First Battle of Saigon

Although Saigon was the focal point of the offensive, the communists did not seek a total takeover of the city. Rather, they had six primary targets to strike in the downtown area: the headquarters of the ARVN General Staff at Tan Son Nhut Air Base; the Independence Palace, the American Embassy, the Long Binh Naval Headquarters, and the National Radio Station. These objectives were all assaulted by small elements of the local C-10 Sapper Battalion. Elsewhere in the city or its outskirts, ten Viet Cong Local Force Battalions attacked the central police station and the Artillery Command and the Armored Command headquarters (both at Go Vap). The plan called for all these initial forces to capture and hold their positions for 48 hours, by which time reinforcements were to have arrived to relieve them.

The defense of the Capital Military Zone was primarily a South Vietnamese responsibility and it was initially defended by eight ARVN infantry battalions and the local police force. By 3 February they had been reinforced by five ARVN Ranger Battalions, five Marine Corps, and five ARVN Airborne Battalions. U.S. Army units participating in the defense included the 716th Military Police Battalion, seven infantry battalions (one mechanized), and six artillery battalions.

Faulty intelligence and poor local coordination hampered the communist attacks from the outset. At the Armored Command and Artillery Command headquarters on the northern edge of the city, for example, the communists planned to utilize captured tanks and artillery pieces to further support the offensive. To their dismay, they found that the tanks had been moved to another base two months earlier and that the breech blocks of the artillery pieces had been removed, rendering them useless. One of the most important Viet Cong targets was the National Radio Station. Communist troops had brought along a tape recording of Hồ Chi Minh announcing the liberation of Saigon and calling for a "General Uprising" ag...

Except for Hué, the most serious city fighting was in Saigon. Once a gracious, languid island in the midst of war, Saigon last week was a city rimmed by fear. Every half-hour the radio grimly warned: "The Saigon-Cholon area is not considered secure. Firefights and sniper fire are expected to continue. Do not travel on foot. All vehicles must have an armed escort." Flak-jacketed American MPs, weapons at the ready, roared along the tree-shaded boulevards. Trigger-happy police fired frantically in the air to halt vehicles approaching checkpoints and barricades strung about the city. Tough ARVN marines and paratroopers blasted their way through narrow alleys in running gun battles with the Viet Cong, 700 to 1,000 of whom were believed still mingling with the city's population.