Page 297 - The Viet-Cong Tet_Offensive_1968

On the sarne second day of Tet, Jan 31, gunfire was
heard frorn Tri Buu frorn dawn to dusk. Frorn this predorninently
Catholic village the enerny trained his rnachineguns on the city and
fired aknost continuously at the MACV cornpound, the helicopter
Ianding pad, the Inforrnation Service and the RD office. He had over-
run this village with two cornpanies of the assault force.
In the afternoon, the l"ocal Vietnarnese and Arnerican
forces cancelled a planned counter-attack to recapture the village
because too rnany civilians were still traPPed there and could not
readily leave, This was ascertained by the aerial reconnai.ssance
frorn US planes of Ai Tu harnlet. These planes had rnet heavy enerny
ground fire frorn rnachineguns positioned on top of the vilLagers church.

Throughout the night of Jan 3I fighting broke out alrnost
everywhere in the city. The weather was so bad that no flare supPort
could be provided Ior the cityrs defenders. Only a few rnorlar-pro-
pelled flares were fired. Nevertheless the enerny still failed to pene-
trate any rnilitary in stallation
"
On the following n,.,rning, Feb lst, the enerny herded
a nurnber of wornen and children into a protest rnarch toward the city,
but the reluctant crowds were dispersed easily' The ground operation
conducted by friendly troops with air support against the enerny force
in Tri Buu village lasted throughout rnost o{ the day and ended in the
enerny withdrawing frorn Tri Buu. The war thus Looked to be nearing
an end for Quang Tri as the city was returning to norrnal.

While occupyi.ng Tri Buu the enerny rounded up a
nurnber of able bodied rnale villagers, civil servants and soLdiers on
Tet horne leave but allowed wornen and children to evacuate the village.
Then they tied all these rnale villagers to their gun positions' A good
nurnber of these defenseless people were killed and wounded during
the friendly airstrikes against enerny positions, along with sorne
100 enerny counted killed, The village was left in a sharnble s because
of the battle. 80 per cent of the villagers hornes were darnaged or
destroyed, while its church was aknost a cornPlete loss.
On the night of Tet Day, Jan 30, the enerny shelled the
lst Infantry Regirnentrs headquarters cornpound and inflicted light
darnage to it. The populated areas of the city were only lightly darnaged.
During the following days governrnent troops conducted
continuous sweep operations in town which resulted in eight colnrnu-
nist captured. Seven of thern were captured at the rnain bus station
and were about 20 years old and natives of Thanh Hoa and Nghe An,

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