Page 34 - The Viet-Cong Tet_Offensive_1968

Generai. Williarn C' Westrnoreland, U. S. C ornrnander in
Vietnarn,in the rrreanwhile, had ordered the forrnation of a provisional
Corps CorlLrrand in l Corps and appointed General Robert E' Cushrnan
to cornrnand it, This change was lnade to better prePare the troops for
a possible North Vietnarnese attack on Khe-Sanh.
Little by littLe norrnalcy was restored in Saigon and other
rnajor cities throughout South Vietnarn. The cost of living, which had
spiralecl during the heated days of February, did not go down' A1-
though it was too early for rnost people to decide which side had won
the first round. of battles, the sad reality dawned that the South Viet-
narnese administration had another load on its shoulders' A great
nurnber of people were homeless refugees in their own towns and were
badly in need o{ assistance.

FriendEy remst6om
In the second half of March South Vietnarnese and Allied
troops had the situation throughout the land under control - especially
after they started a series of uninterrupted offensive aweeps around
the big cities. Following Operation Tran Hung Dao, which put an end
to the C ornrluni st presence within the caPital city, an unprecedentedly
large operation was launched on 11 March. This operation was code-
narned "Quyet Thang't (winning Dete rrnination). It achieved litt1e al-
though grouping 50, 000 troops frorn six divisions and two task {orces
in the f ive province s surrounding Saigon (Gla Ointr' Long An, Bien
Hoa, Binh Duong, and Hau Nghia). On the South Vietnarne se side
there were elements of the Fifth and Twenty-Fifth Infantry Divisions'
an airborne task force, a r'-rarine task force, a ranger unit and sorne
police. Cn the American side there were elernents of the First, Ninth,
and Twenty-Fif th Djvisions'
In the Mekong De1ta, Operation Truong Cong Dinh -
narned aJter a farnous Vietnarnese guerrilla Ieader in the 1860rs - was
Iaunched on the sarne pattern, In the northern provinces a series o{
operations code-narned J-arn Son were ordered while Operation Mac
Arthur, grouping elernents of the U. S. Fourth Infantry Division and
the ARVN Z3rd Division, wa-s conducted in the highlands, In addition
there were other regular type operations such as Wallowa Wheeler in
Narn Tin and Muscatine in Quang Ngai.

Aithough these operations were not exactly successful,
total C ornrnuni st losses reached new heights wj.th each passing day.

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