The long-awaited Viet Cong summer offensive at last seemed under way.
From the suburbs of Saigon to the rain forests around Danang, the Commu nists mounted a savage series of am bushes that snatched away the initiative from the government forces and killed more than 1,000 South Vietnamese troops. The deadliest assaults came in the Red-rife Central Highlands, with the Viet Cong attacking in battalion and even regiment strength as they swept down from the craggy Annamite chain.
"The V.C. are coming out of the bloody hills," said one stunned American offi cer. They were indeed.
Thunder in the Compound. The bold est bit of Red butchery took place at Bagia, a tiny hamlet near Quangngai (see map, opposite page), where three South Vietnamese battalions were mousetrapped and mowed down in the worst single battle of the war to date.
The Viet Cong — numbering nearly 1,000 — started slowly, by ambushing a single battalion engaged in a routine roadclearing operation. Then, as relief convoys dashed out of Quangngai, the Reds snapped ever-fiercer traps on the would-be rescuers. It was the same trick—in the same place—that had destroyed several French regiments in 1953, just a year before Dienbienphu. Some of the ambushed government soldiers panicked, ripping off their uniforms and throwing away their weapons to hide out in hamlets and paddyfields. Those who surrendered received no mercy: many were found shot through the head and disemboweled.
The Communist intent was clearly to capture Quangngai, the provisional capital. And well they might have—except for a hot dose of U.S. airpower. The handful of government reserves held tight in Quangngai as a Red barrage from mortars, recoilless rifles and howitzers thundered against the Bagia redoubt. Reports from a detachment of montagnard mercenaries, who bravely scouted the area on bicycles, showed that the Viet Cong were less than a mile from the town. In the dark before dawn, monsoon clouds hung wet and heavy over Quangngai, but there was just enough room for a flight of C-123 "flareships" to sweep in under the ceiling and illuminate the area. They were followed by F-100 Super Sabres, Skyraiders and helicopters, which lashed the perimeter with rockets, napalm, and cannon fire. Nonetheless, 500 government troops were killed at Bagia.
llyushins for Hanoi. Barely had the shock of the disaster worn off than the Viet Cong struck again—this time at Lethanh, a district capital in mountainous Pleiku province. In the initial assault, the Reds overran the town, held it for three hours while other Viet Cong units ambushed three relief convoys in succession at almost the same spot on the highway. The toll: 106 government soldiers dead, 20 wounded or missing. Other Viet Cong traps clanged shut near Kontum and Quin-hon, and a full battalion of Reds struck the town of Binhchanh, just ten miles west of Saigon. The defending Ranger company was saved by armed U.S. helicopters, but the very fact that the Communists could mount a battalion-sized assault that close to the capital left many military men shaken.