Battle of An Loc

The initial wave of the offensive was followed on 5 April by a PAVN advance out of Cambodia into Binh Long Province, northeast of Saigon. Its targets were the towns and airfields at Loc Ninh, Quan Loi, and An Loc. The possible initial goals of the offensive in III Corps remain unclear, but probably began as probes that, if successful, could be easily reinforced. The invasion was launched from Cambodian Base Area 708 by the B-2 Front's 5th PAVN/NLF Division and 203rd Armoured Regiment, which advanced down Highway 9 toward the border outpost of Loc Ninh. There, the 2,000 men of the ARVN 9th Regiment and a battalion of Rangers beat back five separate infantry/armor assaults before collapsing under the attack on 7 April. The North Vietnamese then isolated the 25th ARVN Division in neighboring Tay Ninh Province by sending two regiments to attack its forward outposts.

Sensing that the provincial capital of An Loc would be the next target, the III Corps commander, Lieutenant General Nguyen Van Minh dispatched the 5th Division to hold the town. They were reinforced by two battalions of the Ranger Group (on 7 April) and by two additional infantry battalions (on 10 April and 11 April). The 21st Infantry Division, which had been stationed in the Mekong Delta, was rushed to Chon Thanh to join a regiment of the 9th Infantry Division as a relief force. All forces in the area were placed under the command of Brigadier General Le Van Hung, commander of the 5th Division.

The move was fortuitous for the South Vietnamese, since communist forces were indeed proceeding eastward toward An Loc. Simultaneously, the 7th PAVN Division bypassed the town and moved south along Highway 13 to block any relief effort launched from Chon Thanh. The communists had decided that An Loc, with its close proximity to Saigon, would be proclaimed as the capital of the Provisional Revolutionary Government, but even if they had been able to seize the town, they would never have been able to hold it. ...

The attack on An Loc was only one facet of General Vo Nguyen Glap's military strategy to gain Hanoi's long-sought political ends in RVN. Unlike the Tet attacks of 1968, Glap chose not to use Viet Cong (VC) insurgents as his main attack force or depend upon a peripheral strategy that necessitated a popular uprising in the south (2). Instead, he directed conventional attacks in MR I, II, and III involving the commitment of practically all North Vietnam's regular forces; these divisional-size elements, well-balanced in armor, infantry, and artillery were oriented toward the destruction of RVN's armed forces, trapping, if possible, the remaining U.S. personnel in the country.