© By David Wilkins
Adjutant & OC
C Company
2nd Tour |
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In
Vietnam the allied armies confronted an enemy quite
different from that encountered in more conventional
wars. This was an enemy that generally avoided direct
confrontation with allied forces, preferring to be
secreted away in its jungle and mountain hideaways, to
then launch hit-and-run offensives at opportune times.
It referred to itself as a liberation army, aimed at
overthrowing the South Vietnamese government and
unifying the north and south into one nation. To achieve
this objective, four separate but coordinated components
were mobilised:
A.
The Viet Cong Infrastructure (VCI);
B.
main force military units;
C.
provincial or regional military units; and
D.
local guerrilla units.
Collectively the three levels of the South Vietnamese
communist armed forces
(components B, C and D above)
were named the Peoples' Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF)
or Viet Cong (VC), although large numbers of North
Vietnamese Army (NVA) soldiers belonged to them. As
well, complete NVA main force units were encountered
during the war.
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VC Flag |
NVA Flag |
All four
enemy components were coordinated in their activities,
forming a web throughout the war zone, receiving their
direction from the Central Office for South Vietnam or
COSVN, Hanoi's mobile command headquarters of the VC and
NVA forces.
As Ian
McNeill outlined in his book
"The Team", the allied forces were arranged to
shield the South Vietnamese population from this enemy
organisation like the concentric layers of an onion. At
the outer layer, the South Vietnamese army and allied
forces fought the enemy regular units; at the next inner
layer the South Vietnamese Regional Forces (RF) and
Popular Forces (PF) faced the enemy local forces; and in
the centre, amongst the population, there was a need for
a third force to combat the VCI. This third force was
developed under the Phoenix Programme, considered below.
The VCI
(component A above)
This was
the covert political arm of the communist forces and
included the National Liberation Front (NLF).
William
E. Colby, former CIA chief in Vietnam, stated his view
on the origin of the VCI to the US Senate Committee on
Foreign Relations in 1970:
"At the end
of the 1945-54 war, the Communists took about 75,000
native southerners north for training in organizing,
propaganda and subversion. During the late 50s these
cadres returned to their southern provinces and
districts. There they revived the networks they had left
in 1954, organized the farmers into farmers' groups,
womens' organizations and youth groups and began to
recruit and train and establish bases for guerrilla
groups."
It was
the aim of the Vietnamese Communists to have a complete
covert alternative shadow government in place when their
victory was finally won. The VCI aimed to replicate the
South Vietnamese government structure down to village
level. Thus, where manpower allowed, communist cadres
were secretly assigned positions of village chiefs,
police officers, postmen and petty officials at
district, province and national levels.
In
addition to the VCI clandestinely providing the
political and leadership structure of the communist
insurgency, it supported the military operations of the
VC and NVA units by providing guides, caches of food,
clothing, weapons, medical supplies and other war
materials, logistical support, and by directing and
implementing a systematic campaign of terrorism,
extortion, subversion, sabotage, abduction and murder to
achieve its objectives. Principal targets were the South
Vietnamese officials at all political levels down to
village chiefs, local schoolteachers, postmen, policemen
and the like. The VCI remained mainly anonymous other
than to fellow VCI members and VC soldiers. Villagers
who discovered their identity would mostly remain silent
for fear of retaliation, which would often take the form
of public executions, not just of themselves but also of
their entire families.
The
allied effort in countering the VCI was conducted by the
American CIA in its secret fight-fire-with-fire campaign
known as the Phoenix Programme. This involved the
development of an intelligence-gathering network and
force known euphemistically as the Combined Studies
Division or CSD. This third force included members of
the Australian Army Training Team, Vietnam (AATTV).
Officially the Phoenix Programme aimed at inducing the
VCI members to abandon their allegiance to the Viet Cong
and to rally to the government, but it was also alleged
to have conducted covert terrorist acts of its own
against the VCI. Ambassador Colby denied this, stating
that:
"The Phoenix
Program was not a program of assassination. The Phoenix
Program was a part of the overall pacification program."
The
Australian Task Force at Nui Dat was not, to my
knowledge, involved in the Phoenix campaign, and instead
was concerned with fighting the VC and NVA military
units.
The Enemy Military Forces
(components B, C and D above)
Within
Phuoc Tuy and the neighbouring provinces of Bien Hoa,
Long Khanh and Binh Tuy, the principal main force
formation (component B above) was the 5th VC Division,
which usually had its headquarters in the Mây Tào
Mountains. It consisted of 274 Regiment and 275 Regiment
plus supporting units. North Vietnamese regulars were
used to boost and reinforce this South Vietnamese
formation and by 1969 comprised the majority of its
numbers. Other main force units opposed by 5RAR included
the 33rd NVA Regiment, as in the battle of Binh Ba.
The next level of the VC organisation (component C
above) contained their provincial units, which in Phuoc
Tuy included the D445 Provincial Mobile Battalion. At
Nui Dat we referred to D445 as "Phuoc Tuy's Own". This
unit recruited from local villages such as Baria, Dat Do
and Hoa Long, and operated mainly around Xuyên Môc, the
Long Green and Long Hai Hills. These soldiers were
regulars and better equipped and trained than the local
guerrillas. The personnel of these units were often
local to the area in which they served, but when
casualties were high outsiders reinforced them.
Another
provincial mobile battalion in our area was D440,
created by COSVN in 1968 and consisted mainly of NVA
soldiers. It operated principally in the north of the
province.
The final
level of VC military forces was made up of the local
guerrilla units in and around the villages (component D
above). They consisted of both part-time and full-time
guerrillas. They were the archetypal 'farmers by day,
soldiers by night', comprising those either too old or
too young to fight in regular VC units and dressed as
local peasant farmers. Whilst their primary objective
activities consisted of taxing the locals, stockpiling
supplies, intelligence-gathering, sniping, laying mines
and booby trapping, this lowest level force was also
employed in the support of VC regional and main force
units operating in their locality in the roles of
porters, scouts and guides.
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