Case Study of a Typical Misinterpretation of Ia Drang Battle (u)

Cứu Xét Một Hiểu Lầm Điển Hình về Trận Ia Drang

Trong luận án tiến sĩ No Sure Victory: Measuring US Army Effectiveness and Progress in the Vietnam War, Gregory A. Daddis, Lieutenant Colonel, United States Army, - hiện giờ là đại tá và giáo sư quân sử tại West Point – dành một đoạn luận về trận Ia Drang (từ trang 124 đến trang 135), trong đó ông thảo luận về hiệu năng chiến đấu của Sư Đoàn 1 Không Kỵ Mỹ. Ông viết (trang 133):

Bằng cách xử dụng kỹ thuật trực thăng vận mới, Sư Đoàn 1 Không Kỵ hình như đã hoàn tất chiến thắng tại Ia Drang dùng đến các cuộc hành quân qui ước thông thường. Moore đã tấn công và phòng thủ, các từ ngữ mà bất cứ một cựu chiến binh nào thuộc Thế Chiến Thứ Hai hay Chiến Tranh Đại Hàn đều có thể hiểu được.

Tác giả sai lầm trầm trọng khi xác quyết” Không Kỵ 1” chiến thắng tại Ia Drang bằng cách xử dụng các kỹ thuật trực thăng vận mới”. Trong thực tế chiến thắng này do Không Lực Mỹ thực hiện và xử dụng tới oanh tạc chiến lược B-52. Quả thật vậy, tác động chính tại Ia Drang là cuộc hành quân 5 ngày của oanh tạc B-52 và tác động thứ yếu là cuộc hành quân Long Reach do Không Kỵ 1 thực hiện trong ba giai đoạn – All the Way của 1st Air Cav Brigade, Silver Bayonet I của 3rd Air Cav Brigade và Silver Bayonet II của 2nd Air Cav Brigade. Daddis đã không thông hiểu khái niệm hành quân của “Pleiku Campaign” (chính danh là Long Reach hay Pleime-Chupong campaign), mà chủ yếu là xử dụng oanh tạc B-52 với sự yểm trợ của các lực lượng bộ chiến của Không Kỵ 1 để triệt tiêu ba trung đoàn Bắc Quân tại Chuprong.

Và vì không ý thực được rằng trận Ia Drang là một thế nghi binh nhằm yểm trợ cho cuộc oanh tạc B-52, lời tường thuật của Daddis về trận này trong luận án quá xa sự thật. Sau đây là đoạn trích của luận án liên quan đến trận Ia Drang (trang 124-133); một số sai lầm được đánh dấu bằng vạch nền màu vàng; tiếp sau là phần bình luận.

Establishing the New Benchmark
On 1 July 1965, the 1st Cavalry Division officially came into existence. On 2 August, in a feat of logistical and administrative planning, the unit began its deployment to South Vietnam. Westmoreland placed the division near An Khe in western Binh Dinh province in the central highlands. COMUSMACV intended the 1st Cavalry to screen the Cambodian border while preventing North Vietnamese units from controlling the critical Highway 19 which linked Pleiku city in the highlands to Qui Nhon on the eastern coast. Hanoi had been closely monitoring the U.S. buildup and replied by increasing infiltration of its own forces and supplies into South Vietnam. The mountainous, rugged terrain of the central highlands offered advantages as NVA base areas thanks to its inaccessibility to ground transport, especially in the monsoon season from mid-May to mid-October. MACV considered the area vitally important as well. If North Vietnamese regulars wrested control of Highway 19 from ARVN they essentially would cut the country in half. Accordingly, 1st Cavalry troopers carved out a base camp at An Khe—nicknamed the “Golf Course”—and immediately began “shakedown” exercises in preparation for their expected baptism of fire with the enemy. The division did not have to wait long. In early October, as Kinnard’s men gradually expanded operations to find the enemy and establish governmental control in the VC-dominated region, Hanoi ordered General Chu Huy Man to undertake a series of engagements around Pleiku. Three North Vietnam Army (NVA) regiments joined the local Vietcong forces. On 19 October, they attacked the small U.S. Special Forces Plei Me camp near the Cambodian border. NVA forces quickly pounced on the South Vietnamese relief column that Man correctly had anticipated. (1) On the 23rd Kinnard received permission from Westmoreland to transfer his entire 1st Brigade to Pleiku, only twenty-five miles away. Relying heavily on artillery and tactical air support, the Americans responded with overwhelming firepower. By the 25th, Man decided he had suffered enough and withdrew westward to the northern bank of the River Drang near Cambodia. The MACV monthly eval for October cheerfully noted the engagement “permitted an extensive and effective utilization of Allied air power to strike the Viet Cong force.” However, not all participants were so optimistic. One of Kinnard’s helicopter pilots recalled, “With all our mobility, the VC still called the shots. We fought on their terms.” The young warrant officer’s observations were accurate. Man had determined when to attack and when to withdraw.⁵⁵
Having tasted enemy blood—Americans estimated North Vietnamese losses at 850 dead and 1,700 wounded—Kinnard wanted desperately to continue the pursuit. The successful Plei Me defense hardly illustrated the full capacity of the airmobility concept. (2) Lobbying MACV to unleash the division onto the offensive, Kinnard received authorization on 28 October to pursue Man’s withdrawing units. UH-1 Huey helicopters swarmed the skies over Pleiku province as 1st Cavalry soldiers roamed the desolate brush in search of enemy forces. Between 28 October and 14 November, division troopers only sporadically came into contact with NVA forces which were being reinforced by nearly 2,000 soldiers from Man’s reserve regiment. As the number of American air assaults and artillery moves multiplied, MACV turned greater attention to filling the airmobile division’s increasingly critical fuel shortages. (3) Colonel Thomas W. Brown, whose 3rd Brigade relieved the 1st Brigade on 9 November, underlined the frustration—“having drawn a blank up to this point, I wasn’t sure what we would find or even if we’d find anything.”⁵⁶
Apparently helicopters had not cracked the puzzle of the intelligence battle. (4) Kinnard continued to press west toward the Cambodian border, directing Lieutenant Colonel Harold G. Moore’s 1 st Battalion, 7th Cavalry to search the Ia Drang valley near the Chu Pong Mountain area. Moore expected to make contact and on 4 November, after an early aerial reconnaissance of prospective landing zones (LZs), his battalion of 431 men began their flights deeper into the western plateau.
Moore’s suspicions of enemy presence were well founded. (5) Man in fact had consolidated his forces within the Chu Pong massif awaiting the Americans’ next move. Moore selected his LZ, X-Ray, right below the NVA position. The U.S. battalion commander, however, was no easy target. A 1945 West Point graduate, Moore had served as an infantry company commander in the Korean War and held a master’s degree in international affairs from George Washington University. The pragmatic forty-three year old Kentuckian had read Bernard Fall’s Street Without Joy and, though exacting in his demands, engendered fierce loyalty in his subordinates. Shortly after landing at X-Ray, one of Moore’s patrols captured an enemy prisoner who reported North Vietnamese battalions in the nearby massif. Extending its perimeter towards Chu Pong, B Company collided with two NVA companies triggering some of the most ferocious fighting of the entire war. Dennis Deal, a platoon leader in B Company working up a ravine, remembered “that at any given second there were a thousand bullets coursing through that small area looking for a target—a thousand bullets a second.” Correspondent Neil Sheehan recalled X-Ray “was not hard to distinguish from the air on Monday morning. It was an island in a sea of red-orange napalm and exploding bombs and shells.”⁵⁷
Despite the Americans’ heavy use of firepower, NVA infantrymen continued to surge out of Chu Pong towards Moore’s battalion. That the 7th Cavalry traced its lineage to Custer and Little Big Horn was not lost on the embattled troopers. By early afternoon, Moore was fighting three separate actions: defending the landing zone, attacking the North Vietnamese, and attempting to rescue a platoon which had earlier pursued an NVA patrol and been cut off from the rest of the battalion. Outnumbered, he pulled back to establish a perimeter and called in waves of artillery fire and tactical air strikes to keep the enemy at bay. Moore remembered the shells “falling down in torrents.” Helicopter pilots braved the storm of steel enveloping the LZ, transferring ammunition and reinforcements to and the growing number of wounded from the battlefield. (6) So desperate had Moore’s position become that MACV authorized the use of B-52 strategic bombers from Guam for close air support. On 16 November, unable to break the cavalry’s perimeter, the NVA commander, as at Plei Me, decided he could do no more against American firepower and began withdrawing his forces from the landing zone area.⁵⁸
While the fighting at X-Ray died down, the North Vietnamese infantry were not quite done with the Americans. On 17 November, Lieutenant Colonel Robert A. McDade’s 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, en route to X-Ray as reinforcement, received orders to turn north and sweep the area for enemy soldiers before evacuating from a new LZ code-named Albany. McDade had been in command for only three weeks and took few precautions as he set out. The 8th Battalion of the 66th PAVN Regiment, heading in the same direction, found the American unit through careful scouting and immediately began establishing an ambush. Under deep jungle canopy, McDade’s men walked headlong into a trap. The melee, confusing as it was deadly, continued throughout the afternoon as pilots, often unable to distinguish between friend and foe, vainly attempted to provide support through the thick foliage. One soldier recalled, “Men all around me were screaming. The fire now was a continuous roar…. No one knew where the fire was coming from, and so the men were shooting everywhere. Some were in shock and were blazing away at everything they saw or imagined they saw.” Throughout the night, the NVA maintained their pressure on the encircled American perimeter. At daybreak they silently melted away. McDade’s unit had suffered 151 killed, 121 wounded, and five missing—over sixty percent casualties. Afterwards, Kinnard reported the “cavalry battalion had taken everything the enemy could throw at it, and had turned on him and had smashed and defeated him.”⁵⁹
Moore’s actions at LZ X-Ray quickly, perhaps predictably, eclipsed McDade’s at Albany. Yet was the Ia Drang battle really a victory? U.S. officials quickly hailed it as such based on familiar metrics. Discounting the catastrophe at Albany, MACV focused on the satisfyingly low ratio of American to enemy casualties. Body counts revealed Moore’s troopers killed 634 NVA soldiers—while “estimating” another 1, 215—compared to losing 75 killed and 121 wounded. (MACV did not publicize McDade’s losses.) To MACV, such casualty ratios demonstrated the validity of the airmobile division’s use of firepower and mobility. Body counts also appeared to validate MACV’s long-term objective of breaking the enemy’s will through a strategy of attrition.60 Through conventional lens, Westmoreland later celebrated the 1st Cavalry’s apparently decisive victory. “We had no Kasserine Pass as in World War II, no costly retreat by hastily committed, understrength occupation troops from Japan into a Pusan perimeter as in Korea.” 61 American troops, bearing technologically advanced weaponry, had stood their ground against the finest troops North Vietnam could offer. More, they inflicted a greater number of casualties and sent the enemy fleeing from the battlefield.
Just as predictably, the North Vietnamese embraced a different view of their first large-scale battle with the Americans. Common infantry soldiers had withstood the firestorm of American airpower and heliborne assault tactics. As Moore recalled, by Hanoi’s “yardstick, a draw against such a powerful opponent was the equivalent of a victory.” ⁶² More importantly, American firepower could be effectively countered, as seen during the destruction of McDade’s forces at Albany. By closing in tight with the 1st Cavalry troopers, the NVA could negate U.S. advantages in weaponry. (7) One former PLAF general officer remembered “the way to fight the American was to ‘grab him by his belt’…to get so close that your artillery and air power were useless.”⁶³ While Americans rejoiced in their victory at Ia Drang, they failed to consider that their new airmobile tactics might have an Achilles’ heel. (8) It seemed not to faze any of the 1st Cavalry Division or MACV’s leadership that B-52 bombers were needed to save Moore’s battalion. Hanoi’s leadership arguably took a more balanced appraisal of the fighting in Pleiku province. Helicopter assaults could be disrupted successfully but only at a heavy price. It was not yet time to progress into the final conventional phase of revolutionary war.
The 1st Cavalry’s spoiling attack into the western central highlands certainly derailed General Man’s plan to control Highway 19 and strike toward the coast before U.S . troops gained a significant foothold in South Vietnam. Ia Drang, however, hardly validated airmobility’s success in counterinsurgency operations. MACV misinterpreted, if not ignored, a number of significant facts in evaluating Kinnard’s Pleiku campaign. At Plei Me, X-Ray, and Albany the enemy initiated fighting and decided when to withdraw. Further, the North Vietnamese operated in battalion-sized formations, an option they would henceforth consider sparingly. Finally, destruction of enemy forces did not necessarily equate to population control. Tying military success in the central highlands to pacification progress along the coastal plains eluded MACV from the start.⁶⁴
Justifiably inspired by the heroic performance of his young soldiers, Moore likely missed all the subtleties of evaluating progress in an unconventional war. In fact, most all of MACV’s officers chose to define success in November 1965 in narrow, conventional terms—in terms of combat effectiveness exhibited by American forces rather than of progress in the war against the southern insurgency. The “Significant Victories and Defeats” annex of MACV’s eval report that month consisted of five full pages of friendly and Vietcong losses. Nowhere did the annex mention pacification, civil affairs, or training of ARVN forces. Despite Westmoreland’s comprehensive strategy, staff officers at MACV made little effort to assess whether such hard statistics yielded any political “victories” against the enemy .⁶⁵
Certainly a few Americans appreciated that helicopters had not wrested the initiative from either the Vietcong or the NVA. If official channels conveyed little doubt, some U.S. soldiers expressed their suspicions of airmobility’s touted invincibility to the media. After the Pleiku battles, New York Times military correspondent Hanson W. Baldwin recounted how some 1st Cavalry officers questioned both the airmobile division’s staying power and the number of ground forces needed to effectively search out and destroy the enemy. Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist and photographer Malcolm W. Browne quoted one U.S. advisor who doubted airmobility’s utility in a counterinsurgency environment. The officer noted “the Viet Cong have no helicopters or airplanes. They didn’t have any during the Indochina War either, but they still won.” The advisor then offered a veiled critique of the airmobility concept and the larger American approach to revolutionary warfare in Vietnam. “After all, when you come to think of it, the use of helicopters is a tacit admission that we don’t control the ground. And in the long run, it’s control of the ground that wins or loses wars.” 66 Such introspection hardly occurred within MACV’s own assessments of the recent Pleiku campaign, speaking volumes to the integrity of the evaluation system that was measuring effectiveness and progress in the field.
In reality, the 1st Cavalry Division’s “success” temporarily alleviated the confusion created by MACV’s abundant measurements of effectiveness. Ia Drang served to reduce the clutter of excessive metrics and provide army officers with an organizationally and culturally comfortable indictor for success: the exchange ratio. Traditional concepts of firepower and maneuver still mattered. Victory could still be defined by the destruction of any enemy unit. In the aftermath of Ia Drang, many army officers seemed not to consider, as Westmoreland had earlier mused, that if NVA regiments could be so decisively defeated in the field by American firepower they might realize the futility of fighting conventionally and revert to guerrilla tactics. The U.S. Army simply believed it could impose its will on a peasant army and society. In the process, MACV took the “estimation” of enemy dead in Moore’s after action report at face value.
It appears in late 1965 only Army Chief of Staff Harold K. Johnson questioned the 1st Cavalry Division’s battlefield results. Johnson cabled Westmoreland that he believed the NVA had repositioned in early January 1966 “to pounce on the Cavalry. In contrast, the picture painted by the Cavalry is that the PAVN were driven from the field…. I now have some rather serious doubts about this.”⁶⁷ Johnson’s reservations aside, Kinnard’s cavalrymen validated for MACV airmobility’s effectiveness in a counterinsurgency role. Doctrine stressed aggressiveness in maintaining continuous pressure on enemy forces. “Superior mobility is essential in counterguerrilla operations,” the army’s field manual noted, “to achieve surprise and to success fully counter the mobility of the enemy force. The extensive use of airmobile forces, if used with imagination, will ensure the military commander superior mobility.”⁶⁸ Ia Drang thus served to confirm U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine as sound. The army’s leadership never considered that the conventional three-brigade organization of divisions like the 1st Cavalry might, in fact, be ill suited for small-scale counterinsurgent operations. Officers flushed with success discounted problems with their innovative organization. Under battlefield conditions, the airmobile division proved to MACV that traditional concepts of mobility and firepower could successfully defeat the enemy in South Vietnam.⁶⁹
(9) By using new airmobile techniques, the 1st Cavalry seemed to achieve victory in the Ia Drang using standard, conventional operations. Moore had attacked and defended, terms that any World War II or Korean War veteran could comprehend. Thus, the metrics determining effectiveness of such operations did not require alteration. For the military component of Westmoreland’s strategy, Moore’s troopers had established the benchmark. If terrain could not serve as a scorecard, the body count would help keep tally. Kinnard’s official after action report noted that “when results of any action or campaign are assessed, statistics must be utilized. In many cases it is the only way results can be shown in a tangible manner and, therefore, readily grasped.”⁷⁰ The report then proceeded to discuss its breakdown of enemy casualties, weapons captured, and friendly losses. Statistical analysis came through the Ia Drang battle as unscathed as MACV’s faith in helicopters. Among those statistics, however, the body count rose to the dominant indicator for success in the minds of many officers. Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore had set the standard for the army, killing an “estimated” 1,849 enemy soldiers in only a few days of fighting. Surely other officers would want to follow in his footsteps.

⁵² Kinnard quoted in Johnson, Winged Sabers, 5. On American reliance on technology, see Kolko, Anatomy of a War, 188 and Baritz, Backfire, 51. On the capabilities of helicopters, see Department of the Army, Field Manual 57-35, Airmobile Operations, September 1963, 4.
⁵³ French experience in Bernard F. Fall, Street Without Joy (Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1961, 1994), 361. On ideology and technology, see Marilyn B. Young, The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990 (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), 112. The deputy director of the State Department’s Vietnam Working Group wrote in August 1962: “Politics is people. People d on’t change quickly. Helicopters can move fast; attitudes take longer.” FRUS, 1961-1963, II: 571.
⁵⁴ 1st Cavalry deployment in Carland, Stemming the Tide, 54-62. On central highlands encampment, see: Wilbur H. Morrison, The Elephant and the Tiger: The Full Story of the Vietnam War (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1990), 188; Robert B. Asprey, War in the Shadows: The Guerrilla in History (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1975), 1112; and Moyar, Triumph Forsaken, 392. Shakedown exercises in Stanton, Anatomy of a Division, 46-47. North Vietnamese infiltration in JCS History, Part II, JCSHO, 22-1. The divisional spokesman noted in early October that “we are not tied to the jungle or the paddies. We can avoid ambush. We fly over it and strike unexpectedly.” In “1 st Cavalry Brings Mobility to War Against Viet Cong,” Minnesota Tribune, 10 October 1965.
⁵⁵ MACV Monthly Evaluation Report, October 1965, MHI, 2. Robert Mason, Chickenhawk (New York: The Viking Press, 1983), 101-102. Plei Me battle in Carland, Stemming the Tide, 99-104. Herring, America’s First Battles , 309-313. The NVA regiments taking part in the campaign were the 32nd, 33rd, and the 66th which was held in reserve.
⁵⁶ Losses in the Plei Me battle from Herring, America’s First Battles , 313. Brown quoted in Stanton, Anatomy of a Division, 55. On the lead up to Ia Drang, see Carland, Stemming the Tide, 104-111 and Stanton, Rise and Fall, 56-57. The 1st Brigade made significant contact on 6 November, running into a well-placed ambush that pinned down a battalion’s worth of American soldiers. Herring, America’s First Battles, 315.
⁵⁷ Moore biographical sketch in Coleman, Pleiku,187. Deal in Christian G. Appy, Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides (New York: Viking, 2003), 131. Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (New York: Random House, 1988), 573. The best account of the battle, and a fine piece of military history, is Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway, We Were Soldiers Once...and Young (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 1993). On artillery fires initially being ineffective, see John A. Cash, John Albright, and Allan W. Sandstrum, Seven Firefights in Vietnam (Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publishers, Inc., 2007), 17.
⁵⁸ Moore, We Were Soldiers Once, 133. On fighting three separate actions, see Coleman, Pleiku, 205. Use of B-52 bombers from Herring, America’s First Battles , 319.
⁵⁹ Quotation from Jack P. Smith, “Death in the Ia Drang Valley,” Saturday Evening Post Vol. 240, No. 2 (28 January 1967): 82. Harry W.O. Kinnard, “A Victo ry in the Ia Drang: The Triumph of a Concept,” Army Vol. 17, No. 9 (September 1967): 89. Albany ambush in Carland, Stemming the Tide, 136-145. Casualties on p. 145. Carland notes that the battalion’s daily journal from 16-22 November mysteriously vanished, helping the fight at Albany “disappear from officia l discussions of the Pleiku battles.” See also Stanton, Rise and Fall, 59-60.
⁶⁰ Casualty numbers taken from After Action Report, Ia Drang Valley Operation, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, 14-16 November 1965, 13. Copy of original report downloaded from www.lzxray.com. On low ratios confirming MACV’s attrition strategy, see Leslie H. Gelb with Richard K. Betts, The Irony of Vietnam: The System Worked (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institute, 1979), 135. Micheal Clodfelter called the battle of Ia Drang a “distinct victory for American firepower and mobility.” Vietnam in Military Statistics: A History of the Indochina Wars, 1772-1991 (Jefferson, N.C., London: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 1995), 71.
⁶¹ Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, 191. See also Report on the War in Vietnam, 99. “The ability of Americans to meet and defeat the best troops the enemy could put on the field of battle was once more demonstrated beyond any possible doubt, as was the validity of the Army’s airmobile concept.” Harry G. Summers, Jr. argued that “it might have been better in the long run if we had lost this first battle, as we had lost the first major battle of World War II…. Our initial defeat in North Africa scared us with the knowledge that if we did not devise better strategies and tactics, we could lose the war.” See “The Bi tter Triumph of Ia Drang,” American Heritage (February-March 1984): 58. By ignoring the political context of the war, Mark W. Woodruff offers a one-dimensional, naïve evaluation of how battles like Ia Drang were clear-cut victories for American forces. Unheralded Victory: The Defeat of the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army, 1961-1973 (Arlington, Va.: Vandamere Press, 1999), 69-87.
⁶² Moore, We Were Soldiers Once, 399. For Hanoi’s assessment of the fighting, see Victory in Vietnam, 159-160.
⁶³ Hoang Anh Tuan quoted in Cecil B. Currey, Victory at Any Cost: The Genius of Viet Nam’s Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap (Washington, London: Brassey’s, Inc., 1997), 257. General Vo Nguyen Giap recalled, “You planned to use [air mobile] tactics as your strategy to win the war. If we could defeat your tactics—y our helicopters—then we could defeat your strategy.” Ib id. On early enemy reactions to U.S. helicopters in 1962, see Tolson, Airmobility, 26-27. On the enemy’s capability at countering U.S. advantages in firepower, see Carland, Stemming the Tide, 149 and Rosen, Winning the Next War, 94.
⁶⁴ Palmer noted “Victory in Vietnam was hard to measu re.” Palmer went on to argue, however, that “the outcome of the fighting along the Ia Drang and under the Chu Pong was a victory in every sense of the word.” Summons of the Trumpet, 102. On success of 1st Cavalry’s spoiling attack, see Kinnard, “A Victory in the Ia Drang,” 72. On MACV overlooking important facts, see Krepinevich in Showalter, An American Dilemma, 96. On Army Chief of Staff Harold K. Johnson’s views of destruction versus control, see Sorley, Honorable Warrior, 201.
⁶⁵ MACV Monthly Evaluation Report, November 1965, Annex E, 31-35, MHI. Although Moore acknowledged this issue in We Were Soldiers Once...and Young, 398-401.
⁶⁶ Advisor quoted in Malcolm W. Browne, The New Face of War, rev. ed. (Indianapolis, New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1968), 79. Hanson Baldwin, “U.S. First Cavalry is Sternly Tested,” The New York Times, 20 November 1965. On asking how much increase in mobility helicopters actually provided, see James H. Pickerell, Vietnam in the Mud (Indianapolis, New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1966), 45. See also Gerard J. DeGroot, A Noble Cause? America and the Vietnam War (Harlow, Essex: Longman, 2000), 149.
⁶⁷ Johnson in The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War, Part IV, 101-102. On self-delusion in the army, see Herring, LBJ and Vietnam, 37. Zaffiri notes the massive amounts of firepower rushed in to save the beleaguered 1st Cavalry, an aspect of the fighting not highlighted by MACV. Westmoreland, 152.
⁶⁸ Field Manual 31-16, 21.
⁶⁹ On narrow lessons from the campaign, see Benjamin S. Silver and Francis Aylette Silver, Ride at a Gallop (Waco, Tx.: Davis Brothers Publishing Co., 1990), 316. See also Coleman, Pleiku, 267-269. On conventional organizations potentially not being suited to counterinsurgency, see Boyd T. Bashore, “Organization for Frontless Wars,” Military Review Vol. XLIV, No. 5 (May 1964): 16. On discounting dangerous weaknesses, see Palmer, Summons of the Trumpet, 97. DeGroot maintains that “helicopters provided the illusion of offensive mastery.” A Noble Cause?, 149.
⁷⁰ Operations Report, Lessons Learned, 3-66, The Pleiku Campaign, 10 May 1966, CMH Library, 213. On MACV requiring no more feedback other than body counts, see Krepinevich, The Army and Vietnam, 169.

Bình Luận

(1) Ngày 23 tháng 10 Tướng Kinnard nhận được phép của Tướng Westmoreland chuyển vận trọn bộ Lữ Đoàn 1 lên Pleiku, chỉ cách xa 25 dậm. Dựa vào yểu trợ phi pháo dồi dào, quân Mỹ đáp ứng bằng một hỏa lực vũ bão.

= Tuy nhiên, mặc dù trọn bộ Lữ Đoàn 1 được chuyển vận lên Plieku, chỉ có một tiểu đoàn bộ binh – 2/12 Air Cav – được giao trách nhiệm bảo vệ phi trường và thành phố Pleiku và chỉ có một tiểu đoàn pháo binh -Battery B, 2/17 Arty – được trực thăng vận đến Phù Mỹ để yểm trợ cho Chiến Đoàn Thiết Giáp VN đi tiếp cứu trại. Sứ mạng tiếp cứu trại Pleime vẫn do Bộ Tư Lệnh Quân Đoàn II chịu trách nhiệm chính.

(2) Tướng Kinnard vận động xin MACV cho sư đoàn được toàn quyền hành động, và ngày 26 tháng 10, ông nhận được phép truy đuổi các đơn vị rút lui của Tướng Mân.

= Tuy vậy, trong thực tế Tướng Kinnard không được hoàn toàn tự do hành động; Sư Đoàn 1 Không Kỵ vẫn nằm dưới sự chỉ đạo chặt chẽ của Tướng Larsen thuộc Bộ Tư Lện IFFV; Tướng Larsen đã trực tiếp can thiệp và ban bố lệnh tác chiến trong các cuộc hành quân của Sư Đoàn 1 Không Kỵ. Theo Coleman ("Pleiku, the Dawn of Helicopter Warfare in Vietnam", St. Martin’s Press, New York.):

Ngày 7/11 (Coleman):

Mặc dù tin tức tình báo ê hề cho thấy tình hình đối nghịch tại cấp chỉ huy mặt trận, Tướng Kinnard, hành động theo lệnh từ Task Force Alpha (chỉ bản doanh quân đoàn cho bộ tư lệnh Mỹ), nói với Đại Tá Brown là khởi sự lùng kiếm phía nam và đông của Pleime. Vì lý do nào đó, Tướng Swede Larsen, và ban tham mưu, và có thể nhóm hành quân và tình báo lên tận MACV, xác tín là một số Bắc Quân chui lách về phía nam và đông tới vùng đồi núi khoảng mười lăm cây số từ trại Pleime, và họ quả quyết là Không Kỵ phải bắt đầu moi tìm trong vùng đó.

Ngày 13/11 (Coleman):

Các đơn vị cuối của Lữ Đoàn 1 Không Kỵ ra khỏi vùng hành quân, tiến về An Khê, và một phần ba của ba tiểu đoàn hành quân của Lữ Đoàn 3 tới nơi. Tất cả ba tiểu đoàn bây giờ hàng quân theo các vùng lục soát đánh dấu bằng màu cách chung giữa trại Pleime và Quốc Lộ 4. Tất cả mọi người chỉ tìm thấy hố khô ráo, và Tướng Knowles và Tim Brown cảm thấy bực dọc và bắt đầu thèm thuồng ngó về phía tây. Tướng Knowles từng muốn thực hiện hành qâun bên trong rặng núi Chu Prong.
[…]
Ngày hôm nay, Tướng Larsen đến thăm ban chỉ huy tiền phương của sư đoàn tại khu Quân Đoàn II. Ông hỏi Tướng Knowles công việc ra sao. Tướng Knowles báo cáo với ông về trận tấn công vào Catecka đêm qua và rồi nói với ông là lữ đoàn đang khoan một lỗ khô ráo phía đông ngoài Pleime. Tướng Larsen nói, “Sao lại hành quân tại đó khi mà không có tăm hơi địch quân?” Tướng Knowles trả lời, “Nhưng mà thưa Thiếu Tướng, đó chính là lệnh văn thư của Thiếu Tướng chỉ bảo chúng tôi phải hành quân như vậy.” Tướng Larsen trả lời là sứ mạng chính của kỵ binh là “truy lùng địch quân.” Tiếp sau đó không bao lâu, Tướng Knowles thăm Đại Tá Brown tại bản doanh chỉ huy Lữ Đoàn 3 và bảo ông hoạch địch một kế hoạch hành quân tấn kích không vận gần chân rặng núi Chu Prong.

Ngày 14/11 (Coleman):

Tướng Knowles đã có mặt tại Trung Tâm Hành Quân của sư đoàn khi tin tức đầu tiên đụng độ loan tới. Ông leo lên trực thăng chỉ huy và bay tới Catecka. Tại đây Đại Tá Brown báo cáo tình hình cho ông. Cả hai vị chỉ huy trưởng vỡ lẽ ra là họ đã thọc gậy vào ổ ong và sẽ cần nhiều quân số để chế ngự hơn là Đại Tá Brown có trong tay. Tướng Knowles bốc điện thoại và gọi về cho Tướng Kinnard tại An Khê, xin thêm một tiểu đoàn bộ binh, thêm pháo binh, và cả trực thăng chử quân lẫn vận tải hạng trung. Tướng Kinnard trả lời, “Chúng đang trên đường tới, nhưng cái gì xảy ra vậy?” Tướng Knowles trả lời, “Chúng ta có đụng độ lớn. Khuyến cáo thượng cấp bay lên đây càng sớm càng tốt.” Sau khi cho vận chuyển bộ phận tăng cường, Tướng Kinnard bay trực thăng tới từ An Khê, và gặp Tướng Knowles tại Catecka. Khi Tướng Kinnard tới nơi, Tướng Knowles chỉ cho ông bản đồ tình hình mà ông banh ra trên một thân cây dừa. Tướng Kinnard nhìn thoáng qua và nói, “Ông làm cái gì ở vùng này?” Hẳn nhiên là có người không thông báo cho ông chủ về chỉ đạo của Tướng Larsen là truy đuổi theo địch ngay cả rút đi khỏi các lỗ khô cạn ở phía đông. Tướng Knowles nói với Tướng Kinnard, “Mục đích của cuộc hành quân là tìm ra địch quân, mà đây hẳn nhiên là chúng ta tìm thấy chúng!” Tướng Knowles còn nhớ Tướng Kinnard im lặng một hồi rồi điềm đạm nói, “Thôi được, trông có vể khả quan. Cho tôi biết anh cần tôi giúp điều gì.”

(3) Đại Tá Thomas W. Brown, chỉ huy Lữ Đoàn 3 thay thế cho Lữ Đoàn 1 ngày 9/11, bày tỏ nỗi bực dọc – “theo như không tìm thấy gì đến thời điểm này, tôi không chắc chúng ta sẽ tìm thấy gì hay ngay cả bất cứ gì.”

= Đại Tá Brown, ở cấp lữ đoàn, hình như không am tường kế hoạch của thượng cấp nhằm khiến đối phương tưởng lầm các lực lượng hành quân đánh mất tung tích của các đơn vị mình. Quả thật vậy, trong thời kỳ từ 27 tháng 10 đến 11 tháng 11, Ban 2/SĐ1KK và Ban 2/QĐII theo dõi rất kỹ các hành tung và vị trí của các đơn vị thuộc 3 trung đoàn Bắc Quân (Khía Cạnh Tình Báo của chiến dịch Pleime-Chuprong):

Ngày 27/10, Trung Đoàn 33 đến làng Kro; ngày 28/10, Trung Đoàn 32 tới sát các căn cứ hậu cần tại mạn bắc của Ia Drang; ngày 29/10, Trung Đoàn 33 nhắm đi tới làng Anta tại YA940010, nằm tại chân rặng núi Chu Prong; ngày 1/11, bản doanh trung đoàn đã tới căn cứ tại làng Anta; ngày 2/11, khoảng 0400 giờ Ban Chỉ Huy trung đoàn 33 tới Đồi 732 (YA885106); ngày 05/11, Trung Đoàn 66 tiếp tục qui tụ vào các vùng tập trung trong mật khu Chu Prong và Trung Đoàn 33 chờ đợi cho các lực lượng phân tán qui tụ về đơn vị mẹ, Trung Đoàn 32 và Bộ Tư Lệnh B3, trong khi đó, án binh tại phía bắc Ia Drang và gần bên biên giới Căm Bốt; ngày 08/11 Trung Đoàn 33 thu thập xong các đơn vị cơ hữu cuối cùng; ngày 11/11, vị trí ba tiểu đoàn 7, 8 và 9 của Trung Đoàn 66 trải dọc mạn bắc bờ sông Ia Drang (trung tâm khối tại 9104), Trung Đoàn 33 vẫn ở các vị trí quanh Làng Anta (YA940010), Trung Đoàn 32 vẫn ở phía bắc sông Ia Drang (YA820070).

(4) Tướng Kinnard tiếp tục tiến quân về phía biên giới Căm Bốt, ra lệnh cho Tiểu Đoàn 1/7 Không Kỵ của Trung Tá Harold G. Moore lùng kiếm thung lũng Ia Drang gần vùng rặng núi Chu Prong.

= Không đúng vậy. Tướng Kinnard nói với Cochran ("First Strike at River Drang", Military History, Oct 1984, pp 44-52, Per. Interview with H.W.O Kinnard, 1st Cavalry Division Commanding General.):

Lựa chọn đi vào Chu Prong, từng là một mật khu của địch gần biên giới Căm Bốt nơi mà QLVNCH chưa từng đặt chân tới, không phải là ý kiến của tôi. Hoặc là ý kiến của Tướng Knowles hay của lữ đoàn trưởng. Chúng tôi đã lục lọi trong vùng này. Không phải là tình báo dẫn đưa chúng tôi vào nơi ấy. Có chăng thì là vì thiếu tình báo, vào coi bộ vào đó là hợp lý.

(5) Tướng Mân đã củng cố các lượng của mình trong vùng rặng núi Chu Prong và chờ đợi phía Mỹ hành động kế tiếp.

= Không phải vậy. Tướng Mân tập trung ba trung đoàn lại trong rặng núi Chu Prong để chuấn bị cho một cuộc ltấn công trại Pleime lần thứ nhì (Pleime, Trận Chiến Lịch Sử, trang 94):

Cuộc hành quân Dân Thắng 21 chấm dứt, trại Pleime vững mạnh trở lại, nhưng trong số hai Trung Đoàn V.C. đã tham dự, ta mới gây cho chúng được hơn 400 tổn thất nhân mạnh. Sự rút lui của địch là một chủ trương sáng suốt và hợp lý của BCH mặt trận V.C. nhưng địch sẽ tìm cách rửa hận và vì trại Pleime hẻo lánh còn là một cái gai trước mắt.

(6) Vị trí phòng thủ của Moore trở nên tuyệt vọng khiến MACV cho phép xử dụng các phi cơ chiến lược B-52 đến từ Guam để không yểm tiếp cận. Ngày 16 tháng 11, vì không phá vỡ được tuyến phòng thủ của không kỵ, chỉ huy trưởng Bắc Quân, cũng giống tại Pleime, nhận định là không còn có thể làm gì chống lại hỏa lực Mỹ và bắt đầu rút lực lượng ra khỏi vùng bãi đáp.

= Tuyến phòng thủ của Moore chưa lúc nào tới điểm tuyệt vọng. Tiểu Đoàn 1/7 Không Kỵ luôn được tăng cường đầy đủ để giữ vững tuyến phòng thủ: B/2/7 Air Cav vào lúc 6 giờ chiền ngày 16/11; vào lúc 9 giờ 15 sáng ngày 15/11, toàn bộ Tiểu Đoàn 2/7 hiện diện tại LZ X-Ray; và vào lúc 12 giờ 05 trưa cùng ngày, Tiểu Đoàn 2/5 Không Kỵ tiến vào bãi đáp giải cứu trung đội bị cô lập.

Không phải là oanh tạc cơ B-52 yểm trợ tiếp cận cho Tiểu Đoàn 1/7 Không Kỵ. Trái lại mới đúng: các Tiểu đoàn Không Kỵ 1/7, 2/7 và 2/5 ghim ba trung đoàn Bắc Quân lại thành mục tiêu khiến các oanh tạc cơ B-52 có đủ thì giờ bay từ Guam mất tám tiếng đồng hồ. Đợt bom đầu tiên rớt xuống vào lúc 4 giờ chiều ngày 15 tháng 11 nhắm vào các vị trí của hai trung đoàn 32 và 33 Bắc Quân (Nhật Ký Ban 3/IFFV):

- 15/11/65 lúc 10:30G: MAVC J3 (Gen DePuy) Gen DePuy gọi Col Barrow và hỏi Arc Light đã được thông qua với Tư Lệnh QĐ II chưa. Col Barrow trả lời rồi, Tư Lệnh QĐ II đã chấp thuận Arc Light. Đồng thời DePuy muốn biết nếu đơn vị của 1st Cav đã nhận giới hạn áp đặt lúc 151600G cấm không được vượt qua phía tây của lằn ranh ô vuông YA chưa. Col Barrow thông báo Gen DePuy là 1st Cav đã đáo nhận giới hạn và sẽ tuân theo. Gen DePuy đích thân thay đổi đồ hình mục tiêu.

Chỉ đến ngày 17 tháng 11, các oanh tạc cơ B-52 mới trút bom trực tiếp vào LZ X-Ray (Pleiku campaign, trang 94):

Các toán quân còn ở lại trong vùng X-Ray thình lình chợt vỡ lẽ tại sao Không Kỵ rời bỏ đi khỏi nơi này. Một cuộc oanh tạc B-52 đánh phủ lên đầu các vị trí cũ.

(7) Một viên tướng lãnh Bắc Quân nhớ lại “các thức đánh Mỹ là ‘nắm lưng quần’ ... để tiến tới sát bên đến độ hỏa lực phi pháo bất khả dụng.”

= Viên tướng lãnh Bắc Quân này đâu có ngờ là các bộ đội mình đâu giáp mặt chiến đấu với các đơn vị bộ chiến để mà có thể ‘nắm lưng quần’ mà là bị tiêu diệt bởi oanh tạc B-52 từ trên đầu trút xuống với các đơn vị bộ chiến Mỹ đứng cách xa khoảng 3 cây số.

(8) Coi bộ bất cứ giới lãnh đạo nào của Sư Đoàn 1 Không Kỵ hay MACV không phủ nhận là cần tới các oanh tạc cơ B-52 để cứu sống tiểu đoàn của Moore.

= Nhận xét này thật là sai lầm vì lẽ việc xử dụng oanh tạc B-52 đã được trù tính như là tác động chính tiêu diệt ba trung đoàn Bắc Quân tại Chu Prong với Sư Đoàn 1 Không Kỵ trong vai trò phụ lực và thực hiện thế nghi binh yểm trợ cho oanh tạc B-52 (Khía Cạnh Tình Báo của chiến dịch Pleime-Chuprong, trang 6):

Căn cứ Chu Prong được biết là đã được tạo lập lâu trước cuộc tấn công Pleime và Ban 2 MACV đã chấm lấy vùng này để nghiên cứu vào tháng 9 năm 1965 như là có thể làm mục tiêu cho B-52.

(9) Bằng cách xử dụng kỹ thuật trực thăng vận mới, Sư Đoàn 1 Không Kỵ hình như đã hoàn tất chiến thắng tại Ia Drang dùng đến các cuộc hành quân qui ước thông thường.

= Khi nhảy vào Ia Drang, đạo quân Không Kỵ 1 không xử dụng các kỹ thuật trực thăng vận mới; các giai đoạn của tấn kích trực thăng vận là tìm địch với một đại đội và khi tìm thấy địch thì ghim chúng lại bằng một cuộc giao tranh, rồi nhanh chóng dồn đống các toán quân cần thiết để tiêu diệt các đơn vị địch bị vây khốn (Cochran):

Ngay sau khi giải tỏa trại Pleime, tôi cảm thấy có trách vụ lùng kiếm những đứa đã bén mảng tới quanh trại. Do đó, chúng tôi đề xướng một phương thức lùng kiếm trong đó Thiết Đoàn Không Kỵ tuần tiễu một vùng rộng lớn và tôi sẽ xử dụng một lữ đoàn bộ binh để phân nhỏ từng tiểu đoàn bộ binh nhỏ và lục lạo từmg khu vực nhỏ một. Tôi cảm thấy chúng tôi phải phân ra thành nhiểu nhóm nhỏ để có thêm bao dàn nhiều vùng hơn và đồng thời khiến địch tưởng là có thể đánh lừa chúng tôi. Anh không có thể đặt để xuống trọn một tiểu đoàn ngoài đó và nhảy cả khiểng đó đây. Anh phải phân ra thành các đơn vị cỡ đại đội và trung đội. Anh phải tin tưởng là với trực thăng anh có thể đáp ứng nhanh chóng hơn ai hết trong lịch sử. Tiếp sau đó, tôi học hỏi một điều mới lạ, là mọi đơn vị nào không đụng độ hóa thành một lực lượng trừ bị có thể trưng dụng tới. Đó là chiến lược của tôi. Bắt đầu từ bất cứ đâu, phân thành nhiều nhóm nhỏ, tùy theo địa hình, và hành quân trong vùng đó trong khi Thiết Đoàn Không Kỵ lục lạo mọi nơi. Điều chính yếu là tìm cách đụng độ với địch. Anh muốn có được bất cứ hình thức đụng độ nào – một trực thăng bị đạn bắn lên, khám phá một nhúm lửa bếp trại, tìm thấy một túi đeo, một khu vực cỏ bị bước chân vùi dập.

Thay vào đó, sứ mạng của Không Kỵ 1 khi đổ bộ vào LZ X-Ray là thế nghi binh chỉ nhằm ghim ba trung đoàn Bắc Quân tại các vị trị hội tụ để cho phép các oanh tạc cơ B-52 thả bom bằng cách giữ vững các tuyến phòng thủ trong thế ngăn chận và không tỏa ra để truy đuổi theo các toán quân địch. Điều này giải thích tại sao Tiểu Đoàn 1/7 Không Kỵ được bốc xuất ngày 16 thánh 11 và hai Tiểu Đoàn 2/7 và 2/5 Không Kỵ được lệnh âm thầm rút ra khỏi LZ X-Ray ngày 17/11.

Tướng Knowles tiết lộ chủ đích cho đổ bộ các toán quân Không Kỵ tại LZ X-Ray ngày 14 tháng 11 là “Chộp con hổ đằng đuôi” và đập đầu nó với oanh tập B-52 từ ngày 15 đến 16 tháng 11. Ông cũng giải thích lý do rút quân ra khỏi LZ X-Ray ngày 17 tháng 11 và di chuyển quân tới LZ Albany là để “nắm lấy đuôi hổ từ một hướng khác” đồng thời tiếp tục đập đầu nó với bom B-52 từ ngày 17 đến 20 tháng 11.

Kết Luận

Vì là một luận án tiến sĩ, Daddis đã cẩn thận căn cứ lời tường thuật về trận Ia Drang vào các nguồn tham khảo chính yếu và vào các lời của các nhân chứng trực tiếp tham gia vào trận đánh. Tuy nhiên, mức độ nghiên cứu của ông không quán xuyến và sâu sắc đủ, khiến ông thấu hiểu điều gì thật sự xảy ra tại trận Ia Drang: chẳng qua nó chỉ là một phần tác động nhỏ trong một kế hoạch rộng lớn – đã phải cần đến 38 ngày và 38 đêm để hoàn thành – xử dụng tới oanh tạc B-52 để tiêu diệt ba trung đoàn Bắc Quân tại rặng núi Chu Prong. Sự hiểu biết nông cạn của Daddis là tình trạng điển hình và thông thường trong văn chương đương thời liên quan đến trận Ia Drang.

Nguyễn Văn Tín
Ngàh 10 tháng 7 năm 2014

Tài liệu tham khảo

- Chính

- Sách báo

* Pleiku, the Dawn of Helicopter Warfare in Vietnam, J.D. Coleman, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1988.

* We Were Soldiers Once… and Young, General Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway, Random House, New York, 1992.

* "First Strike at River Drang", Military History, Oct 1984, pp 44-52, Per. Interview with H.W.O Kinnard, 1st Cavalry Division Commanding General, Cochran, Alexander S.

* The Siege of Pleime, Project CHECO Report, 24 February 1966, HQ PACAF, Tactical Evaluation Center.

* Silver Bayonet, Project CHECO Report, 26 February 1966, HQ PACAF, Tactical Evaluation Center.

- Việt Cộng

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