The War: Victory at Khe Sanh

THE WAR

Wincing in the unaccustomed sun light, U.S. Marines of the 6,000-man Khe Sanh garrison tumbled out of their bunkers into the open air. Amid shell craters and the wreckage of destroyed Jeeps, helicopters and buildings, they washed grimy clothes and gamboled in makeshift showers. Three Marines dug out baseball gloves and began playing catch. Everywhere along the camp’s perimeter, the roofs of bunkers blossomed with Marines, who were not, for a change, either running or ducking. In stead, they passed binoculars from hand to hand, taking turns peering out into the jungled hills, so long alive with thousands of North Vietnamese soldiers.

Now there was no enemy to be seen, though an occasional artillery or mortar round still whistled in on the camp. What the Marines were watching was the approach of the vanguard of Operation Pegasus, a relief force of 30,000 Marines, Army troopers and South Vietnamese soldiers. The relief columns advanced down National Route 9 to ward Khe Sanh almost without opposition; they were accompanied by heliborne troopers, who were the first to reach the camp, landing on Khe Sanh’s pocked runway. Thus, after 76 harrowing days, the siege of Khe Sanh last week came to an ironic end. What had loomed as the great set-piece battle, a la Dienbienphu, of the entire war—the ultimate test of Hanoi’s military menace and the grand symbol of U.S. determination—dissolved at last almost without a shot being fired.

Slings of Artillery. Operation Pegasus had begun only four days previously under the command of Major General John J. Tolson, 53, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) in Viet Nam. It was launched from Landing Zone Stud in the Khe Sui Soi river valley eleven miles northeast of Khe Sanh; its first task was to open Route 9, which had been in enemy hands since last August. Its overall goal: to create a ground supply line to Khe Sanh and to destroy the enemy around the Marine camp. To do the job, Tolson had 19,000 of his own Air Cavalrymen with their nearly 300 helicopters and 148 heliborne artillery pieces, plus 10,000 U.S. Marines and three battalions of the South Vietnamese army.

While the Air Cavalrymen leapfrogged ahead to seize high ground and set up artillery protection, the Marines marched on either side of Route 9 and straight down the potholed road itself, clearing mines and repairing bridges. Accompanied by M48 tanks and truckloads of ammunition, rations and bridge girders, they marched toward Khe Sanh. Overhead, five-string formations of Huey helicopters carried the Air Cavalrymen, giant Chinook choppers hauled slings of artillery, and flying cranes brought in bulldozers.

First Blood. When the lead units of Pegasus were within a mile of Khe Sanh’s perimeter, they halted to let the Air Cav’s rocket-firing helicopters pound away at North Vietnamese gunners still dug into surrounding hills. Once the guns were silenced, Air Cavalrymen were lifted in to seize the high ground around the base. But the Marines inside Khe Sanh drew first blood in that mission. Breaking out of their own perimeter for the first time since the siege began, they stormed and took Hill 471, two miles from their base.

Then the Air Cav came in around Khe Sanh itself and immediately fanned out to clear the camp’s perimeter of any remaining Communists, jumping into trenches built and stocked by the enemy during the eleven-week siege. A battalion of South Vietnamese rangers that had been landed inside Khe Sanh moved out to do the same, found enemy trench and bunker complexes extending right into their wire. After seizing the hills around the base, Pegasus and the men of Khe Sanh intended to try to roll the Communist forces back all the way to the Laotian border on the west and the Demilitarized Zone to the north, destroying as many as possible in the pursuit.

Communist sources in London tried to make propaganda out of the lack of resistance to Pegasus by claiming that Hanoi had voluntarily lifted the siege of Khe Sanh as a gesture of good will toward peace talks. U.S. intelligence had indeed noted that most of the enemy’s 325C Division had withdrawn into Laos—but more than a week be fore President Johnson’s offer to de-escalate. Parts of the 304th Division were also pulling away from Khe Sanh, leaving perhaps only 7,000 of the estimated 30,000 Communist troops that once encircled the base. But the U.S. command is convinced that North Viet Nam’s General Vo Nguyen Giap, if he ever intended to attack Khe Sanh, was forced to abandon the idea and the siege because of his losses under relentless allied air bombardment.

Relief for Giap. The bombardment was the most intensive in the history of aerial warfare. Tactical fighter-bombers flew nearly 9,000 sorties in March alone. On a single day, giant B-52s made as many as 34 strikes with their 2,000-lb. bombs. All told, more than 110,000 tons of explosives rained down during the siege, breaking up formations, destroying supplies and setting off thousands of secondary explosions. The U.S. had good reason to believe that among the targets hit was the headquarters for the Communist campaign.

As a result of the bombing, said General William Westmoreland, the U.S. had won the battle of Khe Sanh. Spiraling in by helicopter for a quick visit to the base just before his trip to Washington, Westmoreland declared: “We took 220 killed at Khe Sanh and about 800 wounded and evacuated. The enemy by my count has suffered at least 15,000 dead in the area.” General Giap may well have been glad to see the men of Pegasus approaching Khe Sanh. Pegasus not only relieved the Marines of Khe Sanh; it also relieved the Communists of a siege that they could no longer profitably maintain.