Since the end of the Vietnam War, General William C. Westmoreland has been criticized for approving the construction of large U.S. military bases throughout South Vietnam. Critics, who included the highly decorated Colonel David Hackworth, argued that the bases were unnecessarily large, provided too many amenities to soldiers, exposed the Americans stationed on the bases to enemy fire, reduced the combat effectiveness of U.S. units by providing soldiers an all-too luxurious life in the rear, and increased the overall cost of the war without any discernible benefits. Hackworth once described the 9th Infantry Division base at Dong Tam as “Four hundred acres of sitting ducks.” [Hackworth, Steel My Soldiers, Photo Caption] But critics, such as Hackworth, failed to acknowledge the multiple political, economic, and military reasons Westmoreland favored large bases. Continue Reading »
Tagged 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), An Khe, Ca Mau Peninsula, Camp Holloway, Chu Lai, Cu Chi, Danang Airbase, Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), Dien Bien Phu, Dong Tam, Lai Khe, My Tho River, National Route 1, People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), Phu Bai, Robert S. McNamara, Search and Destroy, South Vietnam, U Minh Forest, Viet Cong, William C. Westmoreland
The Mekong Delta encompasses approximately 15,000 square miles. Its land area made up nearly a quarter of South Vietnam’s 67,108 square miles. The delta begins on the outskirts of Saigon and extends 193 miles as the crow flies to the southernmost tip of Vietnam, at the Ca Mau peninsula. In the 1950s and 1960s, the delta possessed the highest population density of any area within South Vietnam. And in 1970, U.S. intelligence estimated that the three delta provinces immediately surrounding Saigon, Long An, Hau Nghia, and Gia Dinh, each had districts that held populations in excess of 1,810 persons per square mile [“Indochina Precipitation and Monsoon Airflow Map,” 1970, Bergerud, Tropic Thunder, 136]. Even the rural areas of the central delta, which included the paddy country surrounding My Tho, Vinh Long, Can Tho and Long Xuyen, contained populations of between 520 and 1810 persons per square mile. The only other area within Vietnam that contained such a high population over such a large area was the Red River Delta of the North. The least populated, most remote, regions within the delta existed in the Ca Mau peninsula and U Minh Forest. Both of those areas held only 2.6 to 26 persons per square mile. Not coincidently, those two isolated patches of territory served as Viet Cong base areas during the First and Second Indochina wars. Continue Reading »
Tagged Bernard Fall, Ca Mau Peninsula, David Hackworth, David Halberstam, Dean Rusk, L.L. Lemnitzer, Mekong Delta, Mekong River, Pentagon Papers, President John F. Kennedy, Red River Delta, South Vietnam, U Minh Forest, Vietnam War
During Indochina’s southwest monsoon, which occurs annually from May through October, the Mekong River becomes engorged with rainwater. Because the great river cannot absorb the vast amounts of runoff streaming off the jungle-covered highlands of Laos, the plateaus of the Annamese Cordillera, and the agricultural lands of east-central Cambodia, the stream is pushed up and over its banks. Once unleashed from the confines of it channel area, the Mekong spreads its tan waters over thousands of square miles of Cambodia and Vietnam. Continue Reading »
Tagged Annamese Cordillera, Ca Mau Peninsula, Cambodia, Dong Tam, Indochina, Mekong River, My Tho, People's Army of Vietnam, Plain of Reeds, Plaine Des Joncs, U Minh Forest, U.S. 9th Infantry Division, Viet Cong, Vietnam War
