In the north, 30,000 NVA troops, 400 tanks and armored fighting vehicles, and five artillery regiments attacked across the DMZ into South Vietnam, while an even larger force struck farther south at the heart of the republic. So began the Vietnam War’s largest and most destructive offensive. On March 30, 1972, three days before Easter, FSB Sarge and several other firebases came under intense artillery barrages and ground attacks lasting day and night. Major Boomer was the lone American Marine adviser to 200 South Vietnamese Marines at Fire Support Base (FSB) Sarge (see Easter Offensive map), a tiny, remote outpost a few miles south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating South and North Vietnam. He yelled into his radio handset, demanding to know why friendly artillery had not slowed the incoming enemy barrage. Even with tiny balls of wadded toilet paper stuffed in his ears, the ringing in his head continued. As the last NVA artillery round slammed directly into Boomer’s bunker, he threw himself against the plywood wall of the 10×20-foot underground room. Marine Major Walter Boomer’s nostrils and sticking to the sweat on his face and arms. The entire bunker heaved as fine dust filtered through sandbags and the overhead wooden ceiling, filling U.S. policy today regarding the new democratic governments in Iraq and Afghanistan seems clear: fledgling governments struggling against a determined enemy cannot survive without some level of continued U.S. The lesson taught by the defeat during the 1972 Easter Offensive and the subsequent victory by Hanoi in April 1975 that can be applied to U.S. support to South Vietnam due to domestic political pressure (1973-75), Hanoi knew it could break the 1973 cease-fire agreement and overpower South Vietnam without U.S. fire support (mainly airpower and helicopter “tank killersâ€). This “Tet with tanks†was a colossal failure, but it exposed the weaknesses of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and demonstrated that ARVN could not prevail without massive U.S. troop drawdown and attempted to quickly overrun South Vietnam by launching a war-winning “Blitzkrieg†offensive during which its forces abandoned guerrilla war tactics and adopted conventional “fire and maneuver†operations featuring masses of NVA regular infantry supported by tanks and long-range artillery. On March 30, 1972, Hanoi sought to take advantage of the U.S. As a special bonus to complement the articles in our magazine and to expand our coverage of the Vietnam War, we present Frederick Lash’s compelling account of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) Easter Offensive. The October/November 2007 issue of ARMCHAIR GENERAL® magazine is chock-full of articles on America’s longest war, Vietnam, including James Willbank’s outstanding retrospective of the entire war, featuring ACG’s exclusive “VIETNAM†gatefold map. Tet With Tanks – The NVA Easter Offensive, 1972 By Frederick F.
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