Word: fishhooks
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WITH unexpected rapidity, U.S. and South Vietnamese forces opened new fronts along the Cambodian border last week. Initially, the drive against the Communist sanctuaries involved 20,000 allied troops operating in two areas, the Parrot's Beak and Fishhook havens northwest of Saigon. By week's end, as half a dozen new task forces were hurled into the border war, the sweeps had spread south as far as the Mekong River and north to the highlands near the Laotian border. What started as a two-front foray was now a campaign engaging 40,000 troops along 600 miles...
...force accompanied by 50 American advisers had plunged into the Parrot's Beak. The next morning, barely two hours before Nixon was to begin his speech, an 11,500-man task force, spearheaded by 2,000 troopers of the U.S. 1st Air Cavalry Division (Airmobile) helicoptered into the Fishhook...
...operation was nicknamed "the Big One" by the brass in Saigon. It had the earmarks of the first truly classic operation in a long and decidedly unconventional war. In many ways, it looked like a World War II-style ground offensive. At one point along the Fishhook perimeter, a battery of nearly 100 heavy-artillery pieces poured fire into suspected enemy positions. The ground trembled as flights of as many as 35 huge B-52s roared over the sanctuaries again and again, dumping more than 2,000,000 Ibs. of bombs. The columns of South Vietnamese tanks and armored cars...
Boring in on the Fishhook from two points, the helicopter-borne Air Cav and South Vietnamese troopers achieved total tactical surprise. "Sure, the Communists had some knowledge that we were planning a big move," said one U.S. military source. "But they never expected an air assault-never anticipated the choppers coming in on them." The pincer attack was so swift that the enemy never did get its .51-cal. antiaircraft batteries in firing position. In the first hours of the assault, one ARVN (Army of the Republic of Viet Nam) airborne unit set down right on top of a North...
...Fishhook forces sealed off a triangular area of some 50-square miles. With any luck, they may find most of the 7th North Vietnamese Division trapped inside, and perhaps the 5th Viet Cong Division as well. But the main objective is the so-called Central Office for South Viet Nam, the field office from which Hanoi runs its political and military operations in the southern half of South Viet Nam. COSVN has a staff of 2,300 who man an elaborate series of bureaucratic "sections." Yet it is no Pentagon; to confound allied intelligence, its staff moves regularly from bunker...