Operation Pershing

The Bồng Sơn Plain was enclosed on three sides by mountains and bordered on a fourth by the South China Sea, this rich agrarian flatland supported a population of nearly 100,000, mostly farmers and fishermen. It extended north 25 km from the to the Bình Định-Quảng Ngãi Province border but was only 10 km at its widest point. The An Lão Valley, whose entrance lay at the southern edge of Bồng Sơn, was separated from the plain by the Hon Go Mountains. Longer than the plain but much narrower, it supported perhaps 6,000 people. During Operation Pershing, 1st Cavalry Division commander General John Norton planned to put two full brigades across the Lại Giang River. His first objective was to clear the entire Bồng Sơn Plain of enemy forces; his second was the north-south An Lão Valley that paralleled the plain to the west. Norton later revised his operational concept, instead of placing his forces on the high ground west and north of the plain and then sweeping north from the Lại Giang River with other units, a rather ambitious undertaking, he decided to limit his objective to trapping and eventually destroying the PAVN 22nd Regiment, thought to be located within a 5-10 km radius north of LZ English. Norton chose to air-assault Colonel George Casey's 2nd Brigade into landing sites 9 km north of LZ English. Once on the ground, three battalions would move south, pushing the 22nd Regiment into an anvil formed by Casey's fourth battalion augmented by two battalions from the ARVN 40th Regiment. At the same time Col. James S. Smith's 1st Brigade would fly one battalion north of Casey's attacking units to trap any enemy units in that direction. Probing northward, Smith would send two companies into the foothills of the Hon Go Mountains, cutting off any escape west into the An Lão Valley. The rest of the battalion would remain in reserve. Norton's remaining two brigades would stay on the defensive. The 3rd Brigade, under a new commander, Col. Jonathan R. Burton, used its single remaining battalion to hold the Highway 1 bridge over the Lại Giang just south of LZ English. Colonel Shanahan's 3rd Brigade, 25th Division, was to hold the Kim Son and Suoi Ca Valleys south of the river. Norton intended to smash the 22nd Regiment. When he did, he would shift the bulk of his forces north of LZ English to clear the enemy out of Bồng Sơn and An Lão. From there he could sweep into southern Quảng Ngãi and go after both the PAVN 3rd Division headquarters and the 2nd Regiment. Late on the afternoon of 10 February COMUSMACV General William Westmoreland approved the plan. Pershing was to begin at 11:00 on 11 February, nineteen hours before the end of the Tết truce. Norton immediately ordered his troops to move out. At 11:00 gunships and troop-filled helicopters flew toward their assigned objectives. ==Operation==

As the waves of helicopters flying north of LZ English signaled an abrupt end to the Tết truce, many enemy soldiers caught without weapons rushed from hamlets to seek safety in the jungle. Gunships hovering overhead cut many of them down; others waited until after dark to slip away. Farther north, cavalrymen from the 2nd Brigade leaped from their UH-1 Hueys and began to search the hamlets to the south. Bulldozers moved forward from LZ English along Highway 1 to assist in collapsing bunkers and tunnels. Although a few captured PAVN soldiers indicated that large numbers of their comrades were hiding nearby, the cavalrymen could not find them. As groups of refugees began clogging the roads and slowing the US advance, local Viet Cong (VC) forces skillfully covered the withdrawal of their PAVN comrades. After the first day the tactical momentum gained by Colonel Casey's 2nd Brigade melted away. Known PAVN/VC losses on 11 February were about 50 dead, but as the week proceeded the daily count dropped markedly. By 17 February the Americans were losing at least one soldier for every dead enemy claimed. Booby traps and mines along trails on the fringes of the hamlets accounted for most US casualties. As the number of contacts with enemy units diminished, Pershing appeared to be turning into another arduous, drawn-out sweep. On 14 December, Tolson turned his attention to the 3rd Division's 2nd Regiment, which had moved from the Cay Giep Mountains on the lower edge of the Bồng Sơn Plain to the Nui Mieu Mountains, 10 km to the south, to attack government outposts on the northern Phu My Plain. That day, the 93rd Battalion from the 2nd Regiment tried to overrun Truong Xuan hamlet and a Regional Forces compound. Soldiers from the ARVN 41st Regiment and a company from the 1st Battalion, 50th Infantry killed 115 PAVN and captured five. During the month-long campaign that followed, the 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, continued to work closely with the ARVN 41st Regiment in pursuing the 2nd Regiment. The allies scored some notable victories, including a strike against the regiment’s headquarters that killed either the regimental commander or his deputy. Between 2 and 4 January 1968, elements of the 1st Battalion, 50th Infantry, and two companies from the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry, trapped part of the 95th and 97th Battalions and a rear service company from the 2nd Regiment in a seaside hamlet just south of the Cay Giep Mountains. The action cost the PAVN 97 dead. By mid-January, the allied operations against the 2nd Regiment had reduced its strength by more than 500 men, or one-third of its original total. According to the official history of the PAVN 3rd Division, between September 1967 and January 1968, their units on the northeastern coast of II Corps "suffered [so] many reverses and casualties... that heavy infiltration of North Vietnamese Army troops was still not enough to fill the gaps." Success in the lowlands convinced Westmoreland that he could safely transfer the 1st Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division from Bình Định Province to northern I Corps nearly a month ahead of schedule. ==Aftermath==

The division officially terminated Operation Pershing on 17 January 1968 when the 1st Brigade began moving north by air and by sea. The division's 2nd Brigade remained in Bình Định for the time being to continue the search for the 3rd Division, a mission now called Operation Pershing II, under the direction of I Field Force headquarters. Westmoreland was taking a gamble by leaving the province so thinly defended, but he judged that northern I Corps rather than the central coast would be the theater of decision in the coming weeks.:chapter 4 ==References==