Timeline, December 19th

[David]

FIRST INDOCHINA WAR:
December 19, 1946 (Year of the Dog [Binh Tuat]): Big trouble breaks loose in Hanoi. According to the French source (Histoire), Giap doesn't show up at the meeting that has been arranged with Jean Sainteny, but there apparently is some discussion among Ho Chi Minh, Sainteny, Giap and Morliere in the morning (the translation is rather unclear at this point). Ho and his people leave Hano? early in the afternoon. At 1955, the Viet Minh artillery opens fire. At 2000, the electric factory of Hano? "jumps" (other sources say the Viet Minh cut off the city's electricity and water). 43 people are massacred, including 11 women violated and tortured, and 200 more people are taken hostage, including 49 women and babies. Sainteny is wounded when his car hits a mine, but the takeover by force fails. In the delta and in the center of Annam, Viet Minh attacks are said to have started at 0200, I think, but the rest of the translation is very unclear after this.

According to current Vietnamese source, demanding the demolition of street barricades in Hanoi, the disarming of self-defense forces, and ceding to the French the right to keep order in the city. In the evening, Ho calls for a general uprising: "Let those who have guns use their guns, those who have swords use their swords, those have neither guns nor swords use hoes, pick-axes, and sticks. Let all arise to oppose colonialism and defend our homeland.... Our people will win".

December 19, 1951 (Year of the Hare [Tan Mao]): Hoa Binh Campaign: The 1st Foreign Legion paras (1 BEP) start out from Ap Da Chong, and those of 2 BEP, from Hill 564, as Mobile Group 7 sweeps south to link up with Rocher Notre-Dame. Viet Minh resistance is light. Somewhere around this time, General Giap orders the 308 Division into the Black River sector to relieve the 312 Division.

SECOND INDOCHINA WAR:
December 19, 1966 (Year of the Horse [Binh Ngo]) (US Counteroffensive Phase II): Operation Santa Cruz begins.

December 19, 1967 (Year of the Goat [Dinh Mui]) (US Counteroffensive Phase III): Operation Muscatine begins in Quang Ngai Province.

December 19, 1967 (Year of the Goat [Dinh Mui]) (US Counteroffensive Phase III): Operation Sylvester starts southwest of Qui Nhon.

December 19, 1968 (Year of the Monkey [Mau Than]) (US Counteroffensive Phase VI): 361 AWC loses its first pilot KIA, as well as two aircraft, in Kontum Province.

December 19-31, 1968 (Year of the Monkey [Mau Than]) (US Counteroffensive Phase VI): Operation Taylor Common update: Four Marine battalions are now established in the eastern zone of Base Area 112, and search-and-destroy operations begin against an area of reported enemy activity and concentrated installations. During the next two weeks, several enemy base camps, fighting positions, hospitals, and an enemy prison camp will be located and destroyed. All of them are vacated before the Marines arrive. The enemy withdraws westward, leaving only a few troops to slow the advance.

December 19, 1969 (Year of the Rooster [Ky Dau]) (US Winter-Spring 1970): 2nd Platoon, Company C, 2d Battalion, (Airmobile), 327th Infantry, conducts a night ambush near the village of Cau Hai in the lowlands of Thua Thien Province, where a number of enemy soldiers were reportedly collecting rice two nights earlier.

December 19, 1970 (Year of the Dog [Canh Tuat]) (US Winter-Spring 1970): The MACV Recondo School is officially closed. The 5th Special Forces Group is ordered to cut back its personnel by 710, effective April 15, 1971.

December 19-20, 1972 (Year of the Rat [Nham ty]) (US Cease-Fire): Nguyen Hue/Easter Offensive: Operation Linebacker II, Day Two. Three grouped B-52 waves of 21, 36 and 36 aircraft, respectively, again hit the Kinh No vehicle repair facility, the Yen Vien railroad yards, and the Hanoi radio station, and also attack the Bac Giang transshipment point and Thai Nguyen thermal power plant north of Hanoi in waves spaced four and five hours apart. Nearly 200 SAMs are fired, but no aircraft are lost and others sustain only light damage. The mission planners, buoyed up by the success thus far, decide to use the same attack routes and tactics as on days one and two. The North Vietnamese, meanwhile, are being resupplied with SAMs by Soviet ships anchored close offshore, with the missile components being brought in on small boats and then assembled and readied for launching in a small plant located in heavily populated southeast Hanoi. Radio Hanoi announces that the six-man crew of a B52 that crashed during the night of December 18-19 has been taken prisoner.

POSTBELLUM:
December 19, 2000 (Year of the Dragon [Canh Thin]): Former Cambodian leader Son Sann (reference is in French) dies in his sleep in Paris at the age of 89.