battle of khe sanh casualties

The pallet slid to a halt on the airstrip while the aircraft never had to actually land. Military History Institute of Vietnam, pp. "[160] That has led other observers to conclude that the siege served a wider PAVN strategy by diverting 30,000 US troops away from the cities that were the main targets of the Tet Offensive. It claimed, however, that only three American advisors were killed during the action. The fire of PAVN antiaircraft units took its toll of helicopters that made the attempt. American logistical, aerial, and artillery support was provided to the operation. [67], At the same time as the artillery bombardment at KSCB, an attack was launched against Khe Sanh village, seat of Hng Ha District. Since the Marines on board were not yet officially attached to the 26th Marine Regiment, their deaths were not included in the official Khe Sanh count, nor were the several other deaths associated with aircraft crashes. On 19 June 1968, the evacuation and destruction of KSCB began. Since the official duration of the battle ends even earlier than the termination of the siege itself, a wider definition of the Khe Sanh battlefield to include Operations Scotland, Pegasus and Scotland II also seems reasonable. [108] The most dramatic supply delivery system used at Khe Sanh was the Low Altitude Parachute Extraction System, in which palletized supplies were pulled out of the cargo bay of a low-flying transport aircraft by means of an attached parachute. During the 66-day siege, U.S. planes, dropping 5,000 bombs daily, exploded the equivalent of five Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs in the area. [21], The fighting at Khe Sanh was so volatile that the Joint Chiefs and MACV commanders were uncertain that the base could be held by the Marines. Additionally, the logistical effort required to support the base once it was isolated demanded the implementation of other tactical innovations to keep the Marines supplied. Listen Now. On the morning of 22 January Lownds decided to evacuate the remaining forces in the village with most of the Americans evacuated by helicopter while two advisers led the surviving local forces overland to the combat base. Dr. Chris McNab is the editor of AMERICAN BATTLES & CAMPAIGNS: A Chronicle, from 1622-Present and is an experienced specialist in wilderness and urban survival techniques. That was accomplished, but the casualties absorbed by the North Vietnamese seemed to negate any direct gains they might have obtained. [134], Westmoreland's planned relief effort infuriated the Marines, who had not wanted to hold Khe Sanh in the first place and who had been roundly criticized for not defending it well. Hundreds of mortar rounds and 122-mm rockets slammed into the base, levelling most of the above-ground structures. [123][124], Nevertheless, the same day that the trenches were detected, 25 February, 3rd Platoon from Bravo Company 1st Battalion, 26th Marines was ambushed on a short patrol outside the base's perimeter to test the PAVN strength. Fighting around Khe Sanh was continuous. The PAVN forces were in the process of gaining elevated terrain before it launched the main attack. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. PAVN forces were driven out of the area around Khe Sanh after suffering 940 casualties. That proved to be the last overland attempt at resupply for Khe Sanh until the following March. [78], Thus began what was described by John Morocco as "the most concentrated application of aerial firepower in the history of warfare". The Marines at Khe Sanh Combat Base broke out of their perimeter and began attacking the North Vietnamese in the surrounding area. This range overmatch was used by the PAVN to avoid counter-battery fire. The Marines pursued three enemy scouts, who led them into an ambush. The Siege of Khe Sanh. Only nine US battalions were available from Hue/Phu Bai northward. [29], During the second half of 1967, the North Vietnamese instigated a series of actions in the border regions of South Vietnam. The NVAs main command post was located in Laos, at Sar Lit. [40] The 2nd and 3rd battalions of the 3rd Marine Regiment, under the command of Colonel John P. Lanigan, reinforced KSCB and were given the task of pushing the PAVN off of Hills 861, 881 North, and 881 South. In 1966, the regular Special Forces troops had moved off the plateau and built a smaller camp down Route 9 at Lang Vei, about half the distance to the Laotian border. The Laotians were overrun, and many fled to the Special Forces camp at Lang Vei. [79] On an average day, 350 tactical fighter-bombers, 60 B-52s, and 30 light observation or reconnaissance aircraft operated in the skies near the base. If a battle tallied a sufficiently favorable body count ratio, American commanders declared victory, as they did after Khe Sanh. This is the battles end date from the North Vietnamese perspective. This, however, did not prevent the Marine tanks within the perimeter from training their guns on the SOG camp. [137] Opposition from the North Vietnamese was light and the primary problem that hampered the advance was continual heavy morning cloud cover that slowed the pace of helicopter operations. The fighting was heavy. On April 20, Operation Prairie IV began, with heavy fighting between the Marines and NVA forces. [15], Unknown (1,602 bodies were counted, US official public estimated 10,00015,000 KIA,[19][20] but MACV's secret report estimated 5,550 killed as of 31 March 1968)[1]. This marked the first time that all three battalions of the 26th Marine Regiment had operated together in combat since the Battle of Iwo Jima during the Second World War. On the first day of battle, a big Communist rocket scored a direct hit on the main Marine ammunition dump, destroying 1,500 tons of high explosives, 98 percent of available ammunition. Five Marines were killed on January 19 and 20, while on reconnaissance patrols. Among the dead Marines was 18-year-old Pfc Curtis Bugger. At least 852 PAVN soldiers were killed during the action, as opposed to 50 American and South Vietnamese. The site was first established near the village and later moved to the French fort. A press release prepared on the following day (but never issued), at the height of Tet, showed that he was not about to be distracted. Ray Stubbe has published a translation of the North Vietnamese history of the siege at Khe Sanh. U.S. reconnaissance forces continued to monitor the Ho Chi Minh Trail. What is the 25th Infantry known for? [37] He was vociferously opposed by General Lewis W. Walt, the Marine commander of I Corps, who argued heatedly that the real target of the American effort should be the pacification and protection of the population, not chasing the PAVN/VC in the hinterlands. That afternoon, as a rescue force was dispatched to the village, Army Lt. Col. Joseph Seymoe and other soldiers died when their helicopter was attacked. "[136], Regardless, on 1 April, Operation Pegasus began. [33] The PAVN fought for several days, took casualties, and fell back. [28], In early December 1967, the PAVN appointed Major General Tran Quy Hai as the local commander for the actions around Khe Sanh, with Le Quang Do as his political commissar. [151] From 12 June to 6 July 1969, Task Force Guadalcanal comprising 1/9 Marines, 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment and 2nd and 3rd Battalions, 2nd ARVN Regiment occupied the Khe Sanh area in Operation Utah Mesa. This caused problems for the Marine command, which possessed its own aviation squadrons that operated under their own close air support doctrine. North Vietnamese Army gained control of the Khe Sanh region after the American withdrawal. Historians have observed that the Battle of Khe Sanh may have distracted American and South Vietnamese attention from the buildup of Viet Cong (VC) forces in the south before the early 1968 Tet Offensive. [158] The question, known among American historians as the "riddle of Khe Sanh," has been summed up by John Prados and Ray Stubbe: "Either the Tet Offensive was a diversion intended to facilitate PAVN/VC preparations for a war-winning battle at Khe Sanh, or Khe Sanh was a diversion to mesmerize Westmoreland in the days before Tet. This fighting was heavy, involving South Vietnamese militia as well as U.S. Army MACV advisers and Marines attached to a Combined Action Company platoon. Declassified documents show that in response, Westmoreland considered using nuclear weapons. Those 10 deaths were also left out of the official statistics. [77] When weather conditions precluded FAC-directed strikes, the bombers were directed to their targets by either a Marine AN/TPQ-10 radar installation at KSCB or by Air Force Combat Skyspot MSQ-77 stations. In 1964 an Ohio woman took up the challenge that had led to Amelia Earharts disappearance. [119] By 11:00, the battle was over, Company A had lost 24 dead and 27 wounded, while 150 PAVN bodies were found around the position, which was then abandoned. They were not included in the official Khe Sanh counts. The most controversial statistic in Vietnam was the number of killed in action (KIA) claimed by each side. But Pisor also pointed out that 205 is a completely false number. One had to meet certain criteria before being officially considered KIA at Khe Sanh. The distinctions between Operations Scotland, Pegasus and Scotland II, while important from the command perspective, were not necessarily apparent to individual Marines. These combined sources report a total of 354 KIA. The 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment (2/1 Marines) and the 2/3 Marines would launch a ground assault from Ca Lu Combat Base (16km east of Khe Sanh) and head west on Route 9 while the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Brigades of the 1st Cavalry Division, would air-assault key terrain features along Route 9 to establish fire support bases and cover the Marine advance. [85] Westmoreland had given his deputy commander for air operations, Air Force General William W. Momyer, the responsibility for coordinating all air assets during the operation to support KSCB. [161], Whether the PAVN actually planned to capture Khe Sanh or the battle was an attempt to replicate the Vit Minh triumph against the French at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu has long been a point of contention. Two Marines died. Battle of Hamburger Hill The 29 th North Vietnam Army had entrenched themselves on Hamburger Hill in South Vietnam; a joint US-South Vietnamese force was ordered to remove them. [163] Other theories argued that the forces around Khe Sanh were simply a localized defensive measure in the DMZ area or that they were serving as a reserve in case of an offensive American end run in the mode of the American invasion at Inchon during the Korean War. Ten more Marines and 89 NVA died during this period. New material will be added to that page through the end of 2018. [58] These tactics were reminiscent of those employed against the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, particularly in relation to entrenching tactics and artillery placement, and the realization assisted US planners in their targeting decisions. [100][Note 6], Lownds infuriated the Special Forces personnel even further when the indigenous survivors of Lang Vei, their families, civilian refugees from the area, and Laotian survivors from the camp at Ban Houei Sane arrived at the gate of KSCB. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. Army deaths at FOB-3, however, were not included in the official statistics either. Officer casualties of all branches were overwhelmingly white. On April 6, a front-page story in The New York Times declared that the siege of Khe Sanh had been lifted. On January 21 at Khe Sanh, 30,000 North Vietnamese troops attacked an air base held by just 6,000 United States Marines. The dead men have been described as wearing Marine uniforms; that they were a regimental commander and his staff on a reconnaissance; and that they were all identified, by name, by American intelligence. . Taking a larger but more realistic view, the Khe Sanh campaign resulted in a death toll of American military personnel that approached 1,000. Soon after, another shell hit a cache of tear gas, which saturated the entire area. One headquarters would allocate and coordinate all air assets, distributing them wherever they were considered most necessary, and then transferring them as the situation required. NVA casualties were more than 200. On the afternoon of 29 January, however, the 3rd Marine Division notified Khe Sanh that the truce had been cancelled. The official figure of 205 KIA only represents Marine deaths in the Operation Scotland TAORthat is, Marines killed in proximity to the Khe Sanh Combat Base during the period from November 1, 1967, to March 31, 1968. [21], PAVN artillery fell on the main base for the first time on 21 January. [157], Commencing in 1966, the US had attempted to establish a barrier system across the DMZ to prevent infiltration by North Vietnamese troops. The figures of 5,500 NVA dead and 1,000 U.S. dead yield a ratio of 5.5:1. Early in the war US forces had established a garrison at Khe Sanh in Quang Tri province, in the . [152] The Marines occupied Hill 950 overlooking the Khe Sanh plateau from 1966 until September 1969 when control was handed to the Army who used the position as a SOG operations and support base until it was overrun by the PAVN in June 1971. The Battle of Khe Sanh began on January 21, 1968, when forces from the People's Army of North Vietnam (PAVN) carried out a massive artillery bombardment on the U.S. Marine garrison at Khe Sanh, located in South Vietnam near the border with Laos. Both sides have published official histories of the battle, and while these histories agree the fighting took place at Khe Sanh, they disagree on virtually every other aspect of it. The Battle of Khe Sanh began Jan. 21, 1968, with inconclusive ground activity by US and North Vietnamese patrols. [140] Total US casualties during the operation were 92 killed, 667 wounded, and five missing. The Marines, whose aircraft and doctrine were integral to their operations, were under no such centralized control. The PAVN claim that during the entire battle they "eliminated" 17,000 enemy troops, including 13,000 Americans and destroyed 480 aircraft. By late January 1967, the 1/3 returned to Japan and was relieved by Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 9th Marines (1/9 Marines). The monumental Battle of Khe Sanh had begun, but the January 21 starting date is essentially arbitrary in terms of casualty reporting. At dawn on 21 January, it was attacked by a roughly 300-strong PAVN battalion. He gave the order for US Marines to take up positions around Khe Sanh. The NVA surrounded Khe Sanh in an attempt to force the Marines to break out of their fighting positions, which would make it easier to engage and destroy them. MN: 05-12-1968: Vietnam: Army: 2: [94] Although the PAVN was known to possess two armored regiments, it had not yet fielded an armored unit in South Vietnam, and besides, the Americans considered it impossible for them to get one down to Khe Sanh without it being spotted by aerial reconnaissance. Later, the 1/1 Marines and 3rd ARVN Airborne Task Force (the 3rd, 6th, and 8th Airborne Battalions) would join the operation. "[91][92], Not much activity (with the exception of patrolling) had occurred thus far during the battle for the Special Forces Detachment A-101 and their four companies of Bru CIDGs stationed at Lang Vei. According to Gordon Rottman, even the North Vietnamese official history, Victory in Vietnam, is largely silent on the issue. [110], As more infantry units had been assigned to defend KSCB, artillery reinforcement kept pace. At 04:15 on 8 February under cover of fog and a mortar barrage, the PAVN penetrated the perimeter, overrunning most of the position and pushing the remaining 30 defenders into the southwestern portion of the defenses. [126], On 30 March, Bravo Company, 26th Marines, launched an attack toward the location of the ambush that had claimed so many of their comrades on 25 February. It reveals that the nuclear option was discounted because of terrain considerations that were unique to South Vietnam, which would have reduced the effectiveness of tactical nuclear weapons. [69] Due to the arrival of the 304th Division, KSCB was further reinforced by the 1st Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment on 22 January. Once the base came under siege, a series of actions were fought over a period of five months. American commanders considered the defense of Khe Sanh a success, but shortly after the siege was lifted, the decision was made to dismantle the base rather than risk similar battles in the future. 216217. The Battle of Khe Sanh took place between January 21 and July 9, 1968; however, most of the official statistics provided pertain only to Operation Scotland, which ended on March 31, or to the 77-day period beginning what is classified as the Siege of Khe Sanh, where the 26th Marines were pinned down until Operations Niagara, and Pegasus freed Subscribe to our HistoryNet Now! [145], Author Peter Brush details that an "additional 413 Marines were killed during Scotland II through the end of June 1968". Westmoreland was replaced two months after the end of the battle, and his successor explained the retreat in different ways. In 1966 the Marines built a base adjacent to the Army position, and organized their combat activities around named operations. The Tet Offensive was about to begin. All of the attacks were conducted by regimental-size PAVN/VC units, but unlike most of the previous usual hit-and-run tactics, they were sustained and bloody affairs. [35], American intelligence analysts were quite baffled by the series of enemy actions. While suffering less significant casualties (around 10,000 dead), ARVN units had only turned back the attacking PAVN forces with massive American air support. For them, the battle started when the North Vietnamese attacks began in January. The plane, piloted by Lt. Col. Frederick J. Hampton, crashed in a huge fireball a few miles east of Khe Sanh, killing all aboard. Marines remained around Hill 689, though, and fighting in the vicinity continued until 11 July until they were finally withdrawn, bringing the battle to a close. Not including ARVN Ranger, RF/PF, Forward Operation Base 3 U.S. Army, Royal Laotian Army and SOG commandos losses. The enemy by my count suffered at least 15,000 dead in the area.. [120], On 23 February, KSCB received its worst bombardment of the entire battle. [143][144], On 15 April, the 3rd Marine Division resumed responsibility for KSCB, Operation Pegasus ended, and Operation Scotland II began with the Marines seeking out the PAVN in the surrounding area. How many American soldiers died in the Battle of Ia Drang? [167], Another theory is that the actions around Khe Sanh and the other battles at the border were simply feints ands ruse meant to focus American attention and forces on the border. During the course of the siege, the U.S. Air Force dropped five tons of bombs for each of the estimated 20,000 attacking NVA troops. The PAVN 130mm and 152mm artillery pieces, and 122mm rockets, had a longer range than the Marine artillery support which consisted of 105mm and 155mm howitzers. [1], The evacuation of Khe Sanh began on 19 June 1968 as Operation Charlie. The next operations were named Crockett and Ardmore. [86] The command and control arrangement then in place in Southeast Asia went against Air Force doctrine, which was predicated on the single air manager concept. [95], It still came as a shock to the Special Forces troopers at Lang Vei when 12 tanks attacked their camp. The monumental Battle of Khe Sanh had begun, but the January 21 starting date is essentially arbitrary in terms of casualty reporting. "[84], Meanwhile, an interservice political struggle took place in the headquarters at Phu Bai Combat Base, Saigon, and the Pentagon over who should control aviation assets supporting the entire American effort in Southeast Asia. A historian, General Dave Palmer, accepted that rationale: "General Giap never had any intention of capturing Khe Sanh [it] was a feint, a diversionary effort. Let me caution everyone not to be confused. [48][Note 4], Not all leading Marine officers, however, had the same opinion. Consequently, and unknown at the time, Operation Scotland became the starting point of the Battle of Khe Sanh in terms of Marine casualty reporting. [142], Lownds and the 26th Marines departed Khe Sanh, leaving the defense of the base to the 1st Marine Regiment. Seven miles west of Khe Sanh on Route 9, and about halfway to the Laotian border, sat the U.S. Army Special Forces camp at Lang Vei. Two days later, US troops detected PAVN trenches running due north to within 25 m of the base perimeter. [147] The official closure of the base came on 5 July after fighting, which had killed five more Marines. By the middle of January 1968, some 6,000 Marines and Army troops occupied the Khe Sanh Combat Base and its surrounding positions. The legendary siege at Khe Sanh occurred in 1968, but during the spring of 1967, the United States Marines fought in northwestern Quang Tri Province in what became the first stage of the Khe Sanh battles. On January 31, while approximately 50,000 U.S. and South Vietnamese troops were occupied in defending or supporting Khe Sanh and other DMZ bases, the communists launched an offensive throughout South Vietnam. The 26th Marine Regiment (26th Marines) is an inactivated infantry regiment of the United States Marine Corps. [171] When Hanoi made the decision to move in around the base, Khe Sanh was held by only one or two American battalions. [109], The resupply of the numerous, isolated hill outposts was fraught with the same difficulties and dangers. [89] As a result, on 7 March, for the first time during the Vietnam War, air operations were placed under the control of a single manager. Route 9, the only practical overland route from the east, was impassable due to its poor state of repair and the presence of PAVN troops. After its adoption, Marine helicopters flew in 465 tons of supplies during February. [12] Further fighting followed, resulting in the loss of another 11 Marines and 89 PAVN soldiers, before the Marines finally withdrew from the area on 11 July. For most of the battle, low-lying clouds and fog enclosed the area from early morning until around noon, and poor visibility severely hampered aerial resupply. A closer look at the Khe Sanh body count, however, reveals anything but a straightforward matter of numbers. "[73], Nevertheless, ultimately the nuclear option was discounted by military planners. [54] In attempting to determine PAVN intentions Marine intelligence confirmed that, within a period of just over a week, the 325th Division had moved into the vicinity of the base and two more divisions were within supporting distance. [125], By mid-March, Marine intelligence began to note an exodus of PAVN units from the Khe Sanh sector. In March 1968, an overland relief expedition (Operation Pegasus) was launched by a combined MarineArmy/ARVN task force that eventually broke through to the Marines at Khe Sanh. As far as PAVN casualties were concerned, 1,602 bodies were counted, seven prisoners were taken, and two soldiers defected to allied forces during the operation. The Marines found a solution to the problem in the "Super Gaggle" concept. [10] Once the news of the closure of KSCB was announced, the American media immediately raised questions about the reasoning behind its abandonment. Many of the artillery and mortar rounds stored in the dump were thrown into the air and detonated on impact within the base. "[155], According to military historian Ronald Spector, to reasonably record the fighting at Khe Sanh as an American victory is impossible. During the darkness of January 20-21, the NVA launched a series of coordinated attacks against American positions. "[149], While KSCB was abandoned, the Marines continued to patrol the Khe Sanh plateau, including reoccupying the area with ARVN forces from 519 October 1968 with minimal opposition. [117], Cumulative friendly casualties for Operation Scotland, which began on 1 November 1967, were: 205 killed in action, 1,668 wounded, and 25 missing and presumed dead. A Look at the Damage from the Secret War in Laos, How Operation Homecoming Was Sprung into Action to Repatriate American POWs, The Viet Cong Were Shooting Down Americans From a Cave Until This GI Stopped Them, https://www.historynet.com/recounting-the-casualties-at-the-deadly-battle-of-khe-sanh/, Jerrie Mock: Record-Breaking American Female Pilot, When 21 Sikh Soldiers Fought the Odds Against 10,000 Pashtun Warriors, Few Red Tails Remain: Tuskegee Airman Dies at 96. Less likely to be mentioned is the final high-casualty engagement between units of the U.S. infantry and the North Vietnamese Army. The report, originally classified as secret, noted that intelligence from many sources indicated conclusively that the North Vietnamese had planned a massive ground attack against the base. This is also the position taken in the official PAVN history but offers no further explanation of the strategy. newsletter for the best of the past, delivered every Monday and Thursday. The border battles, however, had two significant consequences, which were unappreciated at the time. These forces, including support troops, totaled 20,000 to 30,000. [170][140], One argument that was then leveled by Westmoreland and has since often quoted by historians of the battle is that only two Marine regiments were tied down at Khe Sanh, compared with the several PAVN divisions. [62], On 20 January, La Thanh Ton, a PAVN lieutenant from the 325th Division, defected and laid out the plans for an entire series of PAVN attacks. The NVA used Hill 881 North to launch 122mm rockets at the Marines during the siege. Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. Battlefield boundaries extended from eastern Laos eastward along both sides of Route 9 in Quang Tri province, Vietnam, to the coast. The site linked to another microwave/tropo site in Hu manned by the 513th Signal Detachment. Nevertheless, the US commander during the battle, General William Westmoreland, maintained that the true intention of Tet was to distract forces from Khe Sanh. The American military presence at Khe Sanh consisted not only of the Marine Corps Khe Sanh Combat Base, but also Forward Operating Base 3, U.S. Army (FOB-3). By the end of May, Marine forces were again drawn down from two battalions to one, the 1st Battalion, 26th Marines. Operation Pegasus casualties included 59 U.S. Army and 51 Marine Corps dead. Ho Chi Minhs oft-quoted admonition to the French applied equally to the Americans: You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours, but even at those odds, you will lose and I will win. The calculation by Stubbe that approximately 1,000 Americans died on the Khe Sanh battlefield is especially compelling, given that Stubbes numbers are accompanied by names and dates of death. Marine Corps aviators had flown 7,098 missions and released 17,015tons. The main US forces defending Khe Sanh Combat Base (KSCB) were two regiments of the United States Marine Corps supported by elements from the United States Army and the United States Air Force (USAF), as well as a small number of Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) troops. [63] Hills 881 South, 861, and the main base itself would be simultaneously attacked that same evening. [55] They were supported logistically from the nearby Ho Chi Minh Trail. The attacks hindered the advancement of the McNamara Line, and as the fighting around Khe Sanh intensified, vital equipment including sensors and other hardware had to be diverted from elsewhere to meet the needs of the US garrison at Khe Sanh. The Marines withdrew all salvageable material and destroyed everything else. [1] He goes on to state that a further 72 were killed as part Operation Scotland II throughout the remainder of the year, but that these deaths are not included in the official US casualty lists for the Battle of Khe Sanh. As a result of this intelligence, KSCB was reinforced on 22 January 1968 by the 1st Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment. Site will be misbehaving during our migration to new (better!) [131], Planning for the overland relief of Khe Sanh had begun as early as 25 January 1968, when Westmoreland ordered General John J. Tolson, commander, First Cavalry Division, to prepare a contingency plan. Senior Marine Corps General Victor Krulak agreed, noting on May 13 that the Marines had defeated the North Vietnamese and won the battle of Khe Sanh. Over time, these KIA figures have been accepted by historians. Amid heavy shelling, the Marines attempted to salvage what they could before destroying what remained as they were evacuated. Lima Company finally seized the hill after overcoming determined NVA resistance. As early as 1962, the U.S. Military CommandVietnam (MACV) established an Army Special Forces camp near the village. These were pitted against two to three divisional-size elements of the North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN). The NVA continued shelling the base, and on July 1 launched a company-sized infantry attack against its perimeter. From the Hu site the communication signal was sent to Danang headquarters where it could be sent anywhere in the world. [104] Ladd, back on the scene, reported that the Marines stated, "they couldn't trust any gooks in their damn camp. The Americans had forewarning of PAVN armor in the area from Laotian refugees from camp BV-33. On July 10, Pfc Robert Hernandez of Company A, 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, was manning an M-60 machine gun position when it took a direct hit from NVA mortars. Besieged, Khe Sanh could only be resupplied by air. Unlike the official figures, Stubbes database of Khe Sanh casualties includes verifiable names and dates of death. [125] On the night of 28 February, the combat base unleashed artillery and airstrikes on possible PAVN staging areas and routes of advance. Lownds also rejected a proposal to launch a helicopter extraction of the survivors. He subsequently ordered the US military to hold Khe Sanh at all costs.