Page 281 - The Viet-Cong Tet_Offensive_1968

of rubble. The tall walls of the Citadel were torn at several places.
The civilian battle casualti.es, excluding those civiLians rnurdered or
buried alive in rnass graves by the enerny, were the highest in the
cityrs history, Property destruction was the greatest since the birth
of the city. Sorne 944 civilians were known killed and 784 wounded.
The killed included 378 who died in the First Precinct or inside the
walled Citadel, 400 in the cityrs Second Precinct on the left bank of
the Perfurne River, and 166 in the Third Precinct on the ri.ght bank of
the river, Some 4,456 civilian houses were totally destroyed, j,360
darnaged by rnore than 5O/o and 2,757 darnaged by less than 50/0.
Hardest hit and entirely destroyei were 2,815 structures in the Citadel,
895 on the left bank and 746 on the right bank. More than 5O/a darnaged
were 1,382 houses in the Citadel, 7,525 on the left bank and 453 on the
right bank. Darnaged Less than 50/o wete 1,046 structures in the Citadel,
1,036 on the left bank and 673on the right bank. On the ave rage the bridges
inside the city were darnaged by 60/0. The An Cuu bridge, blown by the
enerny, r'equired reconstruction. The Kho Ren, Phu Carn and Narn Giao
bridges collapsed alrnost entirely. The Bach Ho railroad bridge Iost
one span. The Gia Hoi bridge received sorne rnortar holes and was
already repaired. The Kirn Long bridge collapsed entirely and was
rebuilt. The city's key steel and concrete Trang Tien bridge lost its
two rniddle spans. This bridge becarne re-useable for pedestrians only
when a pontoon was used to link the other spans together,

C, - THE ENEMYIS SCHEME FOR THE HUE OFFENSIVE
In carrying out his scherned attack on Hue the enerny
had at his disposal an operational staff,.two assault in-fantry regirnents
whichwere supported by the city-based secret agents and two additional
infantry regirnents. The latter served both as backup and replacernent
units.

The rnain force elernents were the 5th Regirnent and the
fi-fth colurnn narnely the 5th Cornrnand of Hue headed by Nguyen Van and
the 6th Regirnent cornrnanded by VC Lt. Co1. Nguyen Trong Dan.

The reinforcing regirnents were the 9th Regirnent,
c ornrnanded by VC Lt. Col. Di, and an elernent of the 8th Regirnent.
The 8ih Regirnent was an offspring of the Song Lo Regirnent and was
not brought into action until the later stages of the offensive. The 9th
Regirnent was also previously known as the Cu Chinh Lan Regirnent
which had been narned ajter its late cornrnander Cu Chinh Lan who
died in the 1951 Operation Hoa Binh. Slogans praising the spirit of

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