During the Cold War, Vietnam revealed the limitations of a major power
in a peripheral conflict. Even so, the military forces involved (North
Vietnamese, South Vietnamese, American, and Allied) demonstrated
battlefield consistency in conflict that did credit to them all.
By early 1972, Nixon's policy of Vietnamization was well underway: South
Vietnamese forces had begun to assume greater military responsibility
for defense against the North, and US troops were well into their
drawdown, with some 25,000 personnel still present in the South. When
North Vietnam launched its massive Easter Offensive against the South in
late March 1972 (the first invasion effort since the Tet Offensive of
1968), its scale and ferocity caught the US high command off balance.
The inexperienced South Vietnamese soldiers manning the area south of
the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone in former US bases, plus the US Army
and Marines Corps advisors and forces present, had to counter a massive
conventional combined-arms invasion.
The North's offensive took place simultaneously across three fronts:
Quang Tri, Kontum, and An Loc. In I Corps Tactical Zone, the PAVN tanks
and infantry quickly captured Quang Tri City and overran the entire
province, as well as northern Thua Thien. However, the ARVN forces
regrouped along the My Chanh River, and backed by US airpower tactical
strikes and bomber raids, managed to halt the PAVN offensive, before
retaking the city in a bloody counteroffensive. Based on primary sources
and published accounts of those who played a direct role in the events,
this book provides a highly detailed analysis of this key moment in the
Vietnam conflict. Although the South's forces managed to withstand their
greatest trial thus far, the North gained valuable territory within
South Vietnam from which to launch future offensives and improved its
bargaining position at the Paris peace negotiations.
