Battle of Thượng Đức (1968)
| Battle of Thượng Ðức (1968) | |
|---|---|
| Part of the Quảng Nam Province, South Vietnam | |
| Result | Allied victory |
South Vietnam
United States
North Vietnam21st Regiment
141st Regiment
368B Rocket Regiment
28 killedThe Battle of Thượng Ðức took place during the
Battle
One month after the
On 28 September, after the South Vietnamese district chief reported that all noncombatants had departed, a CIDG force attacked the village, but became pinned down in the marketplace because their supporting 106-mm recoilless rifles could not penetrate the sturdy buildings nearby. A 5th Special Forces Group Detachment A-109 officer called for air strikes that annihilated both the structures and the troops that had fortified them. In the vicinity of the marketplace, the advancing CIDGs found 40 to 50 bodies, with other corpses half-buried in collapsed trenches or houses. Shortly afterward, a FAC called in F–4 Phantoms against a suspected mortar position across a river from the camp. Dust from the first rounds had barely settled when yellow smoke billowed upward, a signal sometimes used to indicate the presence of friendly troops. The ruse failed, however, since the FAC had received word that neither Americans nor South Vietnamese had crossed the stream. Fighter-bombers repeatedly swept low over the target, and frantic messages crackled over a captured PAVN radio being monitored by members of the Thuong Duc Special Forces detachment. The radio traffic indicated that American bombs had fallen squarely upon a PAVN unit, wounding a high-ranking officer and causing momentary panic. The struggle for Thuong Duc lasted until the morning of 30 September, when a MIKE Force, landed from Army helicopters the previous day, helped drive off the PAVN. The aerial firepower unleashed in close proximity to the camp had proved overwhelming. Besides the nighttime activity of the slowly circling AC–47s and the more modern AC–130A, the PAVN had to contend each night with as many as ten radar-directed A–6 strikes. In addition, B–52s bombed suspected troop concentrations some distance from the battlefield.[1]: 86–7
Aftermath
On 6 October a combined U.S. Marine-South Vietnamese operation, Operation Maui Peak was launched to clear the hills around the base. The forces involved included the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines and 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines and resulted in an estimated 353 PAVN killed for the loss of 28 Marines.[2]
References
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