators were mixed up in the crowd of more than 6,000, and lacked sufficient resources to sustain them. [122] The majority of these were around the southern and southeastern corners of the perimeter, and formed part of a system that would be developed throughout the end of February and into March until they were ready to be used to launch an attack, providing cover for troops to advance to jumping-off points close to the perimeter. Khe Sanh was situated on Route 9, the major east-west highway. Consequently, and unknown at the time, Operation Scotland became the starting point of the Battle of Khe Sanh in terms of Marine casualty reporting. After failing to respond to a challenge, they were fired upon and five were killed outright while the sixth, although wounded, escaped. Military History Institute of Vietnam, p. 222. He made his final appearance in the story of Khe Sanh on 23 May, when his regimental sergeant major and he stood before President Johnson and were presented with a Presidential Unit Citation on behalf of the 26th Marines. The last of the American casualties were finally lifted off Hill 861 on March 17. North Vietnamese Army gained control of the Khe Sanh region after the American withdrawal. Both sides suffered major casualties with both claiming victory of their own. Two further attacks later in the morning were halted before the PAVN finally withdrew. Soon after, another shell hit a cache of tear gas, which saturated the entire area. [128] They also reported 1,436 wounded before mid-March, of which 484 men returned to their units, while 396 were sent up the Ho Chi Minh Trail to hospitals in the north. The dead men have been described as wearing Marine uniforms; that they were a regimental commander and his staff on a reconnaissance; and that they were all identified, by name, by American intelligence. [118], On the night of the fall of Lang Vei, three companies of the PAVN 101D Regiment moved into jump-off positions to attack Alpha-1, an outpost west of the Combat Base held by 66 men of Company A, 1st Platoon, 1/9 Marines. Telfer, Rogers, and Fleming, pp. [39], On 24 April 1967, a patrol from Bravo Company became engaged with a PAVN force of an unknown size north of Hill 861. Declassified documents show that in response, Westmoreland considered using nuclear weapons. U.S. Marines and their allies killed thousands of NVA, but to solve the riddle of Khe Sanh, you have to recount the numbers. It claimed, however, that only three American advisors were killed during the action. Khe Sanh had long been responsible for the defense of Lang Vei. That appraisal was later altered when the PAVN was found to be moving major forces into the area. Ho Chi Minhs oft-quoted admonition to the French applied equally to the Americans: You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours, but even at those odds, you will lose and I will win. The calculation by Stubbe that approximately 1,000 Americans died on the Khe Sanh battlefield is especially compelling, given that Stubbes numbers are accompanied by names and dates of death. Following a rolling barrage fired by nine artillery batteries, the Marine attack advanced through two PAVN trenchlines, but the Marines failed to locate the remains of the men of the ambushed patrol. [66] Hours after the bombardment ceased, the base was still in danger. How many American soldiers died in the Battle of Ia Drang? [12], Following the closure of the base, a small force of Marines remained around Hill 689 carrying out mopping-up operations. Only those killed in action during Operation Scotland, which began on November 1, 1967, and ended on March 31, 1968, were included in the official casualty count. This base was to serve as the western anchor of Marine Corps forces, which had tactical responsibility for the five northernmost provinces of South Vietnam known as I Corps. On the first day of battle, a big Communist rocket scored a direct hit on the main Marine ammunition dump, destroying 1,500 tons of high explosives, 98 percent of available ammunition. The PAVN claimed that Khe Sanh was "a stinging defeat from both the military and political points of view." A group of 12 A-4 Skyhawk fighter-bombers provided flak suppression for massed flights of 1216 helicopters, which would resupply the hills simultaneously. The fighting around Khe Sanh began January 21, 1968, and concluded around April 8, 1968. According to Gordon Rottman, even the North Vietnamese official history, Victory in Vietnam, is largely silent on the issue. Ten American soldiers were killed; the rest managed to escape down Route 9 to Khe Sanh. [75] On 22 January, the first sensor drops took place, and by the end of the month, 316 acoustic and seismic sensors had been dropped in 44 strings. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Studies and Observations Group, microwave/tropospheric scatter technology, "The Battle of Khe Sanh 40th Anniversary: Casualties in May 1968", "The Battle of Khe Sanh 40th Anniversary: Casualties in June 1968", https://web.archive.org/web/20080215233328/http://www.historynet.com/wars_conflicts/vietnam_war/3029941.html?featured=y&c=y, https://www.historynet.com/recounting-the-casualties-at-the-deadly-battle-of-khe-sanh/, https://www.historynet.com/the-withdrawal-from-khe-sanh/?f, "Khe Sanh: 6,000 Marines Dug In for Battle", "The US's secret plan to nuke Vietnam, Laos", "Memorandum for the President, 19 February 1968", "Battlefields of Khe Sanh: Still One Casualty a Day", "The US Army Quartermaster Air Delivery Units and the Defense of Khe Sanh", "5 things you didn't know about Khe Sanh", "Operational Report Lessons Learned, Headquarters, 8th Battalion 4th Artillery, Period Ending 30 April 1971", "Narrative of Events of Company B, 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile) During LAM SON 719", United States Army Center of Military History, Bibliography: The Tet Offensive and the Battle of Khe Sanh, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Battle_of_Khe_Sanh&oldid=1142289112. [158] The question, known among American historians as the "riddle of Khe Sanh," has been summed up by John Prados and Ray Stubbe: "Either the Tet Offensive was a diversion intended to facilitate PAVN/VC preparations for a war-winning battle at Khe Sanh, or Khe Sanh was a diversion to mesmerize Westmoreland in the days before Tet. Dr. Chris McNab is the editor of AMERICAN BATTLES & CAMPAIGNS: A Chronicle, from 1622-Present and is an experienced specialist in wilderness and urban survival techniques. [80] Westmoreland had already ordered the nascent Igloo White operation to assist in the Marine defense. Sunday marked the 50th anniversary of the start of the war's most famous siege, a 77-day struggle for a rain-swept plateau in central Vietnam that riveted the U.S. in 1968, and opened a year of . American commanders considered the defense of Khe Sanh a success, but shortly after the siege was lifted, the decision was made to dismantle the base rather than risk similar battles in the future. Both sides have published official histories of the battle, and while these histories agree the fighting took place at Khe Sanh, they disagree on virtually every other aspect of it. Known as the McNamara Line, it was initially codenamed "Project Nine". The figures of 5,500 NVA dead and 1,000 U.S. dead yield a ratio of 5.5:1. They asked what had changed in six months so that American commanders were willing to abandon Khe Sanh in July. [125] The 325C Divisional Headquarters was the first to leave, followed by the 95C and 101D Regiments, all of which relocated to the west.