Bowden - Huế 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam

A lso by Mark Bowden

Doctor Dealer

Bringing the Heat

Black Hawk Down

Killing Pablo

Finders Keepers

Road Work

Guests of the Ayatollah

The Best Game Ever

Worm

The Finish

The Three Battles of Wanat

A Turning Point of
the American War in Vietnam

Atlantic Monthly Press

New York

Copyright 2017 by Mark Bowden

Jacket design by Michael Patrick Dudding

Jacket photograph Rolls Press/Popperfoto/Getty

Maps 2017 by Matthew Ericson

An excerpt from Cheating the Reaper is reprinted from
Praying at the Altar by W. D. Ehrhart, Adastra Press, 2017, by permission of the author.

Ballad of the Green Berets, words and music by Barry Sadler and Robin Moore,
copyright Music Music Music Inc., 1963, 1964 & 1966. Permission given by Lavona Sadler.

Photo credits are as follows: Photo 1.1 (Che Thi Mung): Courtesy of Che Thi Mung. Photos 1.2 (Frank Doezema), 2.1 (Jim Coolican): Courtesy of Jim Coolican and Fred Drew. Photo 1.3 (Nguyen Dac Xuan): Courtesy of Nguyen Dac Xuan. 1.4 (President Johnson and General William Westmoreland): Bettmann/Getty Images. 2.2 (Gordon Batcheller): Official Marine Corps Photo. 2.3 (Chuck Meadows): Courtesy of Chuck Meadows. 2.4 (Alfredo Freddie Gonzalez): Official Marine Corps Photo A419730, courtesy of the Marine Corps History Division. 3.1 (MACV press pass): Courtesy of Gene Roberts. 3.2 (Jim and Tuy-Cam Bullington): Courtesy of Jim and Tuy-Cam Bullington. Photos 3.3 (Tran Cao Van Street), 5.4 (raising the American flag): Rolls Press/Popperfoto/Getty Images. 3.4 (Mike Downs): Courtesy of Mike Downs. 4.1 (Ernie Cheatham): Courtesy of John Salvati. 4.2 (Catherine Leroy): Photo by Franois Mazure, published in LIFE Magazine (February 16, 1968). 4.3 (Ray Smith): Courtesy of Ray Smith. 4.4 (Bob Helvey): Courtesy of Charles Krohn and Robert Helvey. 5.1 (Civilians in Hue): Photo by Kyoichi Sawada, UPI. 5.2 (Ron Christmas): Courtesy of Ron Christmas. 5.3 (Andy Westin): Courtesy of Andy Westin. Photo 6.1 (Walter Cronkite): Everett Collection Inc/Alamy Stock Photo. 6.2 (Bob Thompson): Courtesy of John Olson, source unknown. Photos 6.3 (Dong Ba Tower), 7.2 (the Citadel): John Olson. Photo 6.4 (Steve Storyteller Berntson): Courtesy of Steve Berntson. Photo 7.1 (James Vaught): Photo Courtesy of James J. Wilson, Sgt. E 5, B Co., 5/7 Cav. 1967-68.

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.

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Published simultaneously in Canada

Printed in the United States of America

Text Design by Norman Tuttle
This book was set in Dante MT with ITC New Baskerville
by Alpha Design & Compostion of Pittsfield, NH

First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition: June 2017

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication data available for this title.

ISBN 978-0-8021-2700-6

eISBN 978-0-8021-8924-0

Atlantic Monthly Press

an imprint of Grove Atlantic

154 West 14th Street

New York, NY 10011

Distributed by Publishers Group West

groveatlantic.com

For Gene Roberts

Wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good.

Gabriel Garca Mrquez

Contents

: The Infiltration

: The Fall of Hue

: Futility and Denial

: Counterattack in
the Triangle and Disaster at La Chu

: Sweeping the Triangle

: Taking Back the Citadel

Hours before daylight on January 31, 1968, the first day of Tet, the Lunar New Year, nearly ten thousand North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and Viet Cong (VC) troops descended from hidden camps in the Central Highlands and overran the city of Hue, the historical capital of Vietnam. It was an extraordinarily bold and shocking move, taking the third-largest city in South Vietnam several years after Americas military intervention was supposed to have shifted the war decisively in Saigons favor. The National Liberation Front, as the coalition of Communist forces called itself, had achieved complete surprise, taking all of Hue save for two embattled compounds, one an Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) base in the citys north, and the other a small post for American military advisers in its south. Both had no more than a few hundred men, and were surrounded and in danger of being overrun.

It would require twenty-four days of terrible fighting to take the city back. The Battle of Hue would be the bloodiest of the Vietnam War, and a turning point not just in that conflict, but in American history. When it was over, debate concerning the war in the United States was never again about winning, only about how to leave. And never again would Americans fully trust their leaders.

PART ONE

The Infiltration

1967January 30, 1968

Che Thi Mung (left) and Hoang Thi No,
village teenagers with the Huong River Squad
who fought American and ARVN forces.

Frank Doezema, the army radioman
who manned the guard tower at the MACV compound
when Front troops attacked.

President Johnson and General William Westmoreland
in the Rose Garden during the generals November 1967 spizzerinctum tour.

Nguyen Dac Xuan, the Buddhist poet who became
a propagandist and commissar for the Front.