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Vietnam War ~ 1963.01 Battle of Ap Bac

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Post time 2020-3-1 15:20:08 | Show all posts |Read mode
U.S. Vietnam War ~ 1963 Battle of Ap Bac
Diagram is partly from US westpoint history department.
Text content is from English wikipedia website.  

Background
Small-scale military actions, which would eventually escalate into the Vietnam War, started in
the late 1950s, when South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem instituted an
anti-Communist campaign aimed at rooting out "left behind" Viet Minh forces. At that time,
North Vietnam was hoping for an election, promised under the Geneva Accords of 1954,
that would unite North and South Vietnam. It was also worried about inciting the United
States into directly supporting South Vietnam, and had recommended a policy of avoiding
battle at all costs.[6] However, Diem's campaign was too successful to allow them to do
nothing, and small-scale actions broke out across the country. North Vietnam remained
worried about US involvement and refused any sort of military support, forcing the remaining
Viet Minh to retreat into inaccessible areas in the hills and river estuaries. A stalemate of sorts
followed, as South Vietnamese forces took so long to reach these areas that the guerrilla
fighters were able to retreat with little difficulty.

Large-scale American support began during the Kennedy Administration in the early 1960s,
with the arrival of large numbers of the US Special Forces to help out in the field. The
arrival of helicopters changed the nature of the battle considerably. Helicopters enabled
South Vietnamese soldiers to quickly fly to almost any point in the country, leaving little
time for a retreat. Throughout 1962, the combined forces were increasingly effective in
routing the VC. These tactics, combined with the use of armored personnel carriers, took
a heavy toll on various fledgling VC units.[8] The lightly armed VC had no weaponry
capable of stopping the armored carriers and inevitably were forced to flee, taking heavy
casualties.


The most successful South Vietnamese force had been the 7th Infantry Division, then
under the command of Colonel Huỳnh Văn Cao. His US adviser was Lieutenant Colonel
John Paul Vann, who directed much of the unit's activity in concert with his planner,
Captain Richard Ziegler. They had scored the biggest successes of the military campaigns
of 1962, killing along with the paramilitary and Civil Guard and Self Defense Corps, more
than 2,000 VC fighters and leaving thousands of others cut off from supplies.

However, South Vietnamese officers were often reluctant to absorb heavy casualties.
On several occasions, Cao's forces were in an excellent position to trap and wipe out
whole battalions of VC, but he would fail to close the trap on one pretext or another
and allow the enemy to escape. This behavior initially mystified Vann, who was
attempting to build Cao into an aggressive commander. Unknown to Vann,
Diem would reprimand or demote any officer who lost too many men, no matter
how successful the operation. Diem was more interested in using the military to
protect his regime than to take on the VC. His solution was to fill the ARVN with
Catholic political cronies and friends like Cao, Lê Quang Tung, and Tôn Thất Đính,
who had little military ability, but were very likely to help stop a coup attempt. After
a skirmish on a highway that resulted in a small number of South Vietnamese casualties
along with several trucks destroyed, Cao was called to Saigon and reprimanded by
Diem. Upon his return, Vann and his group of advisers were forced to end the joint
planning sessions that had been so successful earlier, and action essentially wound
down in their region.[14] Cao used the excellent military intelligence network they had
developed to find areas devoid of VC, and planned operations only in those areas. In
many other cases, operations were executed on paper only, in order to report an
increasing tempo of operations that did not actually exist.

In 1962, Diem decided to split the command of the area in the south around Saigon
into two, the former III Corps area being reduced in size to cover the area northeast
of Saigon, and the newly created IV Corps taking over the west and southwest.
Cao was promoted to general and assumed command of the new IV Corps Tactical
Zone, which included the area of operations of his 7th Infantry Division. Command
of the 7th was given to Cao's chief of staff, Colonel Bùi Đình Đạm. Dam expressed
concerns about his own abilities when the promotion was first presented to him by
Diem. Nevertheless, he took Cao's former position and welcomed Vann's advisers
back into the planning effort. Despite the change in leadership, the same problems
continued to plague the 7th Infantry Division.


Prelude
In November 1962, the VC's Military Region 2 ordered the VC 261st Battalion and the 514th
Battalion, the home battalion of Dinh Tuong Province, to destroy the strategic hamlets in
their region and at the same time to attack South Vietnamese sweeping operations.
Between 28–30 December 1962, an American aircraft equipped with eavesdropping
equipment located a VC radio transmitter. It intercepted radio signals in the hamlet
of Ap Tan Thoi in Dinh Tuong Province where the ARVN 7th Infantry Division was
headquartered. The radio intercept and other information obtained by Jim Drummond,
Vann's intelligence officer, indicated that the VC were using Ap Tan Thoi as a headquarters
location.[19] Furthermore, South Vietnamese and American intelligence personnel believed
the VC had deployed a reinforced company of about 120 men to protect the transmitter.
Certain that the VC unit was no larger than the reported number, the ARVN 7th Infantry
Division was instructed to attack Ap Tan Thoi.



An operations plan suited for an attack on a small enemy formation was drafted by Ziegler,
who was an adviser to Dam and the command staff of the 7th Infantry Division. Ziegler's
plan, codenamed Operation Duc Thang I, called for the South Vietnamese to assault
Ap Tan Thoi from three different directions: three rifle companies from the 11th Infantry
Regiment, 7th Infantry Division, to move from the north; the Dinh Tuong Civil Guards
Regiment to march north from the south in separate columns; and a company of 13 M113
armored personnel carriers with an infantry company on board from the southwest.
The M113 carriers and the infantry company could act as both a mobile reserve and a
reaction force, so it was positioned where it could be shifted to the contact area if the VC
began to retreat. In addition, Dam would also deploy two rifle companies at Tan Hiep airfield
(10.421°N 106.336°E), which could be brought to the battlefield by helicopters from the US
Army 93rd Transportation Company.







On previous occasions, US intelligence had tracked down the location of Viet Cong radio
transmitters, but those were often relocated before the South Vietnamese launched their
attacks, so Ziegler privately questioned if the VC had as many as 120 soldiers in Ap Tan Thoi.
However, in 1963, the VC had changed its policy from avoiding the ARVN to standing and
fighting. The 1st Company, 261st Battalion and the 1st Company, 514th Battalion, had a
total strength of 320 regular soldiers and were positioned in Ap Bac and Ap Tan Thoi
respectively, which were separated by a distance of about 1.5 kilometers (0.93 mi).
The combined companies were supported by approximately 30 local force soldiers from
Chau Thanh District who served as scouts, ammunition bearers, litter carriers, and
emergency replacements.[24] Together, elements of the VC 261st and 514th Battalions
in Ap Tan Thoi and Ap Bac formed a "composite battalion", which was placed under the
command of Colonel Hai Hoang.

Previously, leadership of the 261st Battalion alternated between Hoang, a South Vietnamese
revolutionary who had returned from North Vietnam after 1954, and Tu Khue, who was a
native of North Vietnam. Khue was unpopular among the battalion's soldiers because he was
known to be very strict and demanding. However, he was very careful about details. In
contrast, Hoang was far more relaxed and commanded a high degree of confidence from
the soldiers of the 261st Battalion. Thus, due to his strong leadership skills and popularity,
Hoang was selected to take command of VC forces for operations in Ap Bac. Most of
the soldiers under Hoang's command were equipped with captured US weaponry, such
as the M1 Garand, M1 carbine, BAR light machine guns, .30 caliber machine guns, and a
single 60mm mortar.

In the days before the battle, Hoang anticipated a major attack from the South Vietnamese
government, as VC intelligence agents in Dinh Tuong had reported the arrival of 71
truckloads of ammunition and other supplies from Saigon, about 65 kilometers (40 mi) to
the northeast. In addition, with information provided by Pham Xuan An, a well-connected
journalist and undercover VC agent in Saigon, Hoang's soldiers conducted last-minute
anti-helicopter and anti-M113 training by studying US weaponry and South Vietnamese
plans and manuals. Furthermore, using radios captured from the ARVN, the VC was able
to intercept news of the attack due to unencoded radio communications from the ARVN.
The VC also took full advantage of the local terrain by taking up positions in Ap Tan Thoi
in the north, along a tree-lined creek in the southeast, and Ap Bac in the south. Their
positions were well-concealed by trees and shrubs, which made them difficult to see
from the air and provided good protection from heavy weaponry.To the south and west
of Ap Bac, the VC dug a series of foxholes in front of an irrigation dike, which afforded them
an unobstructed field of fire in the surrounding rice fields. The foxholes were deep enough
for one man to stand up, or big enough to accommodate a two-man machine gun crew.
Behind the foxhole line, the irrigation dike enabled VC units to communicate with each
other. In short, the VC enjoyed a great advantage over any attacking force.

Battle
The fight begins
At 04:00 on the morning of 2 January, VC scouts around the hamlets of Ap Bac and Ap Tan
Thoi reported hearing the sounds of truck and boat engines, so Hoang issued an alert order
which prompted his troops to pick up their weapons and hurry to their foxholes. Most
of the women, children, and old men in both hamlets fled and hid in the nearby swamps
as soon as the order was issued.

Thirty CH-21 Shawnee helicopters were needed to airlift the entire ARVN 1st Battalion, 11th
Infantry Regiment, but only ten were available. As a result, Dam could only send one
company at a time onto the battlefield. At around 07:00, the first wave of CH-21 helicopters
offloaded the first group of South Vietnamese soldiers. These troops had to hold their
positions until the rest of the battalions had arrived. Because of the delay in the arrival of
the regular South Vietnamese army units, two Civil Guard battalions of Task Forces A
and B—under the command of Dinh Tuong provincial chief Major Lam Quang Tho—
were left to march against enemy positions by themselves.

As planned, the first Civil Guard battalion of Task Force A started north towards Ap Bac.
Hoang knew the Civil Guard battalions were approaching, so he instructed his company
commander in Ap Bac to be ready, as they would fire the first shots of the battle. VC
radio operators, using captured US communications equipment, followed the movements
of the Civil Guards by monitoring the frequencies the government troops were using.
When the leading Civil Guard battalion came within 30 meters (98 ft) of the south end
of Ap Bac, the VC opened fire from their foxholes and immediately killed the leading
company's commander and wounded the task force commander. Task Force A's
momentum was stopped when the soldiers of the leading Civil Guard battalion sought
shelter in a dike, where they tried unsuccessfully to outflank the VC. During that time,
artillery support was ineffective, as Civil Guard forward observers would not stand up
to observe the fall of artillery rounds. Consequently, one artillery round after another fell
behind VC positions, instead of on their foxholes. To make matters worse, Tho failed to
send his second Civil Guard battalion of Task Force B to rescue the first.

North of Ap Tan Thoi, three companies of the ARVN 11th Infantry Regiment fared no
better. They marched south in three separate axes towards their objective. Again,
well-concealed VC soldiers of the 514th Battalion allowed their opponents to come within
20 meters (66 ft) before opening fire. Immediately, the South Vietnamese
infantrymen were forced to hug the ground. During the next five hours, they
managed to launch three major assaults, but failed to break the VC's line of defense.
By 09:30, the last of Dam's reserve companies had been airlifted into Tan Hiep, about
two hours late because American aircrews were prevented from landing their CH-21
helicopters, known as "flying bananas" for their shape, in the heavy fog that covered
Tan Hiep Airfield most of the morning. With the ground attacks in the north and south
bogged down, Dam decided to stretch out the defending VC units by attacking the east
and the west.

Dam asked Vann, who was circling the battlefield aboard an L-19 reconnaissance aircraft,
to reconnoiter possible landing zones on the east and west sides of Ap Bac, where
additional reinforcements could be inserted to launch their attacks. In response, Vann
asked his pilot to make low passes over the trees which covered Ap Bac. Although
he could not see any VC positions, Vann knew there was a well-fortified position at the
south end of the hamlet, due to the impact of the VC's firepower on the Civil Guards
since the battle's inception. As Vann's L-19 aircraft flew over the western tree line,
the VC watched from their foxholes, but held their fire because they knew the aircraft
was trying to draw fire in order to mark their positions. Although Vann was suspicious,
he decided it was a better landing zone because the area was tranquil despite the heavy
fighting elsewhere.

Vann then ordered his pilot to make contact with the other L-19 that was leading the ten
CH-21s with the first South Vietnamese reserve company from Tan Hiep. Vann relayed
a message to the command pilot of the ten CH-21 helicopters, which were being escorted
by a group of five recently deployed UH-1 Huey gunships, armed with 7.62mm machine
guns and 2.75-inch rockets, and instructed him to land the reserve companies about 300
meters (980 ft) from the western and southern tree lines that covered Ap Bac in order to
minimize the effectiveness of the VC's .30 caliber machine guns. However, in the early
phases of the war, command relationships between US military units were not well-established,
and American aircrews had a tendency to disregard the instructions of advisors, especially
Vann, who was regarded as domineering. Instead of following Vann's instructions, the command
pilot decided to lead his helicopters over southern Ap Tan Thoi and along the creek to Ap Bac.
The US pilots landed their helicopters 200 meters (660 ft) west of Ap Bac, where they were hit
multiple times by VC machine gun and small arms fire.

The five UH-1 gunships immediately strafed VC positions with 2.75-inch rockets, but failed
to suppress the enemy fire. After South Vietnamese soldiers had disembarked from the
helicopters, one CH-21 was too severely damaged to get off the ground.[34] A second
CH-21 was sent to rescue the crew, but it too was immobilized as soon as it touched the
ground. One of the Hueys returned to pick up the crews of the two downed CH-21s. As
it prepared to land, the main rotor was struck by enemy gunfire. The aircraft flipped over
to the right and crashed. Almost simultaneously, a third CH-21 sustained heavy damage
and was forced to land on the rice fields a short distance from the first two helicopters.
By 10:30, all the South Vietnamese soldiers who had landed on the field were under heavy
fire from inside Ap Bac and refused to move. Sergeant Arnold Bowers, who had ridden in
the first crashed helicopter, raced back and forth to rescue injured American airmen.







Arrival of the armored personnel carriers
After Bowers had attended to the injured men, he borrowed a field radio from the South
Vietnamese to coordinate artillery and air strikes. Later, two AD-6 Skyraiders arrived over
Ap Bac and attacked the thatched houses with conventional bombs and napalm. The
South Vietnamese soldiers, who were pinned down on the ground, believed their ordeal
was over, so they stood up to see if the VC were retreating from their positions. The
VC fired on the exposed soldiers and killed several. Vann then radioed Captain James B.
Scanlon—senior adviser to the ARVN 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment—and told him that
four US helicopters had either been destroyed or immobilized about 1,500 meters (4,900 ft)
southeast of the regiment's position. Scanlon was told to get his South Vietnamese
counterpart, Captain Ly Tong Ba—commander of the 4th Mechanized Rifle Squadron, 2nd
Armored Cavalry Regiment, to rescue the trapped South Vietnamese company and the
helicopters.

Ba asserted that he would not take orders from Americans. He also argued that sending the
13 M113 armored personnel carriers through the Cong Ba Ky Canal would enable the VC
to retreat because it might take too much time. An argument broke out between Vann and
Ba. Finally, Vann radioed Ziegler at the command post at Tan Hiep and told him to ask the
commander of the ARVN 7th Infantry Division to order Ba to move toward Ap Bac immediately.
Shortly afterwards, Ziegler returned with Dam's permission, and Ba was ordered to move his
M113 carriers in the direction of the white smoke that was rising from the burning hamlet.
The American advisers were quietly confident that Ba's M113s could turn the tide of battle;
on previous occasions, VC fighters often fled from the battlefield as soon as M113 armored
personnel carriers turned up. However, in contrast to previous engagements, VC commander
Hoang had ordered the soldiers of the 261st and 514th Battalions to throw everything they
had at the South Vietnamese, as retreat through the muddy rice fields would result in certain
death.

The South Vietnamese M113s had no problem crossing the generally shallow streams and
rivers typical of the Mekong Delta,[39] but the heavy 10-ton M113s became bogged down
in the deeper Cong Ba Ky Canal, forcing the crews and the infantry company on board to
cut down brush and trees and fill the canal until it was shallow enough for the M113s to cross.
The rescue operation was further delayed when Ba tried to obtain proper authorization to
advance, because he was under orders not to take commands directly from the American
advisers. Vann, who was flying above the armored formation, demanded that Ba advance
immediately. Ba replied that he would not take instructions from Americans. When Vann
threatened to have Ba shot, he reluctantly continued to advance, although very slowly,
toward the entrenched VC.

Meanwhile, a fourth CH-21 returned to Ap Bac to attempt to rescue the downed helicopter
crews, and it too was heavily damaged by ground fire and forced to land on the muddy
rice field. The VC had set a new record: the battle was the first time they had either
destroyed or downed five helicopters within a few hours.[24] At 13:30, Ba's M113
formation finally closed in on the downed helicopters on the west side of Ap Bac. The
M113s approached the landing zone in single file instead of in formation, and they were
immediately fired upon by VC inside the hamlet who were able to concentrate their fire
on one target at a time. The South Vietnamese M113 gun crews were exposed from the
waist up, so they were easy targets for snipers; by the end of the day, 14 South Vietnamese
M113 crewmen had been killed due to their exposure. The two leading M113s were able to
pull up beside the downed helicopters, but one driver was killed while driving with his head
outside of the hatch, and Ba was knocked unconscious inside his carrier.

Scanlon, with the help of Bowers, ran forward to aid the wounded men and carry them
back to the M113 formation. At that point, South Vietnamese M113 crews backed off while
firing their .50 caliber machine guns aimlessly into the sky.[42] When Ba recovered, his
company launched a frontal assault on the VC's foxhole line. Just when the M113 crews
closed in on their objective, a VC squad leader and his men jumped out of their foxholes
and tossed grenades at the lead formation of the attack force.[43] Cohesion and morale
among the crews of the armored formation quickly deteriorated as South Vietnamese
sergeants, who served as both commanders and machine gunners of the carriers, were
killed and were replaced by less experienced, poorly trained men.

In a last-ditch effort to overrun the VC's stronghold, an M113 equipped with a flamethrower
was sent forward to within 100 meters (330 ft) of the VC position to fire the western tree line.
The flamethrower had a range of up to 200 meters (660 ft), but when the operator fired
the device, the flame died after only 30 meters (98 ft). It was later discovered that the
crew had mixed the incorrect amount of jelling agent with the gasoline. The final attack
mounted by the M113 company failed. At around 14:30, defeated and with their
morale sagging, the 4th Mechanized Rifle Squadron disengaged from the fight and
withdrew.

By that stage, Vann was frustrated by the Civil Guard soldiers of Task Force B, because they
appeared to be in no hurry to reach Ap Bac, as they searched one house at a time while
marching up from the southwest flank of the battlefield. In his final effort to defeat the VC,
Vann flew into Tan Hiep and asked Cao to deploy an airborne battalion on the east side of
Ap Bac, the most logical retreat route for the Viet Cong. Vann hoped to trap the Viet Cong
inside the hamlets by blocking their retreat routes on all sides, and annihilate them using an
elite battalion of South Vietnamese paratroopers. To Vann's disappointment, Cao strongly
opposed the idea and decided to drop one of his airborne battalions behind the M113
formation on the west side instead. Vann accused Cao of wanting to let the VC escape in
order to avoid further South Vietnamese casualties. However, Cao argued that a surrounded
and well-entrenched enemy would fight more fiercely than a retreating one, so he wanted
the VC units inside the hamlets of Ap Bac and Ap Tan Thoi to expose themselves by retreating
through the eastern side of the battlefield, where he could destroy them with artillery and air
power. Cao had also lost confidence in Vann, because Cao felt Vann had placed the lives of
many South Vietnamese soldiers at risk to save the lives of a handful of Americans.
Major-General Tran Thien Khiem, Chief of the ARVN Joint General Staff, was present during
the argument. He did not object to Cao's plan because it was consistent with President
Diem's objective to save Vietnamese lives through the Rural Revolutionary Development
and Chieu Hoi Programs, which encouraged VC fighters to join the South Vietnamese
military.

Insertion of the airborne battalion
Believing it was useless to continue arguing with Cao, Vann climbed back into his L-19
reconnaissance aircraft and left Tan Hiep. Throughout the afternoon, he continued to
press Cao to quickly deploy the South Vietnamese paratroopers. He was fearful that the
battle would turn out to be the largest defeat of South Vietnamese forces up to that
point of the war. Cao promised to deploy the second Civil Guard battalion which had
just arrived at the southwest flank of Ap Bac, and to drop the ARVN 8th Airborne
Battalion at around 16:00 behind Ba's armored personnel carriers. Late in the
afternoon, a flight of C-123 Providers, with about 300 South Vietnamese paratroopers
aboard, closed in on their objective and quickly drew machine gun fire from the hamlet.
The C-123 pilots changed course to avoid the ground fire, but either the South
Vietnamese jump master or the American flight leader did not compensate for the
change. As a result, the paratroopers landed right in front of the entrenched VC
positions, instead of behind the 4th Mechanized Rifle Squadron and the Civil Guards.

The VC were able to pick off one South Vietnamese paratrooper after another, some as
they descended and others when their parachutes became stuck in the trees. Those
paratroopers who reached the ground and survived tried to move forward, but the VC
soldiers in defilade position fired on the paratroopers exposed in the open rice paddies.
Undeterred, the ARVN 8th Airborne Battalion launched small-unit attacks, but on each
occasion they were repelled, and sporadic fighting continued until sundown. By the end
of the day, the airborne battalion had lost 19 soldiers killed in action and another 33
wounded. American advisers Captain Fletcher Ware and Sergeant Russell Kopti, who
had parachuted in with the South Vietnamese, were also wounded. As night fell,
Hoang knew that South Vietnamese forces were closing in from three directions. The
eastern flank remained open, and he ordered both elements of the 261st and 514th
Battalions, exhausted and low on ammunition, to assemble at the south end of Ap Tan
Thoi. They evacuated through the rice fields, taking their dead and wounded comrades.






Vann wanted to use a C-47 flare plane to illuminate the rice fields on the eastern flank of Ap
Bac and Ap Tan Thoi. He wanted to hit the VC with 500 rounds of artillery and destroy them
as they retreated. Cao would not approve the use of flares because it could expose the
airborne battalion's night defensive positions, and instead ordered 100 rounds of artillery to
be fired at a rate of four shells per hour.[51] At 22:00, VC commander Hoang led his two
companies out of Ap Tan Thoi and headed for their base camp in the Plain of Reeds, while
the local force units left by a different route for their hideouts in the local area. The 1st
Company, 261st Battalion, led the column, followed by litter carriers carrying the dead
and wounded. The 1st Company, 514th Battalion, covered the tail of the formation, with
one of their platoons acting as a rear guard. The wounded VC soldiers were transferred
onto sampans at the canal on the east side of Ap Tan Thoi, while the rest of the formation
marched on. At 07:00 on 3 January, Hoang's men successfully reached their destination
without being detected.

Aftermath
On 3 January, Western journalists toured the deserted Ap Bac hamlet with American advisors.
When reporter Neil Sheehan asked Brig. Gen. Robert York what had happened, the general
replied: "What the hell's it look like happened, boy? They got away, that's what happened"!
Shortly afterwards, more than 18 hours too late, the South Vietnamese hit Ap Bac with an
artillery barrage. The artillery rounds killed another five South Vietnamese soldiers and wounded
14 others. Vann, who had made key decisions in the early phases of the battle, blamed the
South Vietnamese for the debacle. "It was a miserable damn performance, just like it always is.
These people won't listen. They make the same mistake over and over again in the same way".
According to Moyar (2008), in blaming the South Vietnamese, Vann wanted to conceal the
Americans' flawed intelligence and poor leadership. He hoped to pressure the South Vietnamese
to accept future changes he favored.

General Paul D. Harkins, commander of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV),
made a much more optimistic assessment of the battle. He considered the operation to be a
major success; after the VC abandoned their positions, the South Vietnamese units captured
the hamlets of Ap Bac and Ap Tan Thoi. Harkins' evaluation of the battle's success was based
on US military doctrine from World War II, in which opposing forces fought a conventional
combined arms battle with the objective, on each side, of gaining control of the opponent's
territory. The VC, however, were more interested in exposing the weaknesses of Diem's
regime and its military. Moyar (2008) argues that Harkins' resolutely optimistic assessments
based on conventional doctrine avoided recognizing shortcomings in tactics and battle
readiness and in the arrangement under which ARVN commanders and their American
counterparts and advisers were operating. Largely because of his attitude, neither the South
Vietnamese nor the American commands learned useful lessons from the battle.

The South Vietnamese units that participated in the battle took heavy losses in their failed
attempt to destroy the VC forces. South Vietnamese casualties included 83 killed in action
and at least 100 wounded. The American participants, who included advisors and aircrews,
counted three dead and eight wounded. Of the 15 American helicopters sent to support the
operation, only one escaped undamaged, and five were downed or destroyed.

For the VC, the Battle of Ap Bac marked the first time they stood and fought a large South
Vietnamese formation—despite being outnumbered by more than five to one. Against
overwhelming odds, the VC had achieved their first de facto victory; they had successfully
held off well-equipped ARVN forces supported by artillery and armored units as well as by
American airpower. VC casualties were limited to 18 soldiers killed and 39 wounded, even
though their positions had been hit by more than 600 rounds of artillery, napalm and
other ordnance released by 13 warplanes and five UH-1 gunships.

Ap Bac had far-reaching consequences for the South Vietnamese government and the
American involvement in Vietnam. The battle was a milestone for the VC. For individual VC
soldiers, the battle demonstrated they could defeat nominally superior ARVN forces, well
equipped as they were with up-to-date military hardware and significant support and
funding from the United States. Militarily, the morale and confidence of VC commanders
and soldiers, who had experienced serious setbacks in the previous year, were greatly
boosted. Politically, the VC 261st and 514th Battalions were able to exploit the prestige
gained from having inflicted disproportionate losses on the ARVN forces to exercise greater
influence in their areas of operations.

Despite the initial success of the Strategic Hamlet Program and the intensified military
operations of 1962, the events at Ap Bac placed additional pressure on Diem's government
because they showed it was not prepared to cope with the resurgence of the VC,
particularly in the Mekong delta.
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