Lam Quang Thi

The title to this book is borrowed in part from the article 'The Battle That Saved Saigon'by Philip C. Clarke (Reader's Digest, March 1973). Its introduction reads: 'Three days before Easter last spring, the North Vietnamese struck South Vietnam with a fury unknown to the Vietnam war since the Tet offensive four years earlier. They poured south across the DMZ, smashed into the central highland from Laos, crossed the border from Cambodia and, with an army of 36,000 men and 100 Russian-made tanks, raced toward Saigon, boasting that they'd be in the city by May 19, Ho Chi Minh's birthday. From one end of the country to the other, bases and villages fell before the savagery of their onslaught. By April 5, all that blocked them from Saigon was a ragtag band of 6,800 South Vietnamese regulars and militiamen and a handful of American advisors holed up in An Loc, a once-prosperous rubber-plantation town of 15,000 astride Highway 13, which led to the capital, 60 miles to the south.' An Loc, indeed, had become the symbol of the determination of the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) and its people to stand at all costs in face of the enemy. A depleted army, outnumbered and outgunned, stood its ground and fought to the end and succeeded. Against all expectations, the ARVN beat back furious assaults from three NVA divisions, supported by artillery and armored regiments, during three months of savage fighting. Yet this victory in 1972 was largely unreported in the U. S. media, which had effectively lost interest in the war after the disengagement of U. S. forces following the Vietnamization of the conflict. In Thi's opinion, reporting the victory of An Loc would contradict the U. S. media's basic premise that the war could not be won because ARVN was a corrupt and ineffective force. Subsequent published studies of the conflict provide a wealth of details about the use of U. S. airpower and the role of the U. S. advisors, but they fail to provide equal coverage to the activities and performance of ARVN units participating in the siege. Thi believes that it is time to set the record straight. Without denying the tremendous contribution of the U. S. advisors and pilots to the success of An Loc, this book is written primarily to tell the South Vietnamese side of the story and, more importantly, to render justice to the South Vietnamese soldier who withstood ninety-four days of horror and prevailed.

In 1972 a North Vietnamese offensive of more than 30,000 men and one hundred tanks smashed into South Vietnam and raced to capture Saigon. All that stood in their way was a small band of 6,800 South Vietnamese (ARVN) soldiers and militiamen, and a handful of American advisors with U. S. air support, guarding An Loc, a town sixty miles north of Saigon and on the main highway to it. This depleted army, outnumbered and outgunned, stood its ground and fought to the end and succeeded. Against all expectations, the ARVN beat back furious assaults from three North Vietnamese divisions, supported by artillery and armored regiments, during three months of savage fighting.

For Victor Hugo, the nineteenth century could be remembered by only its first two years, which established peace in Europe and France's supremacy on the continent. For Gen. Lam Quang Thi, the twentieth century had only twenty-five years: from 1950 to 1975, during which the Republic of Vietnam and its army grew up and collapsed with the fall of Saigon. This is the story of those twenty-five years. General Thi fought in the Indochina War as a battery commander on the side of the French. When Viet Minh aggression began after the Geneva Accords, he served in the nascent Vietnamese National Army, and his career covers this army's entire lifespan. He was deputy commander of the 7th Infantry Division, and in 1965 he assumed command of the 9th Infantry Division. In 1966, at the age of thirty-three, he became one of the youngest generals in the Vietnamese Army. He participated in the Tet Offensive before being removed from the front lines for political reasons. When North Vietnam launched the 1972 Great Offensive, he was brought back to the field and eventually promoted to commander of an Army Corps Task Force along the Demilitarized Zone. With the fall of Saigon, he left Vietnam and emigrated to the United States. Like his tactics during battle, General Thi pulls no punches in his denunciation of the various regimes of the Republic and complacency and arrogance toward Vietnam in the policies of both France and the United States. Without lapsing into bitterness, this is finally a tribute to the soldiers who fell on behalf of a good cause.