TBS 2-67 Cruisebook_Updated_7Jan23

Leatherneck Square
Leatherneck Square
Argument as to Hanoi’s strategy in picking when and where
to stage major attacks south of the Ben Hai river shall be
forever unending. Here’s why: Hanoi never won one so
they will forever obscure their intentions. Pondering
obscurities such as Giap’s intentions affords Marines, who
were particularly effected by them, an excellent excuse to
pass around cigars and slide a bottle of brandy around the
table among old comrades. Who cares if whatever was in
Giap’s head is fuzzy? Pass the brandy.
As to our side, that’s clear. Or more accurately, it’s
clear there was no common, cohesive response. Westy and
Walt never saw eye­to­eye, either tactically or in how much
to starch one’s utilities. Westy looked for opportunities to
find’em and pound’em. Walt took a longer view, building
long­term security of villages and hamlets. The results
differ in their essentials. One cripples your adversary while
the other strengthens your ally.
Nevertheless, for both there was a single flaw: Hanoi
dealt every hand. Giap dealt regiments around I­Corps like
$20 chips sliding across the felt at a Vegas casino.
Two things followed the the regiment he flung Con Tien’s
way. Reinforcements quickly fought their way up to the
beleaguered little fort, good news for anyone who liked a
canteen of water occasionally. (Westy put in an appearance
and was quickly dismayed with the dishevelment of its
defenders. Finally he says to one sergeant, “Marine, it
doesn’t look like you’ve shaved today,” to which the sergeant
answers, “No sir, and I haven’t had a drink of water,
either.” End of visit.)
Lady Bird gave the go­ahead to clear the NVA out.
Con Tien was the exception to Hanoi’s tactical initiative in I­
Corps. The little Hill of Angels was a geographical
exclamation point that the NVA couldn’t circumvent. It
wasn’t big but it sure was there. It was the tactical
equivalent of a South Alabama speed­trap. (You have to go
over to the next county to get by.) Later, when it really
mattered, that’s what the NVA were forced to do, and that
(plus fate) crippled them.
From late spring on the most obvious facet of
anyone’s war north along the eastern DMZ was movement.
Only tiny Con Tien couldn’t; everything else could and did.
Chance encounters on either side were no longer between
platoons and companies, but between battalions and
regiments. Best watch who you ambushed.
Con Tien – Cam Lo – Dong Ha – Gio Linh.
Reasonably a square, a term of convenience for a place of
nasty fighting. Several factors contributed. First was the
Ben Hai river, the only place in that war where opposing
armies could form up and oppose each other across a line.
All the easier, then for both sides to reinforce quickly at
some particular point – which they did. Then there was the
conundrum of Con Tien: it wasn’t high enough to dominate
the terrain but it was high enough to be a target. The real
problem, though, was more subtle. The French had learned
at Dien Ben Phu, at the cost of a number of white flags, that
you couldn’t win an artillery dual with the NVA from the
center of a bulls­eye, looking out.
So the 12 th Marines didn’t try. Instead, they backed
off to the south and defended in depth. A better idea, for
sure, but it had drawbacks, particularly one of geometry,
distance in particular. Air was expected to take up the slack
at the thin end of the arty fan. While time­on­station is no
issue at all for arty, it is for air. If this fundamental MET
A‐21