Battle of Dong Xoai - Background

Background

In January 1964, General Nguyen Khanh ousted General Duong Van Minh as the leader of South Vietnam’s military junta in a bloodless coup. Even though General Khanh had made considerable efforts to consolidate his power, opposition to his rule began to grow as he tightened censorship laws, banned protests and allowed police arbitrary search and imprisonment powers. Khanh also drafted a new constitution, which would have expanded his power within the military junta. In response to General Khanh’s political manoeuvres the South Vietnamese people, predominately Buddhists, held large demonstrations in the cities calling for an end to the draconian laws which had limited the people’s political freedom. Fearing that his power could be weakened by those demonstrations, General Khanh immediately repealed his constitution and new police powers. Furthermore, he also promised to reinstate civilian rule and remove members of the Catholic-based Can Lao Party from power.

Internally, the concessions made by General Khanh had the effect of unsettling Catholic officers such as Nguyen Van Thieu and Tran Thien Khiem, because they were concerned by what they perceived to be the handing of power to Buddhist leaders. Subsequently, General Khiem fell out with General Khanh over policy issues along religious lines, even though an alliance between both men had enabled Khanh to remove General Minh from power. As military support for his regime diminished, Nguyen Khanh had to rely upon civilian Buddhist activists to maintain power. For the Americans, Khanh’s increased reliance on the Buddhists was a cause for concern, because the Buddhists favoured a political resolution to the conflict with the Communists. Thus, by the end of 1964 the Americans looked for someone to overthrow Nguyen Khanh, in order to continue the military effort against the Communists. On February 20, 1965, Nguyen Khanh was finally removed from power, and he was forced to leave South Vietnam.

From the Communist perspective, even though South Vietnam was plagued by political instability, it still had a strong army to resist the Viet Cong. So shortly after the Binh Gia campaign, North Vietnamese leaders reached a resolution to launch a summer offensive, to destroy the regular units of the South Vietnamese military. During the early stages of the Communist summer campaign, Viet Cong forces in Quang Ngai Province successfully destroyed a South Vietnamese task force, led by the ARVN 51st Infantry Regiment, in the village of Ba Gia. Following their victory at Ba Gia, the Viet Cong turned their attention to the Mekong Delta region. To prepare for their next offensive, Major-General Le Trong Tan was given the task of directing Viet Cong military operations in the provinces of Phuoc Long and Binh Long. For the first time, the newly created Viet Cong 273rd and 274th Regiments was ordered to join the 271st and 272nd Regiments on the battlefield; their objective was to destroy the regular units of the South Vietnamese military, and eliminate the strategic hamlets to enlarge the so-called 'liberated zones'.