Battle of Ap Bac - Aftermath

Aftermath

On January 3, a team of Western journalists toured the deserted Ap Bac hamlet with the American advisors. When reporter Neil Sheehan asked Brigadier-General Robert York what had happened, the general replied, "What the hell's it look like happened, boy. They got away, that's what happened". Shortly afterward, more than eighteen hours too late, the South Vietnamese hit Ap Bac with an artillery barrage. The artillery rounds killed another five South Vietnamese soldiers and wounded fourteen others. Vann, who had made key decisions during the early phases of the battle, blamed the South Vietnamese for the debacle. "It was a miserable damn performance, just like it always is. These people won't listen. They make the same mistake over and over again in the same way". According to Moyar (2008), in blaming the South Vietnamese, Vann wanted to conceal the American's flawed intelligence and poor leadership. He hoped to pressure the South Vietnamese to accept future changes he favored.

General Paul D. Harkins, commander of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), had a far more optimistic assessment of the battle. He considered the operation to be a major success: after the Viet Cong abandoned their positions, the South Vietnamese units captured the hamlets of Ap Bac and Ap Tan Thoi. Harkins' evaluation of the battle's success were based on U.S. military doctrine from World War II, in which two armies fought a conventional combined arms battle with the goal to control territory. However, the Viet Cong were far more interested in exposing the weaknesses of Diem's regime and its military. Thus, Moyar (2008) argues that Harkins' optimistic and mis-directed doctrine negatively affected the long-term performance of the South Vietnamese military and the American advisers attached to them. He refused to acknowledge the flawed system under which the South Vietnamese commanders and their American counterparts operated. Because of his attitude, neither the South Vietnamese or the Americans learned important lessons from the battle.

The South Vietnamese units that participated in the battle took heavy losses in their failed attempt to destroy the Viet Cong forces. South Vietnamese casualties included 83 killed in action and at least 100 wounded. The American participants, who included advisors and aircrews, counted three dead and eight wounded. Of the fifteen American helicopters sent to support the operation, only one escaped undamaged, and five were either downed or destroyed.

For the Viet Cong, the Battle of Ap Bac marked the first time they decided to stand and fight a large South Vietnamese formation, although outnumbered by more than five to one. Against overwhelming odds, the Viet Cong achieved their first major victory. They successfully stopped the well-equipped South Vietnamese army, supported by a combination of artillery and armored units as well as American airpower. The Viet Cong lost 18 soldiers killed and 39 wounded, although hit by more than 600 rounds of artillery, napalm and other ordnance released by 13 warplanes and five UH-1 gunships.

Ap Bac had many as yet undefined consequences for the South Vietnamese government and the American involvement in Vietnam. The battle was a significant milestone for the Viet Cong as a fighting force. For individual Viet Cong soldiers, the battle proved that they could defeat the superior South Vietnamese forces, equipped with modern military hardware and significant support and funding from the United States. Militarily, the morale and confidence of Viet Cong commanders and soldiers, who had experienced serious setbacks during the previous year, were significantly boosted. Politically, the Viet Cong 261st and 514th Battalions were able to exercise greater influence in their areas of operations because of the prestige of defeating the soldiers of Diem's unpopular regime.

Despite the initial success of the Strategic Hamlet Program and the intensified military operations of 1962, the events at Ap Bac placed additional pressure on Diem's government because it showed it could not cope with the resurgence of the Viet Cong, particularly in the regions surrounding the Mekong River.