VIETNAM STUDIES

THE WAR IN THE NORTHERN PROVINCES
1966-1968

by
Lieutenant General Willard Pearson

DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
WASHINGTON, D.C., 1975

Library of Congress Catalog Number: 75-23360
First Printing

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402

Foreword

The United States Army has met an unusually complex challenge in Southeast Asia. In conjunction with the other services, the Army has fought in support of a national policy of assisting an emerging nation to develop governmental processes of its own choosing, free of outside coercion. In addition to the usual problems of waging armed conflict, the assignment in Southeast Asia has required superimposing the immensely sophisticated tasks of a modem army upon an underdeveloped environment and adapting them to demands covering a wide spectrum. These involved helping to fulfill the basic needs of an agrarian population, dealing with the frustrations of antiguerrilla operations, and conducting conventional campaigns against well-trained and determined regular units.

Although this assignment has officially ended, the U.S. Army must prepare for other challenges that may lie ahead. While cognizant that history never repeats itself exactly and that no army ever profited from trying to meet a new challenge in terms of the old one, the Army nevertheless stands to benefit immensely from a study of its experience, its shortcomings no less than its achievements.

Aware that some years must elapse before the official histories will provide a detailed and objective analysis of the experience in Southeast Asia, we have sought a forum whereby some of the more salient aspects of that experience can be made available now. At the request of the Chief of Staff, a representative group of senior officers who served in important posts in Vietnam and who will carry a heavy burden of day-to-day responsibilities has prepared a series of monographs. These studies should be of great value in helping the Army develop future operational concepts while at the same time contributing to the historical record and providing the American public with an interim report on the performance of men and officers who have responded, as others have through our history, to exacting and trying demands.

All monographs in the series are based primarily on official records, with additional material from published and unpublished secondary works, from debriefing reports and interviews with key participants, and from the personal experience of the author. To

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facilitate security clearance, annotation and detailed bibliography have been omitted from the published version; a fully documented account with bibliography is filed with the U.S. Army Center of Military History.

The reader should be reminded that most of the writing was accomplished while the war in Vietnam was at its peak, and the monographs frequently refer to events of the past as if they were taking place in the present.

The author of this monograph, Lieutenant General Willard Pearson, played a significant role in the events he so graphically describes. During the Tet offensive of 1968 he organized a MACV Forward Command Post and directed its deployment to Phu Bai in the I Corps Tactical Zone. He later served as Deputy Commander and Chief of Staff of XXIV Army Corps, an enlarged and reorganized outgrowth of MACV Forward. In 1966, on an earlier tour of duty in Vietnam, General Pearson commanded the 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division. Under General Pearson's command, the brigade saw action in ten different provinces and earned a Presidential Unit Citation. A veteran of World War II and the Korean conflict, General Pearson is presently Superintendent of the Valley Forge Military Academy and Jr. College, Wayne, Pennsylvania.

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Preface

The North Vietnamese Army units deployed just north of the demilitarized zone in 1966 posed a serious and continuing threat to the security of Quang Tri and Thua Thien, the two northernmost provinces of South Vietnam. This is an account of the North Vietnamese attempts to seize control of these two provinces and of the response of the Free World Military Assistance Forces. The period covered by this narrative is from the spring of 1966 to the spring of 1968 and is the story, primarily, of U.S. Army units.

Particular appreciation is due Major John F. Reid, Infantry, who researched and compiled the initial draft of the narrative and Specialist 7 Gary L. Neal, who was the author's stenographer during the critical months of the Tet offensive at Phu Bai in February and March 1968 and who four years later typed the final draft for the author at Headquarters, V Corps, Frankfurt, Germany.

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Contents

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Charts

Diagrams

Maps

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Illustrations

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page created 15 January 2002

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