The Battle For Hue
With and invisibility almost incomprehensible to Occidentals, the North Vietnamese had infiltrated two regiments of regulars into the ancient imperial capital of Hue to join the local force Viet Cong units already embedded in the city. After midnight on 30 January 1968, as part of North Vietnam's great Tet offensive; these forces materialized behind a thundering rocket and mortar barrage and seized most of the city in an iron grip.
At the closest American combat base, Phu Bai, 12 kilometers to the south, there had been a smattering of rocket and mortar shells during the night and many reports of disruption along all-important Highway 1, the spinal column of I Corps' Tactical Zone. At Phu Bai was Task Force X-Ray, destined to be of brigade size but not yet completely formed, under the command of Brigadier General Foster "Frosty" C. Lahue, Marine Raider in World War II and battalion commander in Korea.
Task Force X-Ray, when complete, was to have two Marine regiments, the 1st and the 5th , but on 31 January Frosty Lahue had only the two regimental headquarters and three understrength battalions. With something less than four thousand Marines, his mission was to keep open Highway 1 from Hai Van Pass north to Hue, defend Phu Bai itself, and screen the western approaches to Hue. He was not assigned the defense of Hue itself.
For centuries Hue had been the imperial capital. Halfway between Da Nang and what was still called the "DMZ" or Demilitarized Zone separating North from South Vietnam, Hue, with a counted population of 100,000 and an uncounted number of refugees, was South Vietnam's third largest city. Two-thirds of the population lived within the walls of the Old City, or the Citadel, as the French called it, a tropical copy of Peking, combining classical Chinese and French military engineering. Rectangular in shape, there were two massive walls, three kilometers on a side, with multi-channel moats outside them, except for the southeast wall which bordered the Song Houng or River of Perfumes. The sea was 10 kilometers away and the river was not suited to ocean-going shipping. South of the river and linked to the Citadel by the Nguyen Hoang bridge was the New City, more open, more western.
Throughout the war Hue had been treated as something of an open city. Even the Viet Cong treated it with respect and it had been remarkably free of war. There was a considerable U.S. civilian presence - - AID persons and so forth - - but there was no U.S. military garrison. For most U.S. military men, Hue was out of bounds. Few Marines or soldiers, other than members of the U.S. advisory effort, had ever been in the city.
The MACV (Military Assistance Command, Vietnam) compound that comfortably housed the U.S. Army and Marine advisors to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam's (ARVN) 1st Division was in the New City south of the river. The headquarters of the 1st ARVN Division, which they advised, was a considerable distance, occupying a kind of bastion in the northeastern corner of the Citadel. Brigadier General Ngo Quang Truong, commanding the 1st ARVN Division, had the reputation of being one of South Vietnam's best generals just as his division was regarded as ont of South Vietnam's best. But his twelve battalions were strung along Highway 1 from Hue north to the border, taken up in pacification and area defense missions. His closest battalion and the headquarters of this 3rd Regiment was eight kilometers to the north. At his headquarters compound he had only his division staff and his elite division reaction company, the Hoc Bac or "Black Panthers." On 30 January, as the Tet cease-fire broke down, Truong had brought his meager headquarters force to 100 percent alert so that he was somewhat prepared for what was to come.
The North Vietnamese coordinated their attack on the city with a rocket and mortar barrage that began at 0340, 31 January. The 6th NVA Regiment with two battalions of infantry and the 12th Sapper Battalion pushed from the southwest toward Truong's headquarters. The Black Panthers briefly stopped the 800th NVA Battalion at the Hue airstrip then fell back to headquarters compound where the division staff was defending against the 802d NVA Battalion. By daylight the 6th NVA Regiment held all of the Citadel except the 1st ARVN Division headquarters and the gold-starred red-and-blue flag of the Viet Cong flew over the Imperial Palace. The 806th NVA Battalion had taken up blocking positions to prevent Troung's reinforcement from the north.
At Phu Bai, Frosty Lahue knew very little of this but he had received reports of damage to Highway 1 and its bridges and of "some problems" at the MACV compound so at 0830 he dispatched Company A, 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, in trucks to do a road reconnaissance. Half way to Hue Company A was stopped by heavy small arms and automatic weapons fire, probably from elements of the 810th NVA Battalion.
At 1030, Lahue sent out the command group of 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, under Lieutenant Colonel Marcus J. Gravel, with Company G, 2d Battalion, 5th Marines, to pick up Company A and punch on into Hue. En route Gravel was providentially joined by a 3rd Marine Division tank platoon and some engineers. The column got across the critical bridge over the Phu Cam canal and reached the MACV compound at about 1445. The senior advisor, U.S. Army Colonel George D. Adkisson, gave Gravel what bits and pieces of information he had. Gravel was now ordered to cross the Nguyen Hoang bridge and push on to Truong's headquarters.
He was joined at the bridge by some ARVN tanks. These and the Marine tanks gave him some fire support but neither the South Vietnamese or American tanks would follow him into the Citadel. He got across the bridge but soon found that he was running into more than he could handle. He fell back, taking out his casualties on some commandeered Vietnamese trucks, and by 200 was back in the MACV compound.
The situation in the New City was not quite as catastrophic as first surmised. There were still isolated pockets of resistance - - held largely by Regional Forces and Popular Force units. Most important was the LCU (Landing Craft, Utility) ramp on the river and the radio relay station were still in friendly hands. Next morning, 1 February, Gravel was ordered to attack toward the provincial headquarters building and prison. His attack got off at 0700 but ran into heavy resistance that stopped it cold.
North of the river, Truong had ordered his 3rd Regiment, reinforced with two airborne battalions and an armored cavalry troop to fight its way into the city. They reached his headquarters late on the 31st and on the morning of 1 February, Truong began his counterattack on s southern diagonal axis. With Truong fully occupied in the Citadel, Lieutenant General Huong Xuan Lam, commanding general of I ARVN Corps, asked the Americans to completely take over the clearing of Hue south of the Perfume River.
The northeast monsoon was blowing, bringing rain and fog from the South China Sea, and on 2 February the weather got worse. That was the day that the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division began to come into the battle. The 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry, began sealing off the city from the west and north. Eventually, the whole 3rd Brigade, 1st Air Cavalry Division, under the command of Colonel Hubert "Bill" S. Campbell, would be used.
At the MACV compound, Gravel had been joined by Companies F and H, 5th Marines, and on 3 February, the regimental commander of the 1st Marines, Colonel Stanley S. Hughes, arrived. A former enlisted man, with both a Navy Cross and Silver Star for World War II service, Hughes brought with him Lieutenant Colonel Ernest C. Cheatham, Commanding Officer, 2d Battalion, 5th Marines, a great bear of a man and one-time professional football player. Cheatham's three rifle companies - - G, F, and H - - were returned to his control. Next day, Company B, 1st Marines, arrived. So, as Hughes took charge of the battle south of the river, he had two battalions: Gravel's from his own regiment with two companies, and Cheatham's from the 5th Marines with three companies. All restrictions on the use of supporting weapons were lifted. Hughes said to Cheatham, "You do it anyway you want to. Use whatever you have to use."
The Marine counterattack jumped off on 4 February. Cheatham had his right flank on the river. Gavel was further south. The North Vietnamese had converted the large government buildings they held into strong points: snipers in the upper stories, machine guns in the ground floors, mortars from hidden positions, and a webwork of spider holes. Their best weapons were the AK-47 automatic rifle and the B-40 rocket launcher. The Marines had M-16 rifles which many thought not as good as the Soviet-designed AK-47. They liked their M-79 40mm grenade launchers, which they called a "blooper," and they had M-60 machine guns. They used grenades and CS tear gas to bring the North Vietnamese out of their holes. For battering their way through walls, the Marines had the 90mm guns of the M48A3 tanks or, even better; their 106mm recoilless rifles, some of them mounted on a thin-skinned little tracked vehicle called an "Ontos."
On the night of 3 February the North Vietnamese blew up the bridge over the Phu Cam canal and after that, until the bridgehead could be re-captured and the bridge replaced, supplies had to come in on helicopter or up the river by landing craft under escort of U.S. Navy patrol craft.
The battle assumed a rhythm: the Marines would attack each morning at 0700, fight all day, with luck be fed one hot meal, and at night hold up. By 6 February they had retaken the province headquarters, the prison, and the hospital. By 9 February they had snuffed out all organized resistance south of the river.
Truong's counterattack had bogged down and it was decided to give it new impetus with two battalions of Vietnamese Marines and a battalion of U.S. Marines. The 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, which had been operating in the troublesome Phu Loc area just north of Hai Van Pass, moved into the Citadel by helicopter and landing craft on 12 February under the command of Major Robert H. Thompson. The U.S. Marines went in on the left of the ARVN line and the Vietnamese Marines went in and the right and the attack went forward. Building density was much greater in the Citadel than south of the river and it was essentially house-to-house fighting.
Outside the Citadel's walls to the west, Bill Campbell's Air Cavalry Brigade had grown to four battalions. Until now they had been facing outwards and from prisoners they would learn that they had held off the reinforcement of the North Vietnamese in Hue by the 24th, 29th, and 99th NVA Regiments. Now the tide was turning and they were to attack to the east and complete the squeeze on the NVA forces in the city. Brigadier General Oscar E. Davis, Assistant Division Commander of the 1st Air Cavalry, was sent into the Citadel to join Truong and to assess what was needed to finish the battle. Truong told him that by the time the 1st Air Cavalry reached the walls of Hue the battle would be over.
Campbell's brigade began its eastward attack, south of the river, on 21 February. They were joined south of the river by the 3rd Battalion, 327th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division
Truong made good his prediction. On the night of 23/24 February, he made a surprise attack with his 2nd Battalion, 3rd Regiment, toward the Imperial Palace along the great wall itself. At dawn, the red and yellow flag of the Republic of Vietnam flew where the Viet Cong red, blue, and gold flag had flown so tauntingly. The Black Panther Company went into the Imperial Palace to complete the mopping up.
Within the city, the South Vietnamese had lost 357 killed, 1,830 wounded, and 42 missing, and claimed enemy losses of 2,642 dead and 33 prisoners. The U.S. Marines had suffered 142 killed, 857 wounded and evacuated (228 more slightly wounded) and claimed 1,959 enemy killed and 12 prisoners.
It had been the most violent close-range battle of the war. The generals agreed that it could have been much shorter if the use of supporting arms had not been inhibited by the vile weather, lack of observation, and the policy of sparing the city of as much material damage as possible. As it was, the Marines expended 18,091 artillery rounds - - high explosive, smoke, white phosphorus, illumination, and CS tear gas. Of all the calibers, they found the 8-inch howitzer, with its great accuracy, the most useful. Three cruisers and five destroyers, taking turn laying off shore, threw in 5,191 rounds of 5-, 6-, and 8-inch naval gunfire, earning the particular admiration of the U.S. Army. Close air support was severely limited by the weather, but Marine aircraft flew 113 sorties and delivered 293,202 pounds of ordnance. The best day was on 22 February when 250-lb "snake eye" bombs and 500-lb napalm cannisters were used with devastating effect at the southern corner of the Citadel in support of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, taking the all as a prelude to Truong's final attack.
Additional platoons of tanks had arrived by landing craft from Da Nang on 11 and 17 February. Only one Marine tank was lost to enemy fire. Something of a step child before the battle, the Ontos with its six 106mm recoilless rifles proved invaluable. The more agile Ontos could go where tanks could not. No Ontos were lost to enemy fire. The Marines had been dubious of their newly-issued M-16, by the end of the operation they were praising the rifle.
The 1st Marine Bridge Company put a floating bridge across the Phu Cam canal on 12 February and after that the 104 "Rough Rider" convoys made the round trip between Phu Bai and Hue. Five LCU's supported the operation. One loaded with ammo blew up. Two LCM's (Landing Craft, Medium) loaded with POL (Petroleum, Lubricants, and Oil) caught fire and sank. The initial LZ (landing zone) for re-supply helicopters was at the LCU ramp. On 18 February it was moved to the stadium, ideal because it was unmistakeable from the air and protected. Inside the Citadel, however, the LZ at the hospital was the only site available and it was a "hot" one. One helicopter was shot down and many received multiple hits. The Marine helicopters flew 823 sorties, lifted 1,672 troops, and delivered 1,052,459 pounds of cargo. There were 279 medevac mission taking out 977 casualties.
The civilian populace was essentially passive, neither helping nor hindering the Americans. Refugees were numerous but presented no large problem. The ghastly price imposed on the non-combatants by the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong was not fully known until after the fighting was over. Communist death squads had systematically eliminated South Vietnamese government leaders and employees. Some 2,800 were found in mass graves. At least 3,000 more were dead of missing.
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