World: FIGHT FOR A CITADEL

THE Citadel of Hue resembled nothing so much as the ruins of Monte Cassino after allied bombs had reduced it to rubble. An avalanche of bricks littered the streets and open spaces, and loose piles of masonry provided cover for both sides in the battle for the fortress. With every explosion of bomb or shell, the air turned red with choking brick dust. Having fought through Hué block by block, house by house, then yard by yard, the U.S. Marines were now engaged in what a company commander called a “brick-by-brick fight” to drive the North Vietnamese forces from the Citadel. Finally, when allied troops had shrunk the Communists’ ground to three fortified pockets, South Vietnamese soldiers, flanked by a company of Black Panther Rangers, shelled a hole in the wall guarding the most important redoubt—the Imperial City—and swarmed in. They found only a handful of defenders left.

Thus came the allies’ all-but-decisive blow to recapture the scene of the fiercest and most costly battle of the Vietnamese war to date, a battle so unlike any that had gone before it in the war that allied forces had to learn by doing. During the four weeks that they had clutched the city, over 2,000 North Vietnamese soldiers and Viet Cong had holed up hard—behind the foundations of crumbled buildings, among the jagged battlements of the Citadel’s six-mile wall, in darkened houses and inside the secondary wall of the imperial city. Enemy sharpshooters trained their scopes on the allies from Hué’s highest spots; machine-gunners picked wide-angle vantage points; and mortar fire struck everywhere, like an infernal rain.

Against this strong opposition, the allies waged a relentless two-prong attack—U.S. Marines southbound on the east, ARVN Marines headed the same way on the west. Clearing the way through the city’s debris-covered avenues came U.S. tanks, their turret guns swiveling from side to side as if to sniff the air, then belching fire at the Citadel walls. Overhead, helicopters sprayed napalm across the ponds and courtyards of the Imperial Palace, and fighter-bombers blasted away at three main enemy positions. From below, out to sea, a U.S. cruiser kept shelling the Communists.

For the weary battalions of Marines bellying through the chunks of rubble, progress was slow and costly in lives. Time after time, whole companies were pinned down against their rubble shields by a single, well-placed machine-gunner. A persistent drizzle socked in their air cover for most of the week. Even when air support came in, Communist artillery made the most of the low-flying weather: in 446 sorties by U.S. helicopters, Communist guns scored strikes against no fewer than 60. Said Lieut. General Robert E. Cushman Jr., commander of 1 Corps forces: “The gods of war were in their favor.”

From a crescent-shaped position along the west wall, the enemy was able to keep a steady stream of supplies and reinforcements flowing into the Citadel. At week’s end this position was threatened by allied forces advancing on the Citadel from the west. For mobility within the city, the Communist troops found a second, more cunning conduit. They crawled through sewer lines beneath the city that led up to street level behind allied lines. Time and again, Communist mortar and rocket fire slammed into the advancing U.S. armor. Sometimes a tank lurched, then treaded wildly through brick walls at streetside, where its crew, one or two of them wounded, would jump from the hatch; another crew would be immediately called in.

U.S. Leathernecks, taking grim note of each setback, only pressed the enemy harder. Sharpshooters with high-powered scopes hunkered down behind battlements in “secure” sections of the Citadel wall, squeezing off occasional rounds at moving targets. As they waited out the weather for air cover or rested for their next push, the unshaven, dust-covered Marines sipped endless cups of powdered coffee, occasionally breaking out a liberated magnum of French champagne to accompany their C rations.

By week’s end they had gained nearly 500 precious yards inside the Citadel, pinning an enemy force of about 350 men to three small strongholds. The most important advance came when low-crouching U.S. Marines swept onto the long south wall overlooking the Perfume riverbank, a position that finally gave the allies sturdy positions on each wall of the Citadel. The Marines celebrated by triumphantly running up the Stars and Stripes in full view of modern Hué, across the river. The death toll was among the most expensive of the war: nearly 450 allied dead, including some 100 U.S. Marines, and so many casualties that the 5th Battalion’s 1st Regiment was finally left at half strength.

Still, the allies moved on toward the imperial city, the seat of Viet Nam’s government and a center of its learning during the 19th century. There stood the palace complex, with its graceful red and gold buildings and pagoda roofing, its grounds of tall shade trees and frangipani, and its collections of bleu d’Hué porcelain. It was the most beautiful section of Hué still standing. It was also an eerie place to die, and its Communist defenders evidently decided to get out while they could. They left behind an unexploded shell near the fragile imperial throne, a cache of rifles and ammunition, and the carcasses of a horse and a dog, which they had slaughtered for food.