![]() ![]() Fall and the Limits of Armed Intervention, from Prologue, Spring 2011, Vol. (courtesy of Dorothy Fall, via National Archives and Records Administration reproduced in Robert Fahs: Bernard B. The battle began on 19 April 1968, after preparatory B-52 and tactical bombing of PAVN antiaircraft and troop positions. Operation LRRPs on Signal Hill scanning for enemy vehicles in the A Sầu Valley below. ![]() Following reports by syndicatedĬolumnist Joseph Alsop filing in Hong Kong and South Vietnamese information officers announcing that their units were involved in the operation, MACV lifted the press embargo after 8 days. Westmoreland informed the Saigon correspondents on 26 April that he was imposing an extended embargo on Delaware. Besides maintaining a margin of security for his troops, the embargo would cover the insertion of a reconnaissance force of up to battalion size into Laos at a point above where the valley entered South Vietnam. dispositions and movements and so he decided to embargo news of the operation for as long as possible. : 182–192 : 347–9 ĬOMUSMACV General William Westmoreland believed that heavy press coverage of Operation Pegasus had given the PAVN considerable information about U.S. The A Sầu, a mile-wide bottomland flanked by densely forested 5,000-foot (1,500 m) mountains, was bisected lengthwise by Route 548, a hard-crusted dirt road. That ability came in part from isolated base areas like the sparsely populated A Sầu Valley, running north–south along the Laotian border 30 miles (48 km) south of Khe Sanh, where troops and supplies were moved into South Vietnam as the PAVN prepared for another battle - at a time and place of its choosing. But the PAVN still had the ability to take the initiative in the northernmost part of I Corps. : 143–9 1st Cav forces at LZ Stud approaching Khe Sanh Combat Baseīy early April 1968, the PAVN had just suffered casualties of more than 40,000 men in two major military campaigns: the Tet Offensive and at Khe Sanh. Because of the very limited air mobility of the Marines in I Corps, no ground operations of any significance had been launched in the A Sầu. and its allies conducted little offensive activity in the area except for air attacks, and those were limited by steep, mountainous terrain often cloaked under clouds and prone to sudden, violent changes in weather. Because of this strength on the ground, and the relative geographic isolation of the valley, the U.S. The A Sầu Valley soon evolved into a major logistics depot for the PAVN, with storage locations often located in underground bunkers and tunnels. They also had rapid firing twin-barreled 23mm cannons and many 12.7mm heavy machine guns to contribute to their air defenses. : 178 Īfter gaining control of the A Sầu Valley in March 1966 the PAVN fortified it with powerful crew-served 37mm antiaircraft cannons, some of them radar controlled. Tolson, was ordered to prepare plans for Operation Delaware. It was fully engaged in Operation Pegasus, the relief of Khe Sanh when its commander, Maj. : 42&209 When it arrived in I Corps, the 1st Cavalry Division fought in the Battle of Quang Tri and the Battle of Huế in the Tet Offensive. The 1st Cavalry Division, an airmobile division with 20,000 men and nearly 450 helicopters, had the most firepower and mobility of any division-size unit in Vietnam. In January 1968, Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), ordered the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) to move north from the Central Highlands to support the III Marine Amphibious Force in I Corps. ![]() Special Forces camp located there was overrun. Other than small, special operations reconnaissance patrols, American and South Vietnamese forces had not been present in the region since the Battle of A Shau in March 1966, when a U.S. The A Sầu Valley was a vital corridor for moving military supplies coming from the Ho Chi Minh Trail and was used by the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) as a staging area for numerous attacks in northern I Corps. It began on 19 April 1968, with troops from the United States and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) moving into the A Sầu Valley. Operation Delaware/ Operation Lam Son 216 was a joint military operation launched during the Vietnam War. ![]()
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