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Battle for HUE

The battle for the city of Hue took place over a month long period during the Tet Offensive. The battle began in earnest on the morning of 31 January 1968, the day Tet started. This intense urban battle was the longest and bloodiest engagement of Tet. Hue is located on the east coast of Vietnam, about 25 miles from the old border between North and South Vietnam. Hue is actually two cities. The Perfume River runs all the way around the old city, forming a castle like moat around the Citadel. The Citadel is a rough square, two miles to a side, protected by a sixteen foot wall that varies in thickness from sixty to over two hundred feet. Some of the toughest fighting occurred in this heavily urbanized three square kilometer area. The Perfume River is also the barrier between the new and the old sectors of Hue. Across the river from the Citadel is the more modern, residential area of Hue, appropriately called the South Side. In 1968, Hue had a population of 140,000, making it the third largest city in South Vietnam.

Before Tet began, an estimated two thousand Viet Cong infiltrated the city, and when the attack started, they simply changed clothes and brought out weapons they had concealed in caches. The VC and NVA quickly gained control of the city except for small pockets of resistance, mainly the ACV compound on the South Side, held by the Americans, and the ARVN headquarters inside the Citadel. These two footholds and smaller ones scattered through the city stubbornly resisted superior forces, and were ultimately the reasons that the NVA lost the battle for Hue.

Before the battle ended, two NVA regiments, the 5 th and the 6 th, were committed to the fight, totalling some 6,000 soldiers. On the Allied side, various elements of the 1 st ARVN Division, commanded by BG Nuang Truong, were able fight their way into the Citadel to join their commander. However, after four days of intense fighting in the inner city, the South Vietnamese switched their tactics from offensive to defensive. Their commander called on the Americans to relieve his forces. Ultimately, three battalions and one company of a fourth battalion of the 1 st Marine Division did the lion’s share of the fighting in Hue. Initially, during the fight for control of the South Side, 1 st Battalion, 1 st Marines and 2d Battalion, 5 th Marines fought their way from house to house, street to street, clearing the city’s residential area from the ACV compound west to the Hue railroad station. One of the Marines described the fighting: “Every single alley, street corner, window, and intersection harbored potential death. It had to be taken block by block, house by house, brick by brick.”

Since the city’s eight mile perimeter could not be effectively sealed off, the NVA’s supply lines remained intact. In fact, the NVA dedicated an entire battalion to the mission of securing their supply lines to the west. Additionally, the NVA were able to replenish their ammunition and food supplies from the ARVN armory inside the Citadel. The NVA were well armed with AK-47s and B-40 rockets, which were strong enough to effectively deal with the M-48 tanks used by the Marines.

The Marines were hampered in their offensive by not only the weather, but by rules of engagement concerning the use of close air, artillery, napalm, and naval bombardment. Hue was considered an historic city, and all fire support had to be coordinated with and approved by MACV headquarters in Saigon. The South Vietnamese government was concerned about the destruction of Vietnamese historical treasures and buildings. TheNVA had no rules of engagement however. Further, it was monsoon season in Vietnam, which meant lots of cloud cover, rain, and ground fog. Air support, even if approved and on time, could not always deliver their ordnance to the target.

As if these problems were not enough, the Tet Offensive meant that resupply convoys and medevac helicopters were continually subject to hostile ground fire. There were days when the Marines were not resupplied at all because the road to Saigon had been sealed off by the The North Vietnamese had their own problems though. They were new to the business of street fighting, and encountered serious command and control problems. The Marines were now able to see their foe face to face for the first time after months of fighting an invisible enemy in the jungle. The Americans could finally do battle on their own terms. The Marines remained highly motivated throughout the battle as a result. The NVA were also hampered by their lack of air support, armor support, and medical supplies as well as doctors. They had no place to hide, and were not able to use the hit and run tactics that had served them so well in the jungle. Now, for the first time, they had to stand and fight an aggressive, well armed, well trained enemy.

The Marines, though urban warfare was new to them, quickly adapted to this kind of special fighting. As they learned, MOUT is a squad leader’s war. They learned the advantages of using LAWs and recoilless rifles to blast holes through walls instead of using doors and windows. They also learned that CS (tear gas) was extremely effective in clearing the NVA out of buildings. This was close quarter fighting, where shotguns, pistols, and hand grenades were their most effective weapons. Marine grunts also learned something else: Their officers were just as good fighters as they were. It was not uncommon for battalion commanders and executive officers to personally lead their men in battle or to direct the battle from the front. In a war where commanders directed battles from their helicopters or from a safe, sandbagged bunker well to the rear, the example that Marine officers set for their men was to have a tremendous motivational impact on the frontline grunts. The Marines, tired, hungry, and bloody, continued fighting because they trusted their leadership.

When the battle for the South Side ended on 10 February, except for mop up operations, the two exhausted and battered battalions were relieved by a battalion of the 101 st Airborne Division. Now, attention was turned to the recapture of the Citadel. The Citadel was a fortress built by the French during colonial times. It consisted of row after row of mostly one story thick walled stone houses with narrow streets and alleys running in between. There was no room in the Citadel for tanks to maneuver. Most of the houses had courtyard walls and big, mature trees and hedgerows in the yards. This was unlike the South Side with its’ wide boulevardsand multi-storied buildings.

The 1 st Battalion, 5 th Marines, and L Co. 3d Battalion, 5 th Marines were committed to the fight for the Citadel and the relief of the ARVN garrison on 10 February. Again, the leadership, training, and motivation of the Marines was superb. The attrition rate among the officer and NCO ranks was so high that in some units, corporals were platoon leaders. On 25 February, the battle for the Citadel ended. The NVA were beaten, severely. As they pulled out of Hue, artillery and close air pounded them all the way back into the jungle. The Americans had won a tough battle.

REFERENCE: Nolan, Keith W. Battle of Hue: Tet 1968. Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1983.

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