Page 163 - The Viet-Cong Tet_Offensive_1968

During all this period enerny gunners shelled the city
every night but the intensity of these aerial attacks was reduced after
18 June. Atter the last attack on Tan Son Nhut Airpcrt during the night
of 21 June cornrnunist gunners cornpletely stopped these attacks on the
c ity.

Reasons for V.C. failure
On the basis of battles recorded in the initial days it is
envisioned that the enerny had wanted to open two fronts.

The first front was to have been located in the areas of
the Binh Loi Bridge, the Highway bridge, the Thi Nghe Suburb, and
would have given the cornrnunist control over the northeastern part of
Saigon, including the downtown section o{ Gia Dinh and the radio and
television centers. The enerny apparently had assigned a division size
force {or this area which included the Dong Nai Regirnent, the Z7 4th
Regirnent, Battalion Di An Three and Battalion Thu Duc Four.
When the attack began the intruders rnet with failures
after failures. They failed to overcorne South Yietnarnese resistance
at the Binh Loi and Highways bridges. Their recorded heavy losses
in their first battle put thern in a rnost difficult situation. Although
they were rnore successful at the Highway bridge by slightly darna-
ging it they still were not able to block the hlghly rnobile governrnent
forces which were able to quickly and easily arrive at the Hang Xanh
and New Port areas, thus defeating the enernyrs Plan to occupy Down-
town Gia Dinh,
A11 the intruders were able to do was to infiltrate a
cornpany 6ize force in Thi Nghe where it was irnrnediately isolated
and destroyed about three days 1ater. Following this, the enerny
refrained frorn opening any new fronts in this general area.

Thus the enerny failed in his atternpt to penetrate the
capital city through its northeastern outskirts because of the failure
to take the first objective, the bridge.

The second front was located in the western outskirts
of the city in the area of Binh Thoi. In this direction the enerny
High C ornrnand had deployed an irnportant force including all the
cornponents of the CT,9 Division, two artillery battalions of Regirnent
208, and Regirnent 697 including Battalions 267, 269 and Binh Tan
Six. At one point it appeared that one battalion of Regirnent 88 was
al6o pxesent in this area. Thj's force apparently had corne to Saigon

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