Before the Spring Offensive Vietnam

Despite the second major defeat of the Easter Offensive, Viet Cong guerrillas and especially the EVN were prepared for a new offensive. In the picture, a Viet Cong soldier is holding an AK-47 under the banner Vietcong while participating in the ceremony of exchange of prisoners overseen by the military junta of the four Powers, in 1973.

North Vietnamese General Tran Van Tra called for a major thrust about 10km from the capital. He insisted that they could achieve a quick victory. The plan was to go from the Central Highlands to the city of Pleiku and sever their connection to Ban Me Thuot.

At first the request was delayed, but finally they decided to start the offensive in Hanoi, and General Van Dung Tieng was sent south to prepare for all performances. On 1st March 1975, the EVN enclaves cut terrestrial Ban Me Thuot and the city fell on the 13th of that same month. The attack made two tragically wrong decisions:

Pleiku and Kontum removed their forces and left the DMZ, all troops retreated from the city of Hue and Quang Tri to Da Nang. The retreat became a rout. The pressure of the enemy, the panic of terrified civilians fleeing and the ineptitude of the command all resulted in them not being able to make an orderly retreat and completely undermined the cohesion and spirit of struggle of the soldiers.

Instead of defending the five largest cities, the crowd fled in terror. In an attempt to avoid a catastrophic defeat the President of the South in March decreed a general mobilization to try to contain the offensive that very few saw irremediable. But the effort was useless, Hue fell on March 25th and Da Nang on the 30th. The Central Highlands also panicked and fell to the North two days later.

As the general Tieng Van Dung later admitted, it was a stroke of luck. Faced with this news the politburo led by Le Duc Tho and military orders approving Giap sent two separate cables for Dung to request mobilization.

The general said there had been discussions on what would be the chosen battlefield. Finally they opted for the Tay Nguyen region of the South for having only two divisions to defend and was further disseminated. But even these offered much resistance because the whole country was in chaos.

The Saigon government went along with the fighting in the southern provinces (the richest) pending the monsoon would stop or cripple it. While the Viet Cong bases rested and organized a provisional revolutionary government. Meanwhile, contacts with the U.S. to get air support did not stop, but this time they managed only good words from a country that wanted to forget.