Goodnight Saigon

by Charles Henderson

  Francis had spent the prior day, while en route to Da Nang on his return flight from Saigon, dropping in on what remained of the consulate’s outposts at Hue, Tam Ky, and Quang Ngai. At each location, the situation seemed to grow more desperate by the hour. Refugees from the outlying countryside now choked the cities’ streets. Chaos predominated throughout the region. All things considered, he was thankful for his deputy’s foresight and the precautionary actions she had taken in his absence.

  Despite Ambassador Graham Martin’s directive that no one should do anything that might provoke a lack of confidence among the population, Terry Tull had quietly withdrawn the bulk of the consulate staff from the outlying offices. This reduced the personnel numbers at those sites so that if and when the time came to bug out, it would take only one or two helicopter flights to evacuate the people who had remained to keep the stations functioning.

  Additionally, during the past week, Tull had directed that the staff members who kept the consulate branch open in Hue had to spend their nights in Da Nang, commuting daily over the Hai Van Pass. Now with the crush of refugees flooding the old imperial capital, and enemy forces increasing their onslaught at the city gates, the Hue office had virtually closed for most practical purposes.

  “Come inside and have a seat, gentlemen,” Al Francis said, stepping briskly down the walkway and into the conference room.

  Walter Sparks found his typical seat, against the wall, next to the door. Francis gave him a quick look and said, “Gunny, I need you here at the table with the rest of us.”

  The staff sergeant smiled, feeling suddenly legitimized in his presence, designated as one of the half dozen key people to deal with this crisis, chosen from among the more than fifty-member mix of intelligence, security, and embassy staff based at the consulate.

  “It goes without saying,” Francis began, “our discussions at this table today, and those related hereafter, cannot go beyond this inner circle, what I have code named the Black Box. Wolfgang Lehmann, our ambassador pro tem, assures me in our daily chats that South Vietnam shall stand. In those conversations, he reminds me that we must do everything possible to reassure the Vietnamese nationals that the United States will remain standing tenaciously alongside them during these uneasy times. In other words, any precautionary actions that we take must remain secretive so that we do not panic the natives.”

  “Sir,” a junior CIA logistician said, “my colleagues in Washington tell me that Ambassador Martin has gone on record, assuring everyone that by next year South Vietnam will again control Ban Me Thuot. He has even invited some people on a tour there next spring. In light of what we see around us here, and now our preparations for possible evacuation, don’t you find it a bit presumptive?”

  “I hope that the ambassador is correct in his projections,” Francis responded. “Our work today is simply preparing for the worst, while hoping for the best. I still have confidence that the ARVN may rally and turn the tide. Granted, this is the most serous aggression since the 1968 Tet Offensive, but I still share the ambassador’s hope, presumptive or not.”

  Walter Sparks had heard the same story about Ambassador Martin’sboastful prediction and his stubborn insistence that things were not nearly as bad as they seemed. The Marine, however, did not share even the slight hope that Al Francis still claimed to harbor. Sparks believed that the consul general simply acted out of loyalty to his longtime colleague, the ambassador. Stories that Sparks had heard, however, convinced him that Graham Martin had shut his mind to the obvious and had begun to actually believe his own wishful rhetoric. Contrarily, Sparks, as well as a growing number of the consul staff, now held strong concerns that the end for Da Nang loomed, perhaps in a matter of days.

  Most recently, in the face of this impending doom, the ambassador had told several members of the national press corps, based in Washington, DC, that South Vietnam’s northern provinces, including the ancient imperial capital of Hue and the city of Da Nang, in pragmatic terms, amounted to hardly more than a trifle. Despite the loss of land and natural resources, and the predominantly rural populations of mostly peasants who dwelled there, it meant very little in a national context, both socially and economically. He had said that these regions represented a far greater liability to the government of South Vietnam than an asset for them. Martin had offered that even with the possible loss of Military Regions 1 and 2, which he emphatically discounted, the nation in the larger scheme would suffer little impact.

  Such a comment stirred the staff sergeant’s anger to a rolling boil. After all, these northern provinces represented the land for which countless Marines had fought and bled to hold secure. I Corps had, until now, represented an important enough asset for America to spend tens of thousands of its sons’ lives defending.

  With those thoughts turning in his head, Walter Sparks unconsciously chewed a ragged path around the yellow pencil he had brought for note keeping, while the junior officers’ small talk rambled. As he mindlessly gnawed the pencil’s wood, he noticed an expression of irritation begin to creep across Al Francis’s face. The staff sergeant cracked a smile, recognizing the look and awaiting the potentially sharp reaction. The consul general saw the spreading grin on the Marine’s face and smiled too, letting out a sigh and a halfhearted laugh.

  “Gentlemen,” Francis said, “the gunny and I have some important matters to discuss. So, shall we leave the political opinion letting at the coffee bar?”

  With the comment, Francis tossed on the table, toward the young, blushing CIA logistician whose commentary had momentarily side-tracked the meeting, a thirty-six-page stack of typewritten papers, stapled in three places down one side, like a small-town telephone book.

  “First of all,” the consul general said, “boil this evacuation plan down to one or two pages of bulleted topics. Stick with the main objectives, and forget the minutia. If we have to use it, we’ll probably end up improvising the whole thing anyway. You have twenty-four hours to get it done.

  “From this moment until I say otherwise, we at this table will remain on call, around the clock. Do not put yourself out of pocket.

  “One does not have to be a Yale graduate to appreciate the magnitude of the task, should it come, of evacuating the consulate, other Americans, other foreigners, and friendly nationals whose lives would be in jeopardy if they fell into enemy hands. When we count noses, our people here and the plethora of American contractors in Da Nang, and we include as well the American military deserters in our area, the number quickly surpasses ten thousand people. This does not include those friendly foreigners who could represent another several thousand. At this point, I cannot come close to even estimating the number of local nationals we may desire to evacuate. Conservatively, I would calculate that their numbers could easily double ours. So the message seems clear to me: If we evacuate, it will be absolutely chaotic and very dangerous for everyone concerned.

  “While we have ample United States Navy ships sailing offshore, and we had hoped to use their helicopter lift capabilities to serve as our principle transport, it appears that we cannot count on them to come get us after all. At least that is the present word from Saigon. They have concerns that using American military assets may violate the congressional mandate prohibiting the use of any and all United States military forces in Southeast Asia. In light of that interpretation, the defense attaché has suggested a work-around solution: American civilian maritime shipping. Albeit they remain under control of the navy, the vessels are still technically civilian ships and are therefore not affected. So we may well be looking at Sea-Land Express as our ticket out.

  “Our intelligence staff and I have had some progress lining up Air America to transport the consulate personnel to safety, but they do not have aircraft assets to handle the greater numbers of Americans, friendly foreign nationals, and qualified Vietnamese. So the by-sea option seems the most plausible for them.

  “With that consideration, I think that our immediate objective will be to line up a flot
illa of vessels upon which we can transport as many as thirty to fifty thousand people from the docks across the street, down the Han River, and out to sea and the awaiting cargo ships. Gunny Sparks, we might call it a Marine Corps amphibious landing, in reverse, so to speak.

  “With that said,” Francis concluded, “I will take a helicopter trip to Hue, later this morning, escorting the American press who have gathered here for the grand bloodletting, and I must try to convince them that all remains well. Hue still stands, and the sky is not falling.”

  DENSELY FORESTED HILLS NORTHWEST OF BAN ME THUOT

  “GOOD AFTERNOON, TRAN,” General Van Tien Dung said to his colleague, General Tran Van Tra. “Please join me, and have a cup of tea.”

  The two Communist commanders sat on metal folding chairs at a small, square folding table beneath a camouflage net at the North Vietnamese Army field headquarters near Ban Me Thuot.

  “I have excellent news to tell you,” General Dung said, while pouring hot tea in a small clay cup for Tran Van Tra. “Hanoi has agreed that we must step up our operations and take full advantage of the initiative now established by our forces. We must think of this campaign not as a step toward ultimate victory, but as the final thrust for victory itself!”

  Tran Van Tra smiled quietly, taking off his glasses and cleaning their lenses with his handkerchief. The round-faced, balding man thought of the long endeavor that he began as hardly more than a boy alongside Ho Chi Minh, first fighting the Japanese. After that, he joined the Viet Minh to combat the French. Then came the Americans and their puppet regime in the south.

  As he wiped the lenses of his glasses, he thought of how he had spent his entire life in battle. How odd it now felt to consider the prospect of finally enjoying peace after a lifetime of war.

  “You have nothing to say?” General Dung asked proudly, since it had been his own idea and his urging that had moved Hanoi to agree that the campaign should be now waged full out to victory.

  “Perhaps my first question regards what plans we will now change? When we began, we had hoped for this outcome, but we had planned on a more protracted evolution that would last two or more years, a series of initiatives and retracements. What unfolds before us now clearly goes beyond our most enthusiastic hopes, and quite understandably taxes our maneuverability to the extreme,” Tran Van Tra responded.

  “Correct, General Tran. That is why I have concluded that since we must now push for a final victory, we must focus our attentions on Hue,” General Dung said, rising to his feet and walking to the map board that stood on a tripod beneath the far edge of the camouflage canopy, outside the door of his adjoining command tent.

  “I thought that our intention was Saigon?” General Tran asked.

  “Ultimately, yes,” General Dung answered. “However, our spies, including one very good agent inside Nguyen Van Thieu’s own inner circle, have disclosed that our nemesis has ordered his division of Marines and the ARVN First Division at Hue, along with the ARVN Second Division at Chu Lai, to consolidate with the remaining forces around Da Nang. We cannot allow those units to join their counterparts in Da Nang.”

  “What would they matter if we seized Saigon instead?” Tran asked.

  “If we turn our main forces toward Saigon,” Dung said, “then those Marines and ARVN divisions at Da Nang could quickly move by transport aircraft or sealift to Saigon and reinforce General Toan’s army there, which is now quite large and surrounds Saigon.

  “We must first cut off and destroy the Marines and the First ARVN Division at Hue and do likewise with the Second ARVN Division at Chu Lai.”

  “Have you considered the Americans?” General Tran asked. “When we mobilize our offensives, crushing Hue and Chu Lai, and threaten Da Nang, they could land American Marines there.”

  “The United States at this point appears completely impotent,” General Dung boasted. “They will not intercede, I assure you. Their people will not stand for another dead soldier. They have already shown their hand. All they can do is perhaps increase aid to South Vietnam, and even if they do that, they will not be able to rescue their puppets from the impending collapse that awaits.

  “Now, my friend, would you like to hear something that I am confident will make you laugh?”

  Tran Van Tra smiled and said, “I certainly would enjoy hearing something humorous today.”

  “I received a communique from our good friend, Colonel Vo Dong Giang,” General Dung said. “He reports that in response to the losses South Vietnam suffered at Ban Me Thuot, and now our northern onslaughts, the thugs in Saigon have cut off the water supply and electricity to the Provisional Revolutionary Government compound and at his home.”

  “How unfortunate for the poor diplomats and Colonel Vo,” General Tran said, smiling. “Is there more?”

  “Ah, yes,” General Dung said. “While Nguyen Van Thieu and his gang protest and cut off Vo’s water and lights, the underlings of the puppet government come knocking on our good friend’s back door, under the cover of night, and beg for lodging in his basement. It seems that many of them now embrace our cause and want to join us!”

  “Of course he turns them away,” General Tran said.

  “Of course,” General Dung responded. “Unless one can bring something of value for our consideration, then the good colonel may offer that person a damp room with no windows nor toilet.”

  “That is humorous,” General Tran said, walking to the table and pouring more hot tea into his cup.

  “Colonel Vo tells me that he has ample stores, a generator, and candles if need be,” General Dung said, holding his cup out for more tea. “He related the action to the day our delegation arrived for the opening session of the Joint Military Commission and International Oversight Committee, when they held them on the plane at Tan Son Nhut for a day in that awful Saigon heat. Such a silly and pointless antic, like a spoiled child on a schoolyard, yet so typical of Mr. Thieu.”

  OUTSKIRTS OF TAM KY, SIXTY-TWO KILOMETERS SOUTH OF DA NANG

  HIDDEN BY DARKNESS, Colonel Hoang Duc The, commander of the Thirty-eighth Regiment, Second NVA Division, sat on a hillside at the edge of the gravel roadway designated Provincial Highway 333 and, through his binoculars, quietly watched the bustle of panicked refugees jamming the thoroughfares where the roadway intersected with Highway 1, in the city of Tam Ky. The chaos of terrified peasants had already stripped the city of order. By the hour, policemen and soldiers deserted their posts and fled southward on Highway 1, shedding their uniforms and mingling with the fleeing civilians.

  For two weeks, his unit had moved eastward from the western mountains, as the assault on Ban Me Thuot began and ended. As the Second NVA Division had built its momentum, sweeping toward Tam Ky, a growing tidal wave of frightened people ran ahead of them. This mounting surge of panic-stricken civilians and ARVN deserters served The’s army well, breaking the enemy’s hold on order and discipline and splintering their capacity to govern the people and defend its territories.

  Earlier in the afternoon, The’s Thirty-eighth Regiment had finally linked its forces with those of the First and Thirty-first regiments and now stood at their line of departure, ready to launch their main offensive against the remaining defenders of Quang Tin Province’s capital.

  For the North Vietnamese Army, Tam Ky represented a vital link in their greater objective of isolating and conquering Da Nang, only sixty-two kilometers to the north on Highway 1. By capturing this city and thus blocking the primary route to Da Nang, the Second NVA Division could let slip the wrath of its three reinforced regiments on the core of the Second ARVN Division, defending the garrison at Chu Lai, only a dozen kilometers to the south, and cut them off from Da Nang.

  Orders received this afternoon from Lieutenant General Hoang Minh Thoa, vice commander of the North Vietnamese Army and commanding general of the 968th Corps, had mobilized the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong regiments throughout the regions north and west of Hue and south and west of Da Nang and Chu Lai to position them
selves to launch coordinated attacks, isolating Hue and cutting off Da Nang. The NVA strategy sought to seize these objectives before scattered ARVN and South Vietnamese Marine forces could consolidate and reinforce the defenses of Da Nang. The Second NVA Division now stood poised to overrun Tam Ky before dawn and then take Chu Lai.

  Nearly thirty kilometers north of where Colonel The held his Thirty-eighth NVA Regiment, ready to assault Tam Ky, Colonel Le Cong Than casually inspected a company of black-clad guerrillas from his brigade of more than three thousand Viet Cong, the Forty-fourth Line Front. Colonel Than’s forces now controlled most of the villages and countryside south and west of the big iron bridge that carried Highway 1 across the Cau Do River near the southwestern outskirts of Da Nang.

  As the colonel slowly strolled among the ranks of this unit of nearly four hundred soldiers, he spoke in a quiet voice to men he chose at randomand wished them good fortune. Tonight, divided into small squads, they would begin their infiltration of Da Nang itself. Just as their colleagues had done in Ban Me Thuot, these guerrillas, smuggling explosives and weapons in carts and on bicycles, would position themselves at key points in the city. When the invasion of Da Nang commenced, they would attack from within the city.

  For the past two weeks, along with the Forty-seventh and Ninety-sixth NVA regiments, and the 304th NVA Military Police Regiment, Colonel Than’s guerrillas had purposefully raised havoc throughout the western mountains and the more immediate farmlands surrounding Da Nang, Hue, and Chu Lai, loading the cities and all of their connecting roadways with refugees. The tactic virtually halted any of the enemy’s overland movement, leaving the scattered South Vietnamese forces choked in place. The action also had a surprising psychological effect on both sides. For the South Vietnamese, it caused panic and prompted widespread and massive desertions among the defending forces. At the same time, this motivated the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers to a nearly euphoric state. Their confidence and morale soared.