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General Hieu did not wait until he became a tactical commander to start to make use of the Tandem Infantry Armor Formula. He did it when he was still the 2nd Corps Chief of Staff, under the command of Brigadier General Vinh Loc, when he played a major role in the design and execution of sending a Task Force relief column to rescue Special Forces camp Pleime in October 1965. The Special Forces camp Pleime was an outpost located in a remote area about 20 miles east of the Cambodian border, 10 miles west of highway QL-14, and 10 miles south of Pleiku. This camp was garrisoned by a combined American-Vietnamese-Montagnard Special Forces contingency composed of the twelve-man Operations Detachment A-127, fourteen LLDB troops, and 415 Jarai, Rhade, and Bahnar tribal CIDG (Civilian Irregular Defense Group) soldiers. Prior to October 1965, this outpost played an insignificant role and operated independently according to the model of Special Forces units. However, it suddenly gained a visible and important status when intelligence officers discovered the Dong Xuan (Winter-Spring) Campaign plan designed by NVA General Vo Nguyen Giap. The objective of this Dong Xuan Campaign was to cut South Vietnam into two pieces and had three phases: 1. conquer camp Pleime; 2. conquer Pleiku; 3. conquer Qui Nhon. General Vo Nguyen Giap intended to use 3 NVA divisions for that purpose. NVA General Chu Huy Man was entrusted the use of a divisional force composed of three Regiments, the 32nd, the 33rd and the 66th to achieve phase 1, conquer the Special Forces camp Pleime. General Chu Huy Man's Tay Nguyen (Western Highland) plan was as follows: 1. the NVA 33rd Regiment encircles Pleime outpost to force ARVN 2nd Corps to dispatch a relief column from Pleiku; 2. the NVA 32nd Regiment ambushes the relief column (which would be an easy prey without the fire-power support of nearby artillery base-camps); 3. after the relief column is annihilated, the NVA 32nd Regiment reverts back to joint force with the NVA 33rd Regiment in running over camp Pleime; 4. meanwhile, with the weakening of Pleiku's defense lines due to the dispatch of the relief column, the NVA 66th Regiment attacks the 2nd Corps Headquarters, awaiting the NVA 32nd and 33rd Regiments which will join forces after taking over camp Pleime to impart the coup de grace to Pleiku, and thus achieving phase 2 of Dong Xuan Campaign. The 2nd Corps Command realized that the 2nd Corps would not be able to sustain an all out Viet Cong attack of such magnitude. The 2nd Corps faced a difficult dilemma: 1. rescue camp Pleime and the relief column will be annihilated, then camp Pleime and Pleiku will fall one after the other; 2. abandon camp Pleime to itself, the 2nd Corps will suffer an enormous damaging psychological shock that will demoralize the entire nation, and will delay only momentarily the capitulation of Pleiku. The ARVN Joint General Staff approached the USAF in Saigon. General Westmoreland decided to send in the newly arrived US 1st Cavalry Division to reinforce the ARVN 2nd Corps. General Harry Kinnard immediately chose An Khe, situated midway on highway QL-19 between Pleiku and Qui Nhon, to be his divisional Headquarters' location. The 2nd Corps Command laid out the following plan to the US 1st Cavalry Division: 1. a relief column will be sent down South from Pleiku to rescue camp Pleime; 2. in the meantime, a combined American-Vietnamese Special Forces contingency will be dropped to bolster the defense of camp Pleime until the arrival of the relief column; 3. US 1st Cavalry Division will reinforce the depleted defense forces of Pleiku by sending in one of its Regimental troops; 4. and will also helilift its artillery batteries into reachable positions to lend support to the relief column whenever needed. The rescue operation scenario of camp Pleime unfolded as follows:
At this point, the role played by the ARVN 2nd Corps was over, but since General Westmoreland wanted the US 1st Cavalry to keep on searching and destroying the rest of the 32nd and 33rd NVA Regiments which were slipping back to Cambodia, Colonel Hieu continued to cooperate closely with the US 1st Cavalry Division General Staff and to personally assist General Kinnard, the US 1st Cavalry Commanding General, because of his excellent command of English. The bloody Ia Drang Valley battle occurred by the middle of November 1965. Following that battle, the 2nd Corps requested the help of an ARVN Airborne Regiment commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Ngo Quang Truong, assisted by an American Advisor who would later become famous going by the name of Major Norman Schwarzkopf, to be helilifted into Duc Co areas to harass the retreating NVA troops. During all the time of camp Pleime's siege, Colonel Hieu stayed up all night long, manning a communication station in the Special Forces camp Duc Co to coordinate the rescue operation. He preferred to use the high performance communication equipment of the American Special Forces to the low performance of the 2nd Corps communication equipment, to communicate effectively in English with all the American Commanders involved in this battle. As a result, the combined Vietnamese-American operation between units in camp Pleime, units of DELTA and ARVN Airborne Ranger, units of USAF and VNAF, units of relief Task Force, units of artillery support, units of US 1st Cavalry Regiment protecting Pleiku, unfolded smoothly as planned. Few people were aware of Colonel Hieu's contribution in this successful operation, the general public only learned through the media that after this battle Brigadier General Vinh Loc was named the Hero of Pleime and was promoted to the rank of Major General. General Vinh Loc was so proud of this military feat that he named the 2nd Corps Headquarters and the personal C-47 plane of the 2nd Corps Commanding General, Pleime. During the four-day siege, there were 300 air-strike sorties conducted against the NVA 33rd Regiment which besieged camp Pleime. C-123 Air Force cargo airplanes and Army CV2 Caribou transport airplanes parachuted 333,000 pounds (from which only 9,000 pounds landed outside the wires) of food, first aids supply, ammunition and water. The enemy suffered heavy losses. The NVA 33rd Regiment which besieged the camp was down to one company of effectives. The NVA 32nd Regiment which set up the ambushes lost 40 percent of its officers and men, including 2 of 3 Battalion Commanders killed and the third one wounded, and 18 12.7mm anti-aircraft machine guns and 11 mortars. Because fighters of the ARVN 2nd Corps and of the US 1st Cavalry Division succeeded in crushing the Dong Xuan campaign at its phase 1, General Vo Nguyen Giap had to abandon his intention of slicing South Vietnam in the middle in 1965-1966, and so the Viet Cong had a bitter Winter taste of defeat without the benefit of a sweet Spring taste of victory!
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