Page 140 - The Viet-Cong Tet_Offensive_1968

At 0215 hours, the insurgents resortedto anintense rnor-
tar barrage to give additional punch to their frontal thrust, Mortar
rounds and 8.40 rockets continuously pounded the cornrnand post of the
governrnent battalion but due to the positions fortifications, no casual-
ties were recorded. Ten rninutes later their ground troops began the
real attack.
They did not reckon with the presence o{ a reconnaissance
squad lying out of carnp ready to rrwelcornert thern. As soon as the
enerny showed therns elve s ,they were cut down. The whole nttacking
force was rnowed down by rnachinegun fire,Following this a total of 40
dead VC bodies were c ount ed,including that of a rnan narned. Muoi,the
Deputy Cornrnanding Officer of the First Battalion. Governrnent sol-
diers also took six B,40 rocket launchers, two rnachi.neguns, two rno r-
tar tubes, 36 AK,47 autornatic rifles, Z0 pounds of TNT, and about a
ton of arnrnunition.

This vlctory was credited to the reconnaissance squad
whi.ch initially had the sirnple task of alerting the rnain body of troops
of the Viet Cong attack. These reconnaissance troopers struck the
enerny a deadly blow at the initial rninute of the encounter. The insur-
gents never had the chance of doing anything before they were decirna-
ted. The extent of their {ailure can be rneasured by their inability to
even take away the bodies of their dead, that o{ their Deputy Cornrnan-
der inc luded.
Another truisrn also has begun to slowly ernerge frorn
this battle, The Viet Crng battalionrs inability to even approach the
cornrnand post o{ the Ranger unit can be traced to their very poor no-
raLe, Indeed, following the incredibly high losses recorded by this
unit in the first wave of attacks, j.t had to fill up its depleted ranks with
youths forcefully drafted. These constituted the rnajority. According
to a prisoner of war he had only two weeks of training before being
assi-gned to his unit and sent to war.

A litt1e paat noon on Z February a rnechanized in{antry
elernent of the U. S. Arrny clashed with the Viet Cong just over one
rnile out of Hoc Mon and about ten rnlles northwest of Saigon. The en-
counter lasted until early evening. At about the sarne tirne, gove rnrnent
rnarines sweeping through the Binh Hoa intersection atea and the
Hang Xanh section also inflicted gorne losses on the enerny.

During the night fighting again flared up in the Tan Son
Nhut area. The enerny apparently had received sorrre rein{orcernents
and intensified his pressure just north of the Quang Trung Training

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