As early as September 1962 Serong had concluded that MACV’s reports of progress in the war were wildly optimistic. Territory on the border was being lost in incursions into South Vietnam, he found, the numbers in the Viet Cong were increasing, and the Strategic Hamlet program, the basic internal strategy, was failing because it had been expanded without consolidation. His presentations to Harkins explaining this had no effect, although his analyses were sought by the CIA, in particular by John Richardson, then Saigon station chief, and by journalists critical of Harkins’ leadership, among them David Halberstam of the New York Times. In May 1963 at Fort Bragg he elaborated on his analysis, although with some circumspection. You could get impressive figures by counting missions flown, casualties taken and inflicted, stores delivered and ammunition expended, he said, but the only real indicator of progress in a war of counterinsurgency was the volume of intelligence spontaneously offered by the population, since this was the indicator of whether or not the people believed you really could offer them security.(7)
At Fort Bragg, however, and in his talks to the National Security Council he encountered the problem of the junior ally. His advice on tactics and training methods were duly adopted into counterinsurgency courses, he was received and even feted by the representatives of the National Security Council he addressed, but in spite of some interest in his key point that the Strategic Hamlets program was “overextended”, advancing too quickly and so leaving gaps for the penetration of the Viet Cong, he could have no influence on strategy.(8) And after all, Serong’s rank was Colonel. No-one expected him to be formulating strategy. But he was, and his National Strategy for South Vietnam is instructive of his failure to understand the political considerations in Washington that would dictate the conduct of the war.
In 1962 Serong wrote that the most important thing was that there be a strategy, “something we can see as a positive and forward thing.” So far so good, but, as we shall see surprisingly difficult to achieve. Then, “there must be a determination to carry the war to North Vietnam, to roll it back on themselves. It is erroneous to believe that if we continue to react the enemy will tire. He will not, because he is being sustained by China. The U.S. will tire before China, although U.S. has the greater strength, and could force China down if the game became build-up versus build up.” The American domestic climate was not ripe for the roll-back, he continued, but what could be done was to negotiate with the Laotian government to cut off North Vietnamese access to South Vietnam through Laos, via the Ho Chi Minh trail. The Laotian city of Tchepone could be commercially developed, and so denied to the enemy, and the whole 17th parallel fortified for eventual war, U.S. regiment to Vietnamese regiment, against the North Vietnamese Army. Since Hanoi began to release materials from its archives in 1995, an oft repeated theme has been surprise that the U.S. did not act to cut off the trail through Laos.(9) This surprise may well be feigned, since fortifying the 17th parallel was never an option in Washington. Serong did not realize that W. Averell Harriman, in 1963 undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, whom he regarded for years as his best ally on the National Security Council, would be the strongest opponent to the disruption of the Laos Accords, which he, Harriman, had negotiated in the first place. He understood that the American public might not accept war with China, but not that the Vietnam war itself was of secondary importance to the real issue, which was American relations with Russia. He could not see from his vantage point in South Vietnam that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was the real issue for U.S. foreign policy planners.
http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/vietnamcenter/events/1996_Symposium/96papers/tenyears.htm
Auatralian combat cameraman NEIL DAVIS covered the ARVN almost exclusively, because, as he said in Tim Bowden’s biography of Davis (“One Crowded Hour”)…
“The ARVN were doing the majority of the fighting. It was their war, after all…”
This post-war fiction that U.S. Forces conducted most of the important operations in Indochina is FICTION, propagated to this day as a sop for the lack of victory. ARVN operations were downsized when it became obvious to even the lowest of ARVN recruits that the war was unwinnable as prosecuted. Robert Mason recalls conversing with an SVN citizen recruited for work by the First Air Cavalry Division. This man described Ho Chi Minh is a “Great man, who was going to unify the country one day…”
Bob Mason recalls his disgust at this and other sentiments expressed by the very people that units like “The Cav” were supposed to be fighting FOR…and further records his indignation at “exactly what they were attempting to achieve here.”
That confirms my recollection about ARVN doing the bulk of the fighting, but I can’t recall my sources.
In trying to find an internet source (I’m pretty sure there’s an ARVN type website somewhere that I’ve seen), Google threw this up, which illustrates some of the problems ARVN soldiers faced against the wider background of American control of the war.
ARVN: Life and Death in the South Vietnamese Army . By Robert K. Brigham . ( : University of Kansas Press , 2006 . Pp. xiv, 178 . .)
In 1975 one in six able-bodied South Vietnamese males between the ages of sixteen and sixty served in the government’s armed forces, and over two hundred thousand men had been lost in combat, but the story of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) soldier remains a black hole in the history of the Vietnam War. Robert K. Brigham’s short study, based on interviews with former ARVN veterans and documents in Vietnamese government archives, provides illuminating insights into the lives of the ARVN soldiers.
Brigham confirms established interpretations of the larger causes of ARVN deficiencies and the failures of the Saigon government. However, his three chapters on conscription, training, and morale break new ground with their devastatingly detailed picture of ARVN’s inexplicable disregard for the well-being of its men. The unprecedented introduction of universal conscription alienated much of the rural population by denuding the countryside of manpower essential to sustain rural life without providing security or other tangible benefits. Conditions only worsened after conscription. Inadequate political training, shockingly poor combat training, and indifference to the welfare of the soldiers generated feelings of victimization and estrangement. Brigham offers convincing evidence that recruits left boot camp unprepared for combat and convinced that they were inferior to the better-trained Communist forces. Morale was further undermined by low pay, bad food, and an almost nonexistent leave policy. As a result, the basic combat units of ARVN lacked the elemental bonds of solidarity with one another that are the mainstay of any fighting force.
Brigham is especially convincing in showing how individual soldiers adapted to such isolating circumstances. Soldiers brought their families into their barracks and military camps, gave first precedence to family survival, and they fought as members of an extended family. “The focus on families in the absence of any meaningful national program based on the Vietnamese concept of ai quoc (patriotism) meant that ARVN soldiers reverted to the familiar: the comfortable culture-bound dominance of the family in their daily lives.” By contrast, “Communists had learned how to transfer filial piety from the family to the village and then to the state” (130).
Misguided American policies contributed to the problems. American advisors first transformed locally based light forces suited for antiguerrilla operations into heavy divisions equipped for conventional war. As ARVN became dependent on American aid, its training and tactics shifted according to ever-changing American preferences. When the U.S. assumed responsibility for major offensive operations in 1967, it relegated ARVN to a secondary role in policing pacified areas. By the time a new strategy of Vietnamization required a more proactive military posture, it was too late to reverse the consequences of long years of neglect and dependency on America.
Brigham’s interviews vividly capture the feelings, aspirations, and fears of foot soldiers as they prepared for battle and coped with imminent defeat. ARVN offers thought-provoking insights and raises important questions, but the extreme brevity of the volume imposes significant limits. Although ARVN fought for over fifteen years and suffered very significant casualties, the analysis of its performance on the battlefield is limited to a few battles and a discussion of changing American strategy. Readers learn that some units fought well and others did not, but not why this was the case. The discussion of the Diem regime’s approach to political indoctrination and conscription is excellent; by contrast, neither Nguyen Cao Ky nor Nguyen Van Thieu is mentioned by name.
ARVN is a significant contribution that whets our appetite to learn more about ARVN and its soldiers. It also should remind us of pitfalls awaiting American military advisors who want to impose American ways of military organization on allied forces.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/119391008/HTMLSTART
Here is a direct quote from Tim Bowden’s "One Crowded Hour"…Page 93…
There is no question that reporting the ARVN ( Army of the Republic of South Vietnam) activities was tough and dangerous. Yet, Davis preferred to go with them than to go with other forces. It was their war, after all.
“It meant a great deal to them. They didn’t have the sophisticated support that the Americans had, but I still thought their activities were a truer reflection of what was really happening in SVN. After the big American build-up in 1965, almost no foreign correspondents went with the South Vietnamese until after the big Tet Offensive in 1968, when they started to go with the ARVN again because the Americans were disengaging from then on.
[COLOR=“Red”]I went with the ARVN troops because they did the bulk of the fighting. That was what the war was about. I believed it was necessary to emphasize this, particularly as they were getting almost no coverage from the rest of the international media.
It was much more comfortable to go with the Americans. You quite often had your own helicopter, and fresh food and water provided every day. You weren’t guaranteed any of those things with the ARVN. You had to drink water from the rivers using tablets to purify it, and you ate their food, which was rice with maybe some vegetables and a small piece of fish.”[/COLOR]
Page 122…"…I would most likely be in the field and I would stay with a South Vietnamese unit for at least three days. There was no re-supply in the field like the pizza helicopters for the American troops. They really had pizzas and ice-cream helicoptered out to them - which was wonderful intelligence for the Viet Cong. Apart from the helicopters buzzing around and giving away their position, they could smell the pizzas!
Some American soldiers used to walk with transistor radios playing through earpieces - while they were allegedly on patrol in the jungle looking for the VC. Unfortunately they also carried too much gear, at least 30kgs of equipment, including very heavy flak jackets and armour…"
The U.S. media did not bother, in the main, to cover the ARVN in the same manner as they did their “own” forces, resulting in a lobsided journalistic picture developing, a situation only made worse by the continued and worsening situation on the ground. U.S. soldiers looked for a scapegoat, and found it in the ARVN. More than one account I’ve read of soldiery in Vietnam condemns the number of “Vietnamese draft dodgers” on the streets of Saigon after dark.
The sentiment seemed to be that ordinary folk in SVN would not fight for their own independence, which adversly affected American morale in all quarters of their effort. This is yet another failure by the media of the day to come to grips with the real picture of the situation in SVN…one that ALL Vietnamese were convinced would only end with the EXIT of U.S. Forces…
More quotes from “One Crowded Hour”…Page 121…
“From his earliest days in Vietnam in 1964, Neil Davis determined to film the Vietnam War from the perspective of the South Vietnamese infantryman. By doing so, he hoped to become familiar with the realities of the war in Vietnam, and although he was often a lone figure, he could give television viewers throughout the world a partial idea of what it was like to be a South Vietnamese soldier.
“I didn’t have strong anti-communist feelings although a lot of my friends were on the anti-communist side. I just thought the Vietnamese people needed to work it out for themselves, and it was the responsibility of the foreign correspondants - who are allegedly non-aligned and absolutely neutral - to report fairly and accurately.”
[COLOR=“Red”]The unfair thing was that from the time the Americans came into SVN in force in 1965 until they announced a limited withdrawl in 1968, the impression given to the world was that the Americans were doing most of the fighting, while the inefficient and cowardly ARVN were sitting back and doing nothing.
That was not true, and the international press should accept responsibility for not telling the truth. It was innaccuracy by omission. The figures were available all the time, and clearly show that the South Vietnamese army lost at least 50% more men from 1965 to 1968 than the Americans, and it was constant, week after week.
I used to follow the figures constantly, and only in three weeks in three years did the Americans have more soldiers killled than the South Vietnamese. That is why I was determined to cover the ARVN fighting effort.”[/COLOR]
Page 123-124…
"In contrast to the Barnum and Bailey Circus, the average VC soldier carried very little equipment. He had his weapon, a sock of rice, and his ammunition. He had no flak jacket, no helmet or big boots, and was dressed in black pyjamas with rubber Ho Chi Minh sandals on his feet, enabling him to move quickly through a countryside he knew intimately."
After three days of slogging across paddies or through the jungle, the Americans were usually exhausted and easy prey for fresh communist troops.
The lightly equipped ARVN soldiers could cover from 8 to 15 miles in one day. The Americans woould be lucky to manage 4 (miles per day).
The VC had no respect for the Americans as soldiers. There were one or two American units - Special Forces, for instance - who were very good, and of course they respected them. But the average American units were treated with contempt because the men had no real jungle craft or sense of survival in the field. They used to call them “Elephants” because they would blunder around the jungle, and the VC could smell Americans literally a mile away - their toothpaste, cigarettes and shaving cream.
But the ARVN troops were also Vietnamese, and many of the soldiers were peasant boys like the VC. Sometimes it was brother against brother.
Actions speak louder than words, and in the Tet offensive of '68, when the NVA and VC launched nationwide attacks and captured many towns and villages, it was the South Vietnamese who did not break, who held on and won back territory.
For the first time, Americans at a high level realised that the ARVN troops could “do it”. That was the beginning of the policy of “Vietnamization”, but they had left it too late. Before that, they made it clear that they thought the South Vietnamese were the worst soldiers in Vietnam."
Thanks for that, and your earlier post.
The marvels of Google have thrown up some stuff that I’m pretty sure isn’t what I saw a few years ago but it’s to the same effect. It referred to and reminded me of Lewis Sorley’s work to give the ARVN proper credit which, thanks again to Google, is easier to find than the ARVN (or maybe pro-SVN) website I was looking for, so I’ll post quotes from those sources.
To establish Sorley’s credentials:
Lewis Sorley served in Vietnam as executive officer of a tank battalion operating in the Central Highlands. A third-generation graduate of the United States Military Academy, he also holds a Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University. During two decades of military service he led tank and armored cavalry units in the United States and Germany as well as Vietnam, served in staff assignments in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Office of the Army Chief of Staff, and was on the faculties at West Point and the Army War College.
He is the author of two biographies, Thunderbolt: General Creighton Abrams and the Army of His Times and Honorable Warrior: General Harold K. Johnson and the Ethics of Command, and a history entitled A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam. He has also transcribed and edited Vietnam Chronicles: The Abrams Tapes, 1968-1972.
http://members.tripod.com/~nguyentin/arvn-sorley-2.htm
I’ll post the full article later that this quote comes from, but the quote goes a long way to demonstrating that the ARVN could and did handle themselves well even in major formation battles, and how that’s been forgotten.
Sorley writes movingly about Brigadier General Le Minh Dao, commanding the 18th Infantry Division ARVN, and the valiant resistance he mounted at Xuan Loc. Attacked by first three and then four divisions, the 18th held out for a month, destroying three North Vietnamese divisions before succumbing. The American advisor, Colonel Ray Battreall, said of this action :
That magnificent last stand deserves to live on in military history, if we can overcome the bias, even in our own ranks, that ARVN was never capable of doing anything right.But, of course, we’ve long forgotten this valiant stand, as we’ve forgotten so much else about the War, a War that officially ended with the South’s surrender at 10:25 on April 30, 1975.
http://brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/829
Reassessing the ARVN
Americans know very little about the Vietnam War, even though it ended just over a quarter century ago. That is in part because those who opposed the war have seen it as in their interests to portray every aspect of the long struggle in the worst possible light, and indeed in some cases to falsify what they have had to say about it. This extends from wholesale defamation of the South Vietnamese and their conduct throughout a long and difficult struggle, to Jane Fonda’s infamous claim that repatriated American prisoners of war who reported systematic abuse and torture by their captors were “liars” and “hypocrites.”
I would like to speak to selected aspects of the war primarily having to do with the South Vietnamese, beginning with some of the many contrasts between the earlier and later years of major American involvement in the Vietnam War. In shorthand terms, the earlier years began with the introduction of American ground forces in 1965 and continued through a change of command not long after Tet 1968. The later period stretched from then through withdrawal of the last American forces in March 1973.
During the earlier years, with General William C. Westmoreland in command, the American approach was basically to take over the war from the South Vietnamese and try to win it militarily by conducting a war of attrition. The theory was that killing as many of the enemy as possible would eventually cause him to lose heart and cease aggression against the South. This earlier period was also characterized by recurring requests for more American troops to be dispatched to Vietnam, resulting in a peak commitment there of some 543,400.
In prosecuting this kind of war, General Westmoreland relied on search-and-destroy tactics carried out by large-scale forces, primarily in the deep jungles. Those tactics succeeded in their own terms–over the course of several years the enemy did suffer large numbers of casualties, horrifying numbers, really–but the expected result was not achieved. Meanwhile, given his single-minded devotion to a self-selected war of attrition, Westmoreland pretty much ignored two other key aspects of the war–pacification, and improvement of South Vietnam’s armed forces.
Following the enemy’s offensive at the time of Tet 1968, General Creighton W. Abrams replaced Westmoreland and brought to bear a much different outlook on the nature of the war and how it should be prosecuted. Abrams stressed “one war” of combat operations, pacification, and upgrading South Vietnam’s armed forces, giving those latter two long-neglected tasks equal importance and priority with military operations.
Operations themselves also underwent a dramatic change. In place of “search and destroy” there was now “clear and hold,” meaning that when Communist forces had been driven from populated areas, those areas were then permanently garrisoned by allied forces, not abandoned to be reoccupied by the enemy at some later date. Greatly expanded South Vietnamese Territorial Forces took on that security mission. Major General Nguyen Duy Hinh said that “expansion and upgrading of the Regional and Popular Forces” was “by far the most important and outstanding among U.S. contributions” to the war effort. Lieutenant General Ngo Quang Truong viewed these forces as “the mainstay of the war machinery,” noting that “such achievements as hamlets pacified, the number of people living under GVN [Government of Vietnam] control or the trafficability on key lines of communication were possible largely due to the unsung feats of the RF [Regional Forces] and PF [Popular Forces].”
The nature of operations also changed in the later years. Large-scale forays deep into the jungle were replaced by thousands of small-unit ambushes and patrols, conducted both day and night, and sited so as to screen the population from enemy forces. Pacification was emphasized, and particularly rooting out the covert enemy infrastructure that had through coercion and terror dominated the populace of South Vietnam’s villages and hamlets.
Body count was no longer the measure of merit. “I don’t think it makes any difference how many losses he [the enemy] takes,” Abrams told his commanders in a total repudiation of the earlier approach. In fact, said Abrams, “In the whole picture of the war, the battles don’t really mean much.” Population secured was now the key indicator of success.
Contrary to what many people seem to believe, the new approach succeeded remarkably. And, since during these later years American forces were progressively being withdrawn, more and more it was the South Vietnamese who were achieving that success.
…
During the period of buildup of U.S. forces in Vietnam, many observers–including some Americans stationed in Vietnam–were critical of South Vietnamese armed forces. But such criticisms seldom took into account a number of contributing factors. American materiel assistance in those early years consisted largely of cast-off World War II–vintage weapons, including the heavy and unwieldy (for a Vietnamese) M-1 rifle. The enemy, meanwhile, was being provided with increasingly up-to-date weaponry by his Russian and Chinese patrons. “In 1964 the enemy had introduced the AK-47, a modern, highly effective automatic rifle,” noted Brig. Gen. James L. Collins, Jr., in a monograph on development of South Vietnam’s armed forces. “In contrast, the South Vietnam forces were still armed with a variety of World War II weapons…After 1965 the increasing U.S. buildup slowly pushed Vietnamese armed forces materiel needs into the background.” General Fred Weyand, finishing up a tour as commanding general of II Field Force, Vietnam, observed in a 1968 debriefing report that “the long delay in furnishing ARVN modern weapons and equipment, at least on a par with that furnished the enemy by Russia and China, has been a major contributing factor to ARVN ineffectiveness.”
It was not until General Abrams came to Vietnam as deputy commander of U.S. forces in May 1967 that the South Vietnamese began to get more attention. Soon after taking up his post, Abrams cabled Army Chief of Staff General Harold K. Johnson. “It is quite clear to me,” he reported, “that the U.S. Army military here and at home have thought largely in terms of U.S. operations and support of U.S. forces.” As a consequence, “Shortages of essential equipment or supplies in an already austere authorization have not been handled with the urgency and vigor that characterizes what we do for U.S. needs. Yet the responsibility we bear to ARVN is clear…the groundwork must begin here. I am working at it.”
By early 1968 some M-16 rifles were in the hands of South Vietnamese airborne and other elite units, but the rank and file were still outgunned by the enemy. Thus Lt. Gen. Dong Van Khuyen, South Vietnam’s senior logistician, recalled that “during the enemy Tet Offensive of 1968 the crisp, rattling sounds of AK-47s echoing in Saigon and some other cities seemed to make a mockery of the weaker, single shots of Garands and carbines fired by stupefied friendly troops.”
Even so, South Vietnamese armed forces performed admirably in repelling the Tet Offensive. “To the surprise of many Americans and the consternation of the Communists,” reported Time magazine, “ARVN bore the brunt of the early fighting with bravery and élan, performing better than almost anyone would have expected.”
In February 1968, retired U.S. Army General Bruce C. Clarke made a trip to Vietnam, afterward writing a trip report that eventually made its way to President Lyndon B. Johnson. Clarke observed that “the Vietnamese units are still on a very austere priority for equipment, to include weapons.” That adversely affected both their morale and effectiveness, he noted. “Troops know and feel it when they are poorly equipped.”
After reading the report, LBJ called Clarke to the White House to discuss his findings. Then, recalled Clarke, “within a few days of our visit to the White House a presidential aide called me to say the President had released 100,000 M-16 rifles to ARVN.” President Johnson referred to this matter in his dramatic speech of March 31, 1968. “We shall,” he vowed, “accelerate the re-equipment of South Vietnam’s armed forces in order to meet the enemy’s increased firepower.”
U.S. divisions were not only better armed but also larger than South Vietnam’s, resulting in greater combat capability. To the further disadvantage of the South Vietnamese, during these early years the U.S. hogged most of the combat assets that increased unit effectiveness. That included allocation of Boeing B-52 bombing strikes. Abrams noted that during the period of the North Vietnamese “Third Offensive” in August and September 1968, “The ARVN killed more enemy than all other allied forces combined.” In the process, he said, they also “suffered more KIA, both actual and on the basis of the ratio of enemy to friendly killed in action.” This was a function, he told General Earle Wheeler, of the fact that “the South Vietnamese get relatively less support, both quantitatively and qualitatively, than U.S. forces; i.e., artillery, tactical air support, gunships and helilift.”
Under these conditions of the earlier years, criticism of South Vietnamese units was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Given little to work with, outgunned by the enemy and relegated to what were then viewed as secondary roles, South Vietnam’s armed forces missed out for several years on the development and combat experience that would have greatly increased their capabilities.
In the later years of American involvement, during which U.S. ground forces were progressively being withdrawn, priority for issue of M-16 rifles was given to the long-neglected South Vietnamese Territorial Forces, who provided the “hold” in clear and hold. As those forces established control over more and more territory, large numbers of VC “rallied” to the allied side. This reached a peak of 47,000 in 1969, with another 32,000 crossing over in 1970. Given the authorized 8,689-soldier strength of a North Vietnamese Army division, that amounted to enemy losses by defection equivalent to about nine divisions in those two years alone.
There came a point at which the war was as good as won. The fighting wasn’t over, but the war was won. The reason it was won was that the South Vietnamese had achieved the capacity, with promised American support, to maintain their independence and freedom of action. This was a South Vietnamese achievement.
For one thing, captives who had knowledge of the enemy infrastructure and its functioning were invaluable intelligence assets. That provided considerable incentive to capture them alive and exploit that knowledge. Congressional investigators sent out to Vietnam to assess the program found that of some 15,000 members of the Viet Cong infrastructure neutralized during 1968, 15 percent had been killed, 13 percent rallied to the government side and 72 percent were captured. William Colby, who then coordinated the Phoenix Program and in 1973 was appointed director of the CIA, testified later that “the vast majority” of the enemy dead had been killed in regular combat actions, “as shown by the units reporting who had killed them.”
During those years the South Vietnamese, besides taking over combat responsibilities from the departing Americans, had to deal with multiple changes in policy. General Abrams was clear on how the South Vietnamese were being asked to vault higher and higher hurdles. “We started out in 1968,” he recalled. “We were going to get these people by 1974 where they could whip hell out of the VC–the VC. Then they changed the goal to lick the VC and the NVA–in South Vietnam. Then they compressed it. They’ve compressed it about three times, or four times–acceleration. So what we started out with to be over this kind of time”–indicating with his hands a long time–“is now going to be over this kind of time”–much shorter. “And if it’s VC, NVA, interdiction, helping Cambodians and so on–that’s what we’re working with. And,” Abrams cautioned, “you have to be careful on a thing like this, or you’ll get the impression you’re being screwed. You mustn’t do that, 'cause it’ll get you mad.” Among the most crucial of the policy changes was dropping longstanding plans for a U.S. residual force to remain in South Vietnam indefinitely, in a solution comparable to that adopted in Western Europe and South Korea.
In January 1972, John Paul Vann, a senior official in pacification support, told friends: “We are now at the lowest level of fighting the war has ever seen. Today there is an air of prosperity throughout the rural areas of Vietnam, and it cannot be denied. Today the roads are open and the bridges are up, and you run much greater risk traveling any road in Vietnam today from the scurrying, bustling, hustling Hondas and Lambrettas than you do from the VC.” And, added Vann, “This program of Vietnamization has gone kind of literally beyond my wildest dreams of success.” Those were South Vietnamese accomplishments.
…
…
When in late March of 1972 the NVA mounted a conventional invasion of South Vietnam by the equivalent of 20 divisions, a bloody pitched battle ensued. The enemy’s “well-planned campaign” was defeated, wrote Douglas Pike, “because air power prevented massing of forces and because of stubborn, even heroic, South Vietnamese defense. Terrible punishment was visited on PAVN [NVA] troops and on the PAVN transportation and communication matrix.” But, most important of all, said Pike, “ARVN troops and even local forces stood and fought as never before.”
Later critics said that South Vietnam had thrown back the invaders only because of American air support. Abrams responded vigorously to that. “I doubt the fabric of this thing could have been held together without U.S. air,” he told his commanders, “but the thing that had to happen before that is the Vietnamese, some numbers of them, had to stand and fight. If they didn’t do that, ten times the air we’ve got wouldn’t have stopped them.”
The critics also disparaged South Vietnam’s armed forces because they had needed American assistance in order to prevail. But at the same time, some 300,000 American troops were stationed in West Germany precisely because NATO could not stave off Soviet or Warsaw Pact aggression without American help. And in South Korea there were 50,000 American troops positioned specifically to help that country deal with any aggression from the North.
South Vietnam did, with courage and blood, defeat the enemy’s 1972 Easter Offensive. General Abrams had told President Nguyen Van Thieu that it would be “the effectiveness of his field commanders that would determine the outcome,” and they proved equal to the challenge. South Vietnam’s defenders inflicted such casualties on the invaders that it was three years before North Vietnam could mount another major offensive. By then, dramatic changes would have taken place in the larger context.
After the Paris Accords were signed in January 1973, to induce the South Vietnamese to agree to terms they viewed as fatally flawed (the North Vietnamese were allowed to retain large forces in the South), President Richard M. Nixon told Thieu that if North Vietnam violated the terms of the agreement and resumed its aggression against the South, the United States would intervene militarily to punish them. Moreover, Nixon said that if renewed fighting broke out, the United States would replace on a one-for-one basis any major combat systems (tanks, artillery pieces and so on) lost by the South Vietnamese, as was permitted by the Paris Accords. And finally, said Nixon, the United States would continue robust financial support for South Vietnam. As events actually unfolded, of course, the United States defaulted on all three of those promises.
Meanwhile, North Vietnam was receiving unprecedented levels of support from its patrons. According to a 1994 history published in Hanoi, from January to September 1973, the nine months following the Paris Accords, the quantity of supplies shipped from North Vietnam to its forces in the South was four times that shipped in the entire previous year. But even that was minuscule compared to what was sent south from the beginning of 1974 until the end of the war in April 1975. The total during those 16 months, reported the Communists, was 2.6 times the amount delivered to the various battlefields during the preceding 13 years.
If the South Vietnamese had shunned the Paris agreement, it was certain not only that the United States would have settled without them, but also that the U.S. Congress would then have moved swiftly to cut off further aid to South Vietnam. If, on the other hand, the South Vietnamese went along, hoping thereby to continue receiving American aid, they would be forced to accept an outcome in which North Vietnamese troops remained menacingly within their borders. With mortal foreboding, the South Vietnamese chose the latter course, only to find–dismayingly–that they soon had the worst of both: NVA forces were ensconced in the South, and American support was cut off.
Many Americans would not like to hear that the totalitarian states of China and the Soviet Union had proven to be better and more faithful allies than the democratic United States, but that was in fact the case. William Tuohy, who covered the war for many years for The Washington Post, wrote that “it is almost unthinkable and surely unforgivable that a great nation should leave these helpless allies to the tender mercies of the North Vietnamese.” But that is what we did.
Colonel William LeGro served until war’s end with the U.S. Defense Attache Office in Saigon. From that close-up vantage point he saw precisely what had happened. “The reduction to almost zero of United States support was the cause” of the final collapse, he observed. “We did a terrible thing to the South Vietnamese.”
Near the end, Tom Polgar, then serving as the CIA’s chief of station, Saigon, cabled a succinct assessment of the situation: “Ultimate outcome hardly in doubt, because South Vietnam cannot survive without U.S. military aid as long as North Vietnam’s war-making capacity is unimpaired and supported by Soviet Union and China.”
The aftermath of the war in Vietnam was as grim as had been feared. Seth Mydans wrote perceptively and compassionately on Southeast Asian affairs for The New York Times in 2000: “More than a million southerners fled the country after the war ended. Some 400,000 were interned in camps for ‘re-education’–many only briefly, but some for as long as seventeen years. Another 1.5 million were forcibly resettled in ‘new economic zones’ in barren areas of southern Vietnam that were ravaged by hunger and extreme poverty.”
Former Viet Cong Colonel Pham Xuan An described in 1990 his immense disillusionment with what a Communist victory had meant to Vietnam. “All that talk about liberation’ twenty, thirty, forty years ago,” he lamented, “produced this, this impoverished, broken-down country led by a gang of cruel and paternalistic half-educated theorists.” Former North Vietnamese Army Colonel Bui Tin has been equally candid about the outcome of the war, even for the victors. “It is too late for my generation,” he said, “the generation of war, of victory, and betrayal. We won. We also lost.”
The price paid by the South Vietnamese in their long struggle to remain free proved grievous indeed. The armed forces lost 275,000 killed in action. Another 465,000 civilians lost their lives, many of them assassinated by VC terrorists or felled by the enemy’s shelling and rocketing of cities, and 935,000 more were wounded.
Of the million who became “boat people,” an unknown number lost their lives at sea between 1975 and 1979–possibly more than 100,000, according to Australian Minister for Immigration Michael MacKellar. In Vietnam perhaps 65,000 others were executed by their self-proclaimed liberators. As many as 250,000 more perished in the brutal “re-education” camps. Meanwhile, 2 million, driven from their homeland, formed a new Vietnamese diaspora.
Many of those displaced Vietnamese now live in the United States. Recently, Mydans visited the “Little Saigon” community around Westminster, Calif., site of some 3,000 businesses, and then described the bustling, prosperous scene. It was, he suggested, “what Saigon might have looked like if America had won the war in 1975.” And, Mydans concluded, “There is nobody more energetic than a Vietnamese immigrant.”
Campaigning in Westminster during his run for the presidency, Senator John McCain said to a large crowd of Vietnamese, “I thank you for what you have done for America.” Nor have Vietnamese expatriates in the United States forgotten their kinsmen still living in Vietnam. Every year they send back an estimated $2 billion.
None of this has been easy for those who came to America. Nguyen Qui Duc wrote in 2000 in the Boston Globe that, for expatriate Vietnamese, “Painful memories of the war will always remain in our hearts.” But, he added, “The cultural differences and homesickness they endure seem a fair price to be free.”
In conclusion, the war in Vietnam was a just war fought by the South Vietnamese and their allies for an admirable purpose. Those who fought it did so with their mightiest hearts, and in the process they came very close to succeeding in their purpose of enabling South Vietnam to sustain itself as a free and independent nation. A reporter once remarked that General Abrams was a man who deserved a better war. I quoted that observation to his eldest son, who immediately responded: “He didn’t see it that way. He thought the Vietnamese were worth it.”
Lewis Sorley
Reassessing ARVN
Vietnam Magazine, April 2003
Review of Sorley’s book ‘A Better War’.
There is no greater analytical tool than Occam’s Razor, but if I had to pick one worthwhile rival, it is to approach every problem in politics and history with the following mindset : the conventional wisdom is always wrong. This is, of course, far too sweeping a generalization, but it is shocking how often it turns out to be true, and even when it isn’t, it is always helpful to approach a seemingly settled problem skeptically. Just in the past few years there have been several really good history texts which have taken this approach–Hitler’s Willing Executioners, The First World War, The Pity of War–and though they’ve produced predictable howls of outrage, the very controversy they’ve stirred up has forced those who defend the conventional wisdom to do so with far greater rigor, and that’s all to the good. Lewis Sorley’s A Better War challenges the accepted view of Vietnam, does so with great authority, and will hopefully thereby foster a significant re-examination of this sorest spot in the national psyche.
The basic premise of the book is that late in 1970 or early in 1971 the United States had essentially won the Vietnam War. That is to say, we had defeated the Viet Cong in the field, returned effective control of most of the population to the South Vietnamese and created a situation where the South Vietnamese armed forces could continue the war on their own, so long as we provided them with adequate supplies and intelligence, and carried through on our promise to bomb the North if they violated peace agreements. This situation had been brought about by the changes in strategy and tactics which were implemented by Army General Creighton Abrams when he replaced William Westmoreland in 1968, after the military triumph but public relations disaster of the Tet Offensive. Where Westmoreland had treated the War as simply a military exercise, Abrams understood its political dimensions. Abrams, who had worked on developing a new war plan at the Pentagon, ended Westmoreland’s emphasis on body counts and destroying the enemy and switched the focus to regaining control of villages. He understood that eventual victory required civilian support for the South Vietnamese government and this support required the government to provide villagers with physical security from the Viet Cong.
Abrams was accompanied in implementing this new approach by Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker and by William Colby, the new CIA chief in Saigon, who provided greatly improved intelligence reports and oversaw the pacification program. Together they managed to salvage the wreckage that Westmoreland had left behind and they retrieved the situation even as Washington was drawing down troop levels. In 1972, with the Viet Cong essentially eliminated as an effective fighting force, the North Vietnamese mounted a massive Easter offensive, but this too was decisively defeated.
Having failed to achieve their aims militarily, the North Vietnamese turned their attention to the Paris Peace Talks. They were extraordinarily fortunate to be dealing with Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon, two opportunists of the worst sort, who were willing to negotiate a deal which left the North with troops in South Vietnam. When President Thieu balked at this and threatened to scuttle the talks, the North backed off of the whole deal and Nixon ordered the 1972 Christmas bombings of Hanoi. For eleven days, waves of B-52’s, each carrying 108 500-pound and 750-pound bombs, pummeled the North. For perhaps the only time during the entire War, the North was subjected to total war, and they were forced to return to the negotiating table. Sorley cites Sir Robert Thompson’s assessment that :
In my view, on December 30, 1972, after eleven days of those B-52 attacks on the Hanoi area, you had won the war. It was over.At that point, the Viet Cong had been destroyed, we had definitely won the insurgency phase of the War. Additionally, the North had been defeated in the initial phase of conventional warfare, and had finally had the War brought home to them in a significant way. Though the overall War was certainly not over, it was sitting there, just waiting to be won.
So what happened ? Sorley has identified several problem areas that led to the eventual demise of the South. First was the really disgraceful way in which the U. S. bugged out. Having gotten the North back to the bargaining table, Nixon and Kissinger cut a deal–the January 27, 1973 Paris Peace Accord–which allowed the North to keep its forces in South Vietnam. At the time they were some 160,000 in number (as compared to the 27,000 that we were down to by then). Then, despite innumerable assurances, Nixon refused to resume bombing in order to enforce the accords. This enabled the North to use the cover of a cease fire to move more men and materiel into the South. Meanwhile, Congress, with bills like the Fulbright-Aiken Amendment, and extensive cuts to the military budget, pulled the logistical rug out from under the South. At the very time that the North was stockpiling arms, supplied by China and Russia, the South was having its supply of arms seriously curtailed. It was South Vietnam’s bad luck, at its hour of greatest peril, to be saddled with a feckless ally. Imagine having to depend on the U.S. for the logistical support which is your life’s blood at a time when it was being run by Nixon and Kissinger at the executive level and by folks like Ted Kennedy in the congressional realm. Sorley, properly, lays much of the blame at the doorstep of the American political leadership.
A second problem, one for which the military itself must bear more blame than Sorley acknowledges, is that the American press, and through them the public, had lost faith in the War. It had dragged on much longer than American attention spans could tolerate. Political and military leaders had repeatedly misled the public about the prospects of winning the War. The Peace Movement had shaken domestic support for continuance of the effort. Events like the My Lai massacre and systemic problems like drug use, many of them exacerbated by the politically mandated transition to an all volunteer armed service, had undermined the morale of the troops and of the broader public. Like the boy who cried wolf, when the news they carried was finally true, that victory in the War was finally within our grasp, the military could not find anyone to believe them.
Third was the failure to ever stop the North from using the neighboring countries of Cambodia and Laos as supply lines and sanctuaries, and the related failure to carry the ground War into North Vietnam itself. By effectively agreeing to make South Vietnam the battlefield, the U. S. ensured that the War was always being fought, at least to some degree, on North Vietnam’s terms. The modern equivalent would be something akin to issuing rules of engagement, known to everyone, for the Gulf war, which only allowed U. S. troops to fight the Iraqis in Kuwait, never to follow them into Iraq itself, never envisioning an ultimate assault on Iraq itself. Luckily, this seems to have been one of the lessons that the military learned in Vietnam. Never again can U. S. forces be sent into combat with rules so favorable to the enemy.
Finally, and most importantly to South Vietnam itself, even after all the years and dollars, the U. S. had not succeeded in creating a viable South Vietnamese officer corps to take over command of the situation as we pulled out. There were many dedicated and courageous men, even a few good commanders, as Sorley shows during the fighting in the final North Vietnamese offensive in 1975, but not enough. Moreover, the military, indeed the entire society, was so riddled with corruption that the citizenry generally distrusted them. This, combined with the demoralizing effect of watching us turn tail, left the South poorly prepared psychologically to continue the War.
And so, when the final push came, all of these factors came together and created the environment in which the resistance of the South utterly collapsed. Sorley writes movingly about Brigadier General Le Minh Dao, commanding the 18th Infantry Division ARVN, and the valiant resistance he mounted at Xuan Loc. Attacked by first three and then four divisions, the 18th held out for a month, destroying three North Vietnamese divisions before succumbing. The American advisor, Colonel Ray Battreall, said of this action :
That magnificent last stand deserves to live on in military history, if we can overcome the bias, even in our own ranks, that ARVN was never capable of doing anything right.But, of course, we’ve long forgotten this valiant stand, as we’ve forgotten so much else about the War, a War that officially ended with the South’s surrender at 10:25 on April 30, 1975.
One book can not change peoples’ minds about a matter as contentious as the Vietnam War. In fact, the intellectual classes and the Baby Boom Generation have so much of themselves invested in the idea that the War was wrong and unwinnable that it’s unlikely that any number of books could change their minds. But as the years go by and as new generations take a fresh look at the War, it is important that they approach it with an open mind. They, and we, may still conclude that we should never have been there or that there was never a chance that we could win, but those conclusions should be arrived at after examining all the evidence and considering the different possibilities. No one undertaking this task should fail to read A Better War; it is historical revision of the very best kind, thoughtful and thought provoking.
http://brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/829
This is from a site similar to the one I’m looking for (possibly the same one if it’s completely changed its artwork - there was a big SVN flag on the masthead of the one I remember).
From an American officer who did several tours in Vietnam.
There remains much, much more to Viet Nam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand than is suspected by the American public, and conclusions presenting themselves do not conform to what most people think they know.
Yes, there were serious problems with corruption. Yes, there were examples of inept leadership. Still, no one told me, or even suggested, that my initial exposure to the ARVN 9th Infantry Division would reveal the professional and highly competent performance witnessed at a division FDC (Fire Direction Center for allocation of supporting artillery fire). Nor had anyone told me that the 7th ARVN Infantry Division, forever condemned by its lackluster performance at Ap Bac, years earlier, had evolved into a highly effective unit under the leadership of General Nguyen Khoa Nam, a man of impeccable integrity and tactical skills who remains unknown to the American public, while being justly revered by the Viet Namese people. Nor did any suggest it would even be possible for Hau Nghia Province’s RF forces, the provincial militia, to thoroughly humiliate not one but three NVA regular regiments during Hanoi’s 1972 Offensive, systematically chewing up and spitting out attacking enemy forces that could have feasibly changed the course of history during this period.1 The RF did not have the artillery and air support available to regular ARVN (to include Airborne and Rangers) and Marine units, and relied heavily on basic hard-ball infantry skills. Had the NVA broken through they would have posed an immediate and direct threat to Saigon, a mere 25 miles away, forcing ARVN 21st Division forces to pull back from QL 13, and thereby allow NVA forces to direct all their attention to An Loc. As has been noted by James H.
3 Willbanks(2) in his excellent work, the 21st division, while not succeeding in breaking through to besieged An Loc, did force the NVA to divert a division away from An Loc, which conceivably might otherwise have fallen, with dire consequences.
In sum, RVNAF in its entirety, and often mistakenly referred to as simply "ARVN,"was capable of far more than I had learned before going to Viet Nam, and far more than was conveyed to the American people. Then…and now. Going back to the period discussed in this presentation, it is acknowledged that RVNAF had serious problems. This is obvious. Were this not so, U.S., Australian, South Korean, Thai and New Zealand combat units would not have been required. Still, there were indications of what well-led, properly armed and equipped RVNAF forces were capable of. In 1966 the 37th ARVN Ranger battalion decimated an NVA regiment three times its size at Thach Tru, receiving a Presidential Unit Citation from Lyndon Johnson for its feat. An American advisor to the 37th, Capt. Bobby Jackson, described his counterpart, company commander Capt. Nguyen Van Chinh, as being "utterly fearless."3 The 2nd Marine, or Thuy Quan Luc Chien, Battalion, whose shoulder patch depicted a "Trau Dien,"a "Crazy Buffalo,"had likewise bullied VC and NVA units, demonstrating the appropriateness of their unit symbol (all the more meaningful for those who’ve encountered an enraged water buffalo). Their accomplishments were unreported in the US news media and are ignored in later day “histories.”
http://vnafmamn.com/ARVN_68-75.html
From the same site, showing the plight of the ARVN grunt, which was far worse than anything experienced by US and its allies’ grunts at the base level of pay and conditions, and shows why the SVN government lost the loyalty of ARVN soldiers.
By Private 1st Class Bui Manh Cuong ARVN - SN. 72/156.606
By reading a lot of Vietnam war books, most of them written by 3 sides: US, Republic of Vietnam and Democratic People Republic of Vietnam, I just want to share with you some of my point of view about our ARVN combativity in that war. Argument about Vietnam war is a multi-facade subject without end but here are some:
1/. Soldier’s life: Few book written about the ARVN’s life, in the 2nd Indochina war from 1954-1963, a pay for a soldier was about $40,00 USD/month, this pay reduced to $19,00 USD/month at the end of 1975 due to the inflation of the Vietnam Economy. This problem had effected to the moral of ARVN, soldier could not handle the rifle when his wife, his children haven’t had nothing to eat… and housing problem for his family, few of the ARVN leaders had made an effort to build and securize the soldier’s accomodations, the last battles in 1975 shown this problem: many soldiers deserted the combat unit to save their family, and belong to that time: medecine, fuel and material stolen to sell on the black market for buying food. The punishment for the lack of discipline by some leaders, I’d ever seen a Battalion’s commander had hit a soldier with a club as he beat a dog! “You can not defend to the death, when every week you hear from your family that they don’t have enough food to eat. And you look to Saigon, the rich had food, liquor, they have money, they relax, have a good time. Why fight to the death? For whom?” as an ARVN Marine said to the Rand Corporation’s survey for the US Deparment of Defense.
A long war over 20 years had been unbearable to the soldier’s life, they weared-out spirit, endless inquietude for the future of their children: born to die! No politic warfare to apply on their moral, no material supply to help their poor condition of life… Fighting to defense the country was a noble cause but be trivialized by low income: no food, no clothes, no house… Die for the nation was a “job” likes others: their sacrifice had never equitably compensated; a flag, a coffin, some medals… and forgotten quickly when the rich and high-ranking men in the country had sent their boys overseas to avoid their call on duty, having a safety life. The noble cause was stolen when the first US Marines unit landed on China Beach 1965 (Da nang), the presence of the foreigner on the country wiped out this noble cause. And US government quickly turned a “civil” war between North and South Vietnam to an “invade” war between USA and Vietnam.
2/. S.Vietnam Economy: from the 4th exportation of rice’s country in 1959, S.Vietnam became the importation of rice’s country from Thailand in the beginning of US involvement in 1965. The most importance in fighting against the N.Vietnam Communist was rising not only the army strength but also our productivity and economic capacity - I remembered a lot of visits that my dad had brought us to see in the early sixties: The Ha-Tien Cement Factory, the Hiep-Hoa Sugar factory, the Cogido Paper Manufacturer, The electric power plan Da-Nhim, etc. the most impressive visit for me that the Carbine M1/M2 and Garant M1 ammunition manufacturing’s experience in the ARVN Engineer Dept. at Go-Vap but then abandoned after the Diem’s coup in 1963. From 1965, S.Vietnam became a Consummer Country, most of the product for that time imported from USA, France, Italy, Germany, Japan… the only automobile had made in Vietnam with french parts was the Citroen “La Dalat”, a light, easy to repair car based on the french Citroen Mehari.
I also remember the war effort at that time, we could manufacture the dehydrated rice, canned food, combat fatigue and equipment for the army. From a light industrial country, S.Vietnam became a consummer country without ressource, all imported product was paid with dollar of the US assistant program. Moreover, the presence of US soldier with their money, 20 time or more compared to a vietnamese middle-class pay, this problem turned up side down the vietnamese life - a working teacher at day became a Honda-taxi at night to drive the bar girls to the night clubs… The N.Vietnam did some military loans to China and Russia, they must refund these loans after the end of Vietnam war - Why President Thieu sent Nguyen Tien Hung to begging for the US Military Supplies in 1975? Did they have the financial plan, after Paris Accord, to support the war and after-war or just only counted on parole of President Nixon?
3/. S.Vietnam Leadership: Few of valuable leaders in the ARVN. In effect, from Ngo Dinh Diem’s assassination in 1963 because he committed a big mistake: he had said NO to US Goverment, US Policy needs all “Yes-men” to do the job in Vietnam, if you say NO meaning that you are uncooperative or as you said for these Yes-men as “kiss-ass attitude.” Why don’t say YES to please to the Boss? You don’t need to worry about economy problem in the country: you could not plan the rice? No problem, we can buy rice from Thailand. - You don’t need to manufacture the rifle and ammunition, we can buy them from Colt & Remington factories, etc. Building a government based on US Economic & Military Aid, S.Vietnam leaders did not care to swallow any anti-headache pill and doing the war on the American way till the best ally “cut and run”. The Vietnamese second republic high-ranking leaders were military men, most of them were educated from the french school with the feudal society, they were not taught to build a healthy country in economy. I remember the 12 warlords time between 1964-1966, the clowning of General Nguyen Khanh with his Vung-Tau Charter - the dispute between high-ranking generals for leader at that time and forgot entirely to fight against N.Vietnam Communist and modernize the army. The result of the warlords period conducted Nguyen van Thieu to use the high-ranking military leaders based on royalty, fidelity but not on military knowledge and fighting capacity; moreover, Thieu did not respect the military chain of command, he interfered in the military operation as he was a commander of the 5th ARVN Division, the debacle of the Lam Son 719 (I lost a friend in the Artillery of VN Marines unit) following the final battles of Ban Me Thuot, Pleiku & Kontum; the abandoning of the I Military Corp (as the Normandy Landing in 1944, General Von Rundstedt, Commander in Chief of the Atlantic Defense has had waiting for Hitler’s wake-up to request for using 2 SS Panzer Divisions to push the Allied off the shore… Too late!). Thieu usually left General Cao Van Vien behind by giving commandment directly to the MR Commanders without consulting the JCS, showing the lack of command in the Easter Offensive at Quang Tri with General Hoang Xuan Lam in 1972. Was General Vien just a decorative object or just showing that Thieu didn’t trust to anybody?
…
The case of General Do Mau: his education level was on Primary School but he kept in the last end career as Vice-Minister of Education, he was subordinated by President Diem and worked as Military Security Director with the rank Colonel but he turned back to against Diem cause of the General promotion’s list, when Ngo Dinh Nhu said: “Don’t promote the warder Mau to general, North Vietnam Communist will laugh at us! Colonel was his top level.” - To wash his hands off from Diem’s blood, many years after in USA, he (wrote?) a book with his callsign in Can-Lao Party “Hoanh Linh” saying that Diem policy was buddhist repression (Viet Nam Mau Lua Que Huong Toi) then sent a request as a vietnamese buddhist to Pope John-Paulus II to cancel the Pope’s visit to Vietnam and more spectacular at the end of his life, he came back to Vietnam, shaking hand the communist! Betrayed Diem, committed in the death of Captain Do Tho, his nephew; tried to retablish the Buddhism in Vietnam as National religion as the Ly & Le Dynasties? (Roman catholic, muslim, protestant or buddhism are all imported religion) What kind of man he was? A good S.Vietnam leader, wasn’t he?
4/. ARVN Training: the training program for ARVN was quite good in general from the new Quan Doi Quoc-Gia Viet-Nam etablished in 1950 under Emperor Bao-Dai, reformed in 1956 under the 1st Republic of Vietnam, there was more 20 Military training centers and Military Academies : Military Academy of Dalat, Military Academy of Thu-Duc, Naval Academy and Air Force Academy of Nha Trang then the Polwar Academy of Dalat to respond to the Officer need in the Army. In the first day of the young ARVN, training was based on the french training program, platoon to company commander for the officers and with additive training programs, they could be able to command a Batallion or a Regiment but few of them could handle a full division without talking to use his unit in a tactical operation or to combine his unit to the other units for a strategy campaign - the need was accomplished by the opening of the Command & General Staff College.
Beyond of some counterinsurgency programs for ARVN Officers in the early sixties in Malaysia and Philippines, unfortunately, the US Military training program and US advice did not take effect to the ARVN training for an anti-guerilla war but based on the conventional war in WW2 or in Korea, almost US Military advisers did not have experience in the guerilla war. This training way was good then in the Vietnamization but too late to apply in a combined battle when you don’t have no more ammunition for howitzers, no more fuel for aircraft, no more battery for the PRC-25 radio… Unwilling to fight, cowardice, unfitting… that were things that our best ally sticked on the head of the ARVN. These judgments may be right in some case but wrong in general, remember how many US unit disobeyed to fight in the WW2 and in Korea? For me, the worse thing that was happened with COL. JOHN PAUL VANN (click here to learn more about John Paul Vann), he interferred directly in the Ap Bac Hamlet Battle 1963 with the 7th Infantry Division, to cover his mistake by dropping some H-21 “Banana flying” helicopters in the VC zone, to save some US pilots, he compelled the VN M-113 Armor carrier captain to head straight his unit for rescuing the helos crew, but more 6 gunners in the Armor carriers were KIA cause of they didn’t have any steel plate to protect them in action (since that battle, all M-113 was equiped the protection for gunner but no one said thanks to these KIA gunners), then to defense his mistake after mistake, just shouting that ARVN didn’t fought as the way it would be (american cow boys?) to the American News reporters. Did he remember the adviser role in Vietnam that time was only giving his advice? not interferring in the battle! the Captain of the VN M-113s was then General Ly Tong Ba and he met again John Paul Vann in the MR 2 in the Easter Offensive 1972. To have a well trained officer, 4 years in the Military Academies of Dalat, 1 year at Academy Thu-Duc - ARVN would have many problems to resolve in the Vietnamization program, understanding that ARVN must set up 2 or 3 time more officers to fulfill the need of leadership.
5/. ARVN Equipment: From 1954 to 1968, ARVN had used WW2 vintage weapons: unfitting to the little asian body type, excepted the light Carbine M1/M2 rifle. But with these WW2 weapons that the ARVN had used well in combat alone from 1954 to 1963 without US ground troop, eventually very good in the Tet Offensive 1968 although the VC had used the automatic rifle AK-47 since 1964.
M-2 & M-3 Armored vehicles and M-24 Chaffee tanks were used in the early days, replaced in 1963 by M-114 (unfitting on the field, abandoned after the test) and M-113 carriers then M-41 Walker Bulldog, and M-48A3 Patton after Lam Son 719 Operation in the Vietnamization program but without recovering vehicles.
S.VN Navy had been equiped mostly with WW2 ships, VNAF with the main A-1 Skyraider from 1961 till the Vietnamization with A-37 Dragonfly and F-5 for tactical air support but without strategy high altitude bomber and tanker. These military equipment was unfitted when VN Navy had fought in Paracel Islands against Chinese Communist Force in 1974, VNAF could not do anything: fighting aircraft without air-surface missiles and refuelling probe, no tanker. US Military equipment for ARVN was focused on the defense position but not be able to launch an attack outside of the South Vietnam. In the Enhance Plus program in 1973-74, most of the equipment that US Army left behind was useless or had needed to repair and replace with new parts but abandoned in field till the fall of Saigon because lack of spare parts. Take a look on the VPAF (Vietnam People Air Force) today, they were equipped with the modern fighter-interceptor Sukhoi SU-27 Flanker as the Russia or China Air Force - Many VPAF pilots killed in Russia in training with Aero L-29 aircraft during the Vietnam war but no VNAF pilots killed in training flight in USA. Saying that ARVN could not handle US Modern Military equipment was a false argrument when US Government just wanted to end the war at all cost and abandoned the South Vietnam.
http://vnafmamn.com/abandoned_soldier.html
Occassionally true, but many American units had nothing like that level of support and had to grind their way through the landscape without air supply every day. A bit different to Australian units which got air supply maybe once a week and were out for weeks, but still most American units on serious patrols weren’t lying around the countryside eating pizza and ice cream but just grinding along with what they could carry for a few days.
That is well established, as is the shithouse bushcraft of many American units, but they were trained for a different sort of war and dumped into an environment which wasn’t suited for it, where the Australians were trained for it later in the war, after some very ordinary performances early on.
This commonly repeated idea unfairly denigrates the average American soldier.
The fact remains that the Yanks blew the shit out of the VC and NVA in many engagements, with or without toothpaste and shaving cream odours forewarning their enemy of their approach.
The reverse was true for experienced bush soldiers, American and Australian but not SVN, because they could smell their enemy because of the distinctive food, body and cigarette odours they had.
Average American units could have done a lot better with better training and tactics, but the experienced American bush soldiers (as distinct from the essentially garrison grunts in mud forts and FSBs) usually learnt on the job and became reasonably proficient reasonably quickly. Otherwise they died.
America didn’t put hundreds of thousands of men through Vietnam without a lot of them learning to be good bush soldiers and passing their learning on to their successors.
Thanx to all for this fascinating topic and the subsequent postings thereof…
Must pick up that Sorley work on Creighton Abrahms…a great American soldier and servant of the people…
Must state that comments from Bowden’s book are not meant to denigrate U.S. actions…merely make the waters of understanding this complex issue just that little bit more clear…Neil Davis, himself, was very conscious of his own role in the documentation of the war as it was…not just as he saw it. His comments make good background in attempting to sort out the TRUTH from all the 'bull" that came out of the war in Indochina…As John Mileus wrote for his screenplay for “Apocalypse Now”…
“Oh MAN! The bullshit piled up so fast in Vietnam you needed wings to stay above it…”
The U.S. didn’t win simply because they were fighting the wrong kind of war.
“Analogically, the guerrilla fights the war of the
flea, and his military enemy suffers the dog’s disadvantages:
too much to defend; too small, ubiquitous,
and agile an enemy to come to grips with.
If the war continues long enough—this is the
theory—the dog succumbs to exhaustion and
anemia without ever having found anything on
which to close its jaws or to rake with its claws.”—Robert Taber
http://www.potomacbooksinc.com/Books/BookDetail.aspx?productID=50721
The Army has successfully
fought counterguerrilla wars. However, the
contradiction emanating from America’s unsuccessful
expedition in Vietnam is that, because the experience
was perceived as anathema to the U.S.
military’s core culture, hard lessons learned there
about fighting guerrillas were not preserved or rooted
in the Army’s institutional memory. The U.S. military
culture’s efforts to exorcise the specter of Vietnam,
epitomized by the shibboleth “No More
Vietnams,” also precluded the Army, as an institution,
from actually learning from those lessons.
The Army’s intellectual renaissance after Vietnam…
They came from the north by mile after mile of tunnels from hanoi, in there thousands.There were no front lines in vietnam to go by like there was in ww1 ww2 and korea.And worst of all no backing from the people back home.
Not really true. Although Vietnam was a classic insurgency, it was also a conflict that encompassed large land battles and classic, conventional engagements…
da bad VC was beat in 68. politics won it for the North. limp dick politicans
on behalf of the 58,000 dead we’re glad your side won.