Timeline, January 21st

[David]

SECOND INDOCHINA WAR:
January 21, 1968 (22nd day of the 12th month, Year of the Goat) (US Counteroffensive Phase III): Operation Neosho II begins in Thua Thien Province.

January 21, 1968 (22nd day of the 12th month, Year of the Goat) (US Counteroffensive Phase III): Operation Attala (a/k/a Casey) begins in III Corps.

January 21, 1968 (22nd day of the 12th month, Year of the Goat) (US Counteroffensive Phase III): Khe Sanh: At 0030, a prolonged NVA mortar and rocket attack announces that the siege of Khe Sanh has begun. It is followed by a strong attack on Hill 861. 1,500 tons of ordnance on the base explodes along with helicopters, tents, fuel, and tear gas. The base runway takes several hits. A simultaneous battalion-size attack on the village of Khe Sanh and its CIDG camp across the river is repulsed by CAC and RF after partial penetration by the enemy. After beating off a second attack, Colonel Lownds withdraws the CIDG and the District headquarters into the Khe Sanh base. Most of the civilian population is airlifted to Da Nang. 18 US troops are KIA and 40 are wounded. Despite immediate repair work by the Seabees, only about half the runway is usable by the next day, not enough to let a C-130 to land.

Gen. McLaughlin begins diverting smaller Fairchild C-123 Providers to Da Nang to pick up ammo for Khe Sanh. USAF Brigadier General McBride, in charge of sensor operations, had been preparing to test devices against infiltrating troops at Khe Sanh when the attack began and now he and his director of intelligence fly to Dong Ha, where they tell the Marines' Major General Tompkins that a field of 200 sensors can be laid around the base in a week to ten days. Tompkins gives them four days and they do it in that time frame, laying both acoustic and seismic sensors.

January 21, 1968 (22nd day of the 12th month, Year of the Goat) (US Counteroffensive Phase III) - General William C. Westmoreland orders a temporary halt to work on the "McNamara Line", the barrier and anti-infiltration system south of the DMZ. The plan is eventually dropped.

January 21, 1968 (22nd day of the 12th month, Year of the Goat) (US Counteroffensive Phase III): Operation Osceola II begins in I Corps.

January 21, 1968 (22nd day of the 12th month, Year of the Goat) (US Counteroffensive Phase III): Operation Lancaster II begins.

January 21, 1968 (22nd day of the 12th month, Year of the Goat) (US Counteroffensive Phase III): 282 AHC loses three men and a helicopter in I Corps.

January 21, 1970 (14th day of the 12th month, Year of the Rooster)(US Winter-Spring 1970): North Vietnam refuses to publish the names of captured pilots declaring they are "criminals" not prisoners of war.