Battle of Loc Ninh - Background

Background

In December 1971, following the defeat of South Vietnamese forces during Operation Lam Son 719, North Vietnamese leadership in Hanoi decided to launch a major military offensive against South Vietnam. In what became known as the Easter Offensive, the combined North Vietnamese and Việt Cộng forces employed combined arms tactics using heavy weapons that were a radical departure from the low-intensity guerrilla warfare of previous years. Although North Vietnam eventually used the equivalent of 14 army divisions, its leaders did not seek to win the war outright. Rather, their objective was to gain as much territory and destroy as many units of the South Vietnamese military as possible, in order to strengthen their bargaining position at the Paris Peace Talks.

The Easter Offensive began on 30 March 1972, when the 304th and 308th North Vietnamese Divisions drove across the DMZ and attacked South Vietnamese positions in the I Corps Tactical Zone, which consisted of South Vietnam's northernmost provinces. Caught by surprise, South Vietnamese General Vũ Văn Giai ordered his newly-created 3rd Infantry Division to withdraw towards the Cua Viet River, where it could reorganize. On 2 April, ARVN Colonel Pham Van Dinh surrendered his 56th Infantry Regiment at Camp Carroll, which enabled the North Vietnamese to take the former American fire base without a fight. Quảng Trị City was captured by the North Vietnamese army on 28 April, following several counterattacks by South Vietnamese units around Đông Hà.

With the northern provinces of South Vietnam under their control, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces turned their attention to the Mekong Delta region, which formed part of the ARVN III Corps Tactical Zone. During the Offensive, the objective of the combined Communist forces in the zone was the capture of An Lộc, capital of Bình Long Province. The Viet Cong committed three infantry divisions to the mission (5th, 7th and 9th Divisions). North Vietnamese support came in the form of one artillery formation (69th Artillery Command), one armored regiment (203rd Armored Regiment), two independent regiments (205th and 101st Regiment), and one sapper unit (429th Sapper Group). The Viet Cong's 5th Division was to initiate the offensive by taking Lộc Ninh, while the 9th Division was assigned to An Lộc. The 7th Division was ordered to block National Highway 13 to prevent reinforcements from reaching An Lộc.