In early April of 1968, President Lyndon Johnson ordered an operation
that demanded the cooperation of the Marines, the Air Force, the Navy,
and the Army and involved the deployment of over 15,000 soldiers in less than a week.
The US services teamed up to relieve a strategic base at Khe Sanh in South Vietnam,
where the 26th Marines had been surrounded and harassed by the North Vietnamese for months.
Soldier Don Sykes summed it up well when he said:
(QUOTE) “I’m counting the days till I’m out of the Godforsaken place.”
Determined to retake the base at all costs, Operation Pegasus was
launched with the objectives of not only relieving Khe Sanh and reopening its main
artery but also neutralizing as many North Vietnamese units in the area as possible.
The brutal battle became one of the largest offensive campaigns of the Vietnam War
and would require all the bravery and faultless communication that the US forces could muster…
Surrounded
Khe Sahn was the scene of one of the most bitter fights in the entire Vietnam War.
It was also one of the most publicized in American media at the time.
In 1967, the People’s Army of Vietnam carried out what the US command in Saigon
regarded as minor offensives in the border regions around the Khe Sanh Combat Base
in the northwestern Quang Tri Province of South Vietnam.
However, they eventually detected movement of major forces in the area.
Khe Sanh was mainly defended by two regiments of the US Marine Corps,
which were supported by elements of the Army and the Air Force, and by several Army of the Republic
of Vietnam allied troops. Still, the US had to build up its forces before the base was isolated.
By late January of 1968, shortly before the Tet Offensive was launched, the strategic base was
besieged by two to three division-sized enemy units. Khe Sahn and the hilltop outposts around
it were showered with artillery, mortar, rocket attacks, and many infantry assaults.
Soon after, the US Air Force launched Operation Niagara to support the Marines on the ground,
with a massive aerial bombardment campaign of over 100,000 tons of bombs
and 158,000 artillery rounds, forcing the North Vietnamese to stay low.
Meanwhile, massive efforts were made to keep the base supplied
with several tactical implementations, including container delivery system,
low altitude parachute extraction, and ground proximity extraction.
The siege carried on through February and March, and Khe Sanh was attacked five times in
battalion strength. In every encounter, the 6,000 Americans and their allies repelled the enemy,
which was over three times stronger than them.
Fierce yet accurate airstrikes and artillery bombardments kept the enemy at bay and prevented
them from mounting a final attack. Even at night and under bad weather conditions, 2,500 B-52s
pummeled the North Vietnamese using the radar and sky spot ground control targeting system.
As the brave Marines resisted, tough decisions had to be made. Back home, the press compared the
situation to the 1954 Battle of Dien Bien Phu, a total disaster for the French at the time.
While the Battle at Khe Sahn was extremely volatile, President Lyndon B. Johnson
was determined to hold the base at all costs.
Operation Pegasus
General William Westmoreland had ordered General John J. Tolson, commander of the First Cavalry
Division, to come up with a contingency plan to relieve Khe Sahn as early as January.
The only practical overland route from the east, Route 9, was impassable, but Khe Sanh had to be
secured so it could be used as a jump-off point to pursue enemy forces into Laos.
Operation Pegasus was laid out on March 2, the largest operation to be launched
by the III Marine Amphibious Force at that point in the war.
While the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, and the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment launched
a ground assault from Ca Lu Combat Base to approach Khe Sanh from the east on Route 9,
the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Brigades of the 1st Cavalry Division would assault key
territories along the route, establishing fire support bases to cover the Marines’ advance.
Additionally, the 4th Marine Regiment would secure Route 9 to provide convoy security,
and the 9th Marine Regiment would do the same in its sector.
Moreover, the 12th would support the 1st Cavalry Division with artillery.
Besides, the 11th Engineer Battalion would accompany the Marines to repair the road,
and the 1st Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, and the 3rd Army of the
Republic of Vietnam Airborne Task Force would also join the operation.
Then, on March 25, the order was issued to simultaneously conduct Operation Pegasus
and Operation Con Thien-Gio Linh, a deception plan along the coastal areas of Quang Tri Province.
However, enemy activities around Khe Sanh began tapering off,
and the North Vietnamese Army began to withdraw two days later.
At 6:00am on March 30, the deception operation was launched towards the demilitarized zone.
Two hours later, the operational control of the 26th Marine Regiment at Khe Sanh led by
Colonel David E. Lownds was passed to the 1st Cavalry Division, initiating Operation Pegasus.
However, Westmoreland’s relief effort infuriated the Marines,
as they had never been in favor of holding Khe Sanh. Moreover, they had been heavily
criticized for not defending it well, even as they did not consider the base under siege
and claimed it was never isolated from resupply or reinforcements.
Even Lieutenant General Robert E. Cushman Jr., commander of the III Marine Amphibious Force, was
appalled by the: (QUOTE) "Implication of a rescue or breaking of the siege by outside forces.”
Mobilization
Operation Pegasus was launched on April 1, 1968. At 7:00am, the joint forces began their advance
from Ca Lu along the route towards the Khe Sanh base. The 1st Cavalry Division combined ground
and air assaults to clear the area, while the two lead Marine battalions pushed west.
Meanwhile, hundreds of helicopters were busy ferrying heavy equipment
to multiple landing zones. So many Hueys and Chinooks landed
on LZ Stud that one Marine even wondered if every private had his own helicopter.
Thousands of soldiers stood along the runway awaiting their turn,
but poor weather conditions delayed the deployment. The men were to be
transported to diverse areas across the “Indian Country,” slang for enemy-held lands. Private
Fred Woodruff recalled what it felt like being on the open-sided helicopter: (QUOTE) “We were
most certainly heading north, and that was not a direction to be heading in Vietnam.”
Finally, at 1:00pm, the initial waves of the 3rd Brigade of the Cavalry arrived at their positions
along several landing zones close to the base. As the Marines cleared Route 9, the engineers
repaired the route: one and a half kilometers and four by-passes on the first day alone.
Despite the weather, air support provided by eight B-52 raids also assisted the ground forces.
After a quiet night in rapidly mounted defensive positions, operations resumed at 6:55 the next
morning. But contact with the enemy as the Marine battalions advanced was minimal,
and the unfavorable flying conditions persisted throughout the mission.
Meanwhile, the engineers repaired another
three kilometers and built two bridges and two more by-passes.
Five of six airstrikes targeted the immediate vicinity of Khe Sanh.
The Air Force, Navy, and Marines flew 142 tactical air sorties that day,
while hundreds of tons of cargo and supplies were promptly delivered.
On the third day of the operation, the tempo picked up.
As the ground forces continued to advance, the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division executed
the air assault a whole day ahead of schedule. Moreover, almost every troop had secured their
positions across all strategic landing zones, and they were about to reach their objective.
Triumph
On April 4, as the Marines continued their westward attack and the 3rd
Brigade pressed on the enemy around the landing zones, the 1st Battalion,
5th Cavalry assaulted an old French fort that had held President Ho Chi Minh and his wife.
That same day, the 26th Marine Regiment deployed their first major offensive in weeks out of the
combat base, and Hill 471 was secured in the afternoon by the 1st Battalion, 9th Marines.
However, the following day the enemy struck first. The North Vietnamese attempted to retake the hill
in a fight that became one of the highlights of the entire operation. At 5:15am,
they charged up the hill but were met with mighty artillery firepower, and their effort was futile.
Advances continued routinely, except for the 2nd Battalion,
7th Cavalry, which met the heaviest enemy resistance of the operation on the 6th.
It took the whole day, but the Americans finally drove the North Vietnamese out of their positions,
capturing over a hundred individual and crew-served weapons.
By noon, the 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry relieved the Marines on Hill 471, who opened a clearing
attack northwestward. All the while, 15 kilometers east of Khe Sanh, the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry
was facing stiff resistance at the French fort. The 2nd Battalion came to the rescue, and finally,
on April 7, the last enemy strongpoint between the American advance and Khe Sanh fell.
The main supply route was reopened as the retreating enemy offered
little resistance and left vast amounts of new equipment behind.
At 8:00am the following day, Khe Sanh was relieved, and the route was cleared and relinked.
Rather than run the risk of similar situations in the future,
the base was dismantled not long after.
As the 26th Marines departed Khe Sanh, the 1st Marine Regiment took over. Then, on May 23,
Lownds and his regimental sergeant major received a Presidential Unit Citation from President
Johnson for the brave actions of the 26th Marines during the months-long siege at Khe Sanh.
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