Vietnam Easter Offensive

The Easter Offensive in South Vietnam failed because it did not collapse and bombers and U.S. warships were there. At two o’clock in the morning of 30th March 1972, artillery and missiles attacked EVN ARVN positions in the DMZ with a power reminiscent of the worst moments in Khe Sanh. 12,000 projectiles, 4,000 men and 200 tanks were launched against the South Vietnamese positions.

But it was the Tet Offensive that would be called the Easter Offensive. Shortly afterwards, from Cambodia, another raid pushes through the region of the hook and the Pico de Loro, encircling the cities of An Loc and Tay Ninh road to Saigon. A third wave comes from the south of Cambodia to infiltrate the Delta Mecong.

Yet this was only a decoy to distract attention from the main attack launched days later at the center of the country on Kontum City. The images of roads flooded by displaced planes trying to raise their ramps with men hanging from them and vehicles packed with frightened Vietnamese seemed to give the idea that that regime would end within days.
Giap launched on the south almost all its army with the intention of terrorizing the southern soldiers, the enemy army and undo the coup de grace to the Saigon regime.

But the reality was different. It took a stroke of this type for the timid President Thieu to be relieved of command in favour of General Giai and Lt. Gen. Ngo Dzu (cowardly and corrupt) and placed in front of his men by General Ngo Quang Truong, described by some as the best officer in Vietnam. This energetic man stopped withdrawals and ordered that all deserters and looters were executed.

With the new command and, perhaps, fighting desperately to prevent the reoccurrence of the atrocities of 1968 the new Hue was saved while Kontum and An Loc withstood one attack after another.

All this increased the confidence of the soldiers in his army. Across the Pacific, Nixon declared they would launch an attack of the like that had never been seen before. The 700 planes displaced Southeast Asia, including the B-52 with 24,500kg of bombs and ships at anchor in the waters of South Vietnam, launching a fierce attack that stopped on some occasions and broke into other units in the north.

Giap returned to the tactic of launching wave after wave, which gave bad results in Dien Bien Phu. This carried on until they ran out of cash. Meanwhile tanks fresh from the USSR were destroyed by U.S fighters or ARVN soldiers with portable launchers. Finally the EVN raids stopped and they stopped the bombing and stopped the offensive.

Losses for the Hanoi people had been terrible and was almost too weak to perform operations of any size in 1973 and 1974. They had won more than twice the territory of South Vietnam than they had before (from 3.7% to 9.7%) although 15% of these conquests in the following years were lost against the ARVN.