As the Earth Shook, They Stood Firm
Vo Thi Mo led three commando squads against a battalion of the 25th Division in Vietnam in 1967.
The New York Times
THANH PHONG
JANUARY 17, 2017
In January 1967, when the First and 25th Infantry Divisions of the United States Army began Operation Cedar Falls, their all-out offensive against the Communist strongholds of the “Iron Triangle” northwest of Saigon, Vo Thi Mo, 20, was ready.
Born in Cu Chi, in the middle of the Cedar Falls battle zone, Ms. Mo had been in the fight against American troops and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam — the South Vietnamese force, known as ARVN — since the age of 13, when she helped to build the extensive tunnel system that southern Communist forces, known as the National Liberation Front (and to its enemies as the Vietcong), used as barracks, command center and communications network.
By 1967 she was a “deputy of hamlet combat,” and 50 years ago this month she led three commando squads against a battalion of the 25th Division.
“I had never been at any military school,” said Ms. Mo, now 70 and still living in a small house in Cu Chi. “As a girl, I was so scared when I cocked a gun for the first time. But, you know, I learned a lot on the battlefields.”
Starting at age 13, Vo Thi Mo worked as a secret messenger for Communist forces in South Vietnam.
That poorly equipped, poorly supplied Communist forces were able to resist a sustained mechanized onslaught was a testament to the resilience, adaptability and tenacity of fighters like Ms. Mo. Their ability to survive, at a terrible cost, and learn from the experience helped shape their strategy for the rest of the war.
To understand the experiences of Vietnamese on both sides of the war, I’ve studied hundreds of Vietcong reports and communications, soldiers’ diaries and letters, captured by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Army of the Republic of South Vietnam and archived at Texas Tech University. I’ve also conducted dozens of interviews in Vietnam in which former soldiers like Ms. Mo reflected on the war, and Cedar Falls in particular. Besides Ms. Mo, the other interviewees spoke on condition that their initials, but not their names, would be published.
Even a half-century later, Col. Q.T.N., an 81-year-old former regiment commander and one of the few survivors of a division that was considered among the most hardened units of the Vietcong, shuddered as he recalled Cedar Falls in an interview at his home in Saigon, now known as Ho Chi Minh City.
After bomb and rocket attacks from B-52s, jet fighters, helicopters and heavy artillery secured the area, American tanks and troops came in “to search for and destroy us,” Colonel Q.T.N. said. “The lands of Cu Chi, Ben Cat and Ben Suc” — villages at the perimeter of the Iron Triangle — “were razed as if they were some evils peeled off the skins of our body. Therefore, we called the operation Peeling the Shell of the Earth.”
Operation Cedar Falls, viewed from the air, on a U.S. Army helicopter gunship, left, and below ground, where soldiers uncover hidden bags of rice.
DICK SWANSON / THE LIFE IMAGES COLLECTION, VIA GETTY IMAGES
He added: “Although they could not eliminate our leadership, they destroyed our bases, especially war supplies. To be honest, they created many difficulties for us and established a secure perimeter for themselves in the northwest of Saigon.”
Like the colonel, Mr. Q.H. has traumatic memories of the offensive. Born in Cu Chi in 1948 and educated at the University of Saigon, he went to the jungle to join the local Communists’ department of propaganda and training.
“The areas around Ben Cat and Ben Suc shook violently like there was an earthquake,” Mr. Q.H. said. “Because all the food supplies were captured or destroyed, we had nothing to eat and drink. I don’t know how and why I was able to survive the rain of bombs and the storm of fire pouring on us.”
Among the 350,000 documents that American and South Vietnamese forces captured during the operation are many showing that starvation was at the heart of the Communists’ concerns. Because the offensive was so fierce, their comrades near the village of Phuoc Hiep “did not dare to visit to collect rice,” Vietcong officials wrote in reports in mid-January 1967. Living under American surveillance after being relocated to a “New Life Hamlet,” the people in Thanh Hoa did not sell rice anymore, the officials wrote, “so we found it very difficult to survive.”
Many Vietcong escaped the ruined tunnels and hid along rivers and canals. “The Vietcong usually sank themselves in the mud along the canal banks,” a deserter told his interrogators, according to a report I found in the archives. “They had learned, from experience, that South Vietnamese soldiers would not check the canal banks very closely.”
But escape often proved impossible, and casualties rose. The Saigon River became a floating graveyard. In a memoir, Le Dinh An, a veteran of a South Vietnamese unit, wrote of “a river full of death.”
“Cadavers swelled, the men faced down in the water, while the women faced the sky,” he wrote. “When we moved into the new areas, we continued to see new dead bodies floating on the rivers, the banks and paddies. The corpses showed up everywhere.”
By the end of Operation Cedar Falls, American officials said 750 Vietcong were killed, along with 72 Americans and 11 South Vietnamese.
In their official writing, the Communists claimed that during the 19 days of the operation, their forces had resolutely fought the enemy advance of 30,000 United States and South Vietnamese troops. In reality, American and South Vietnamese troops faced only skirmishes against small units, not the main forces of the Vietcong.
