Timeline, February 19th

[David]

SECOND INDOCHINA WAR:
February 1965 (1st month, Year of the Snake [At Ti]) (US Advisory): B-52 with higher payloads are deployed to Andersen Air Force Base, Guam. (TVW)

February 19, 1966 (30th day of the 1st month, Year of the Horse [Binh Ngo]) (US Counteroffensive): Operation Double Eagle II update.

February 19, 1966 (30th day of the 1st month, Year of the Horse [Binh Ngo]) (US Counteroffensive): The Australian 1 RAR begin search-and-destroy operation Rolling Stone in the Hobo Woods. Heavy fighting takes place. Australian casualties are 8 killed and 29 wounded.

February 19, 1968 (22nd day of the 1st month, Year of the Monkey [Mau Than]) (US Tet Counteroffensive): The 155th Aviation Company sends elements to Qui Nhon to support the 22nd ARVN Division.

February 19, 1968 (22nd day of the 1st month, Year of the Monkey [Mau Than]) (US Tet Counteroffensive): A difficult LRRP extraction in Kontum Province.

February 19, 1968 (22nd day of the 1st month, Year of the Monkey [Mau Than]) (US Tet Counteroffensive): The Viet Cong attack Tan Son Nhut airbase, just outside of Saigon, with mortar and rocket fire. (VHPA)

February 19, 1968 (22nd day of the 1st month, Year of the Monkey [Mau Than]) (US Tet Counteroffensive): MAG-16 update.

February 19, 1971 (24th day of the 1st month, Year of the Boar [Tan Hoi]) (US Counteroffensive Phase VII): Operation Lam Son 719 update: PAVN's armor regiment of T-34s and PT-76s attacks ARVN's M41 Walker Bulldog light tanks, beginning on this date. (OS)

As early as August 1950, French intelligence reported Vietnamese students were training with 15 light tanks at the Sino-Viet tank school near Canton, though armor wasn't used by the Vietnamese in the FIW. In the mid-1950s, the NVA sent students to China and the USSR for tanker training and, upon their return, set up the 202 Armor Regiment, elements of which were first used in Laos in 1961 as instructors to the Pathet Lao and neutralist Lao forces, while NVA PT-76 amphibious tanks and armored scout cars began making regular appearances on the Plain of Jars by 1962. The NVA also sent anti-armor advisors to COSVN by at least 1962. In the summer of 1965, the NVA Armor Command at Vieng Phu was established to run the training center and to improve command and control over the army's growing armor assets. In the same year, cadres from the North's second armor regiment, the 201, were sent to COSVN to plan for the establishment of a PLAF armor unit; COSVN did establish the M-26 Armor Group in 1972. The NVA used tanks in 1969 against US forces in the Central Highlands as well as against the Laotian government on the Plain of Jars. Its next major use of armor was during Lam Son 719. While NVA armor took heavy losses during this campaign (with over 100 tanks destroyed by air attacks), by December NVA tanks would play a major role in the three-day victory against Laotian government forces on the Plain of Jars.

February 1973 (17th day of the 1st month, Year of the Ox [Quy Suu]): Per the Paris Peace Accords, the U.S. Army phases out its program of training 86 Khmer Republic Cambodian battalions in South Vietnam (OS)

SINO-VIETNAMESE WAR:
February 19, 1979 (23rd day of the 1st month, Year of the Goat [Ky Mui]): Hanoi claims that the Chinese advance has been checked after maximum penetration of three miles; 46 Chinese tanks have been destroyed, and "hundreds" of troops killed. US intelligence suggests that China intends only a "short, punishing" invasion. The USSR denounces China's "brazen aggression" and "attempts to plunge the world into war." (TVW)