Nguyen Van:
I was the political
commissioner in charge of the
Hue
area. I will briefly describe to you the offensive and uprising during
Tet 1968. The order
given us from above was as follows: Organize an offensive and an
uprising against
Hue, which was the
nerve center of the enemy and a strategic enemy base, with a view to
helping the general effort in defeating the American aggressive design
and forcing the Americans to de escalate the war and to sit down at the
negotiating table.
When we began to carry out the above order by
dispatching our forces to the appropriate places, we made the following
observation: The Americans and the puppet troops were more than 30,000
strong in the
Hue area, comprising
the American Third Marine
Division which was stationed at the Phu Bai military base about 14 kilometers from
Hue, the American 101 Paratroop
Division at Da Le, about six kilometers from
Hue, and the American First Cavalry Division stationed
twenty-two kilometers to the north of
Hue in Dong Lam.
In addition, there were the puppet security forces,
the civilian defense forces, and the secret police forces which were
thickly posted inside
Hue and in
the surrounding areas. On our side, we had two armed battalions and
fifteen special forces units inside the
city. These forces were stationed in various areas in the
city and in the outskirt. But
we also had about three thousand guerrilla fighters and political cadres
inside and outside the
city. Each
guerrilla fighter and each cadre in turn led ten to fifteen local
inhabitants who were our good supporters.
In our thinking, when we
started attacking these forces and inhabitants could stage an uprising,
amounting to some forty to fifty thousand persons. Hence, our armed and
political forces were quite large. Moreover, our armed forces were very
well trained and they had fought their ways into
Hue many times. They had also rehearsed their
attack on the Huong Giang Hotel and had overrun many targets around
Hue. Therefore, on
January 31, 1968...
Nguyen Van:
By
January 31, 1968, all our forces had been in place and were
ready to attack. And yet we were able to keep completely secret on this.
The enemy was not able to find out anything at all. The reason why we
were successful in keeping things secret was because we mounted an
offensive in
Phu Loc, which was
forty kilometers south of
Hue and
on the route between
Hue and
Da Nang. We occupied a long
stretch of road of about 20 kilometers as well as the
Phu-loc military base.
The enemy thought that our main campaign was in that
area and so they tried their best to confront us there. Secondly, on
Route 9 we fought very hard and so the enemy thought that our main
objective was on Route 9. As far as the population was concerned, we
told them that there was serious contradiction within the enemy's ranks
and so there could be a coup d'etat. And should this happen, we would
stage a general uprising in order to occupy the urban areas and to
liberate the rural areas. For this reason, we were able to prepare the
population for an uprising as well as to deploy our armed forces in a
secret manner into the area around the city. The enemy was unable to
detect anything at all.
At 2:33 a.m. on February 1,
1968, the firing started. We attacked simultaneously 30
different targets, concentrating our fire on the nerve centers from the
very beginning. For example, we stormed the Mang Ca military base, which
was the command post of the puppet First Corps and the First Division.
Then we attacked the regional command headquarters of Thua Thien at the Thuan-ba
hotel, paralyzing the command capacity of the enemy for the entire
province. And we attacked the areas where the Americans were living such
as the areas on Dong Da, Ly Thuong Kiet, Le Dinh Duong and Duy Tan
streets.
We surrounded every building, making it impossible
for the enemy to mount any kind of counterattack. As far as the military
bases in Da Le, Phu Bai and
Dong Lam were concerned, we lobbed a lot of mortar shells in there and
created a lot of confusion. At the same time, we destroyed all their
communication centers, making it impossible for them to communicate with
each other and to respond to each other's call for help. Therefore, from
the very beginning the enemy side was in utter confusion. They were
unable to come to each other's aid and to coordinate their activities.
Therefore, we became the master of the
city and the entire outskirts in the very first night.
By the third day, we became the complete master of
the
city and the surrounding areas,
except for the Mang Ca military base, which was the command headquarters
of the enemy First Division. We occupied it at first, but then we pulled
back and surrounded it. Then we tried to overrun it again. Hence, all
the main targets had been destroyed or put under our control. These
included the base camp of the Seventh Armored Regiment in the
Ngu binh area, the Tay loc
airstrip inside
Hue, the command
headquarters of Thua Thien
province, the command headquarters of the provincial security forces,
the provincial headquarters of the provincial pacification program, the
command headquarters of the city police force and the various command
posts in the first, second and third districts of the
city.
All the police posts and
isolated military forts were all destroyed and occupied. By the seventh
day, over 10,000 enemy troops had surrendered. Hence, we met our
objectives during the first few days of the campaign. On their part, the
city inhabitants also rose up
and surrounded the various military posts inside and outside the
city, ordering the enemy troops
therein to surrender. Many enemy units surrendered and handed over their
weapons. Others just ran away. And the population occupied the posts and
collected the weapons. Therefore, over 100 units of enemy security
forces and civilian guards disintegrated. Over forty villages and about
230 hamlets, comprising over 200,000 inhabitants, were liberated.