Operation Pershing was an operation conducted by the United States (US) 1st Cavalry Division, the US 3rd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) 22nd Division and the South Korean Capital Division in Bình Định Province, lasting from 12 February 1967 to 19 January 1968.
The operation concluded on 19 January 1968 with the 1st Cavalry Division being ordered to move 350 km north from Landing Zone English (LZ English) in Bình Định Province to Camp Evans in Thừa Thiên Province as part of Operation Checkers, to increase the number of maneuver battalions in I Corps in order to support the besieged marines at Khe Sanh Combat Base and defeat any other People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) attack across the DMZ.
Background
The Bồng Sơn Plain was enclosed on three sides by mountains and bordered on a fourth by the South China Sea, this rich agrarian flatland supported a population of nearly 100,000, mostly farmers and fishermen. It extended north 25 km from the Lại Giang River to the Bình Định-Quảng Ngãi Province border but was only 10 km at its widest point. The An Lão Valley, whose entrance lay at the southern edge of Bồng Sơn, was separated from the plain by the Hon Go Mountains. Longer than the plain but much narrower, it supported perhaps 6,000 people.
During Operation Pershing, 1st Cavalry Division commander General John Norton planned to put two full brigades across the Lại Giang River. His first objective was to clear the entire Bồng Sơn Plain of enemy forces; his second was the north-south An Lão Valley that paralleled the plain to the west. Norton later revised his operational concept, instead of placing his forces on the high ground west and north of the plain and then sweeping north from the Lại Giang River with other units, a rather ambitious undertaking, he decided to limit his objective to trapping and eventually destroying the PAVN 22nd Regiment, thought to be located within a 5-10 km radius north of LZ English.
Norton chose to air-assault Colonel George Casey's 2nd Brigade into landing sites 9 km north of LZ English. Once on the ground, three battalions would move south, pushing the 22nd Regiment into an anvil formed by Casey's fourth battalion augmented by two battalions from the ARVN 40th Regiment. At the same time Col. James S. Smith's 1st Brigade would fly one battalion north of Casey's attacking units to trap any enemy units in that direction. Probing northward, Smith would send two companies into the foothills of the Hon Go Mountains, cutting off any escape west into the An Lão Valley. The rest of the battalion would remain in reserve. Norton's remaining two brigades would stay on the defensive. The 3rd Brigade, under a new commander, Col. Jonathan R. Burton, used its single remaining battalion to hold the Highway 1 bridge over the Lại Giang just south of LZ English. Colonel Shanahan's 3rd Brigade, 25th Division, was to hold the Kim Son and Suoi Ca Valleys south of the river. Norton intended to smash the 22nd Regiment. When he did, he would shift the bulk of his forces north of LZ English to clear the enemy out of Bồng Sơn and An Lão. From there he could sweep into southern Quảng Ngãi and go after both the PAVN 3rd Division headquarters and the 2nd Regiment. Late on the afternoon of 10 February COMUSMACV General William Westmoreland approved the plan. Pershing was to begin at 11:00 on 11 February, nineteen hours before the end of the Tết truce. Norton immediately ordered his troops to move out. At 11:00 gunships and troop-filled helicopters flew toward their assigned objectives.
Operation
As the waves of helicopters flying north of LZ English signaled an abrupt end to the Tết truce, many enemy soldiers caught without weapons rushed from hamlets to seek safety in the jungle. Gunships hovering overhead cut many of them down; others waited until after dark to slip away. Farther north, cavalrymen from the 2nd Brigade leaped from their UH-1 Hueys and began to search the hamlets to the south. Bulldozers moved forward from LZ English along Highway 1 to assist in collapsing bunkers and tunnels. Although a few captured PAVN soldiers indicated that large numbers of their comrades were hiding nearby, the cavalrymen could not find them. As groups of refugees began clogging the roads and slowing the US advance, local Viet Cong (VC) forces skillfully covered the withdrawal of their PAVN comrades. After the first day the tactical momentum gained by Colonel Casey's 2nd Brigade melted away. Known PAVN/VC losses on 11 February were about 50 dead, but as the week proceeded the daily count dropped markedly. By 17 February the Americans were losing at least one soldier for every dead enemy claimed. Booby traps and mines along trails on the fringes of the hamlets accounted for most US casualties. As the number of contacts with enemy units diminished, Pershing appeared to be turning into another arduous, drawn-out sweep.
Not until the second week of Pershing did the 1st Cavalry Division engage a major enemy unit. The action began late on the afternoon of 18 February, when a rifle company from Smith's 1st Brigade found the 22nd Regiment's 9th Battalion in a fortified hamlet, Tuy An, at the base of the mountains west of Tam Quan. The normal confusion of combat combined with approaching darkness made it impossible for reinforcing units to encircle the PAVN, and the Americans lost contact before midnight. Artillery fire on Tuy An produced the only results. When infantrymen entered the hamlet the following morning, they found six bodies in the rubble. Documents seized included sketches of LZ English and the Lại Giang bridge. Nine days later Smith's men attacked an element of the 9th Battalion, 2 km from Tuy An, and killed another 19 PAVN.
While 1st Cavalry Division operations throughout January and February focused on destroying the 22nd, its sister regiment, the 18th located somewhere south of the Lại Giang, enjoyed a respite. During December Norton's men had severely mauled the unit, its discipline and morale broken to the extent that the 3rd Division considered the 18th the least reliable of its three regiments, but after receiving replacements and undergoing extensive retraining, the 18th was again prepared to fight. On 6 March an air cavalry pilot on a routine dawn patrol north of the Tra O Marsh, 16 km southeast of LZ English, spotted a man disappearing into a foxhole outside Hoa Tan hamlet. While one helicopter orbited above, a second landed within 10m of the foxhole in a bold, perhaps foolhardy, attempt to capture the man for questioning. Rifle fire erupted from a nearby hedgerow and pierced the idling helicopter's hydraulic system. Although the pilot was able to coax his ship off the ground to land among sand dunes 800m away, a door gunner, who had leaped from the helicopter, was left behind. The second helicopter radioed for help and dropped to tree level to keep the enemy busy. The commander of the 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry, Lt. Col. A. I. T. Pumphrey, quickly ordered one of his aero-rifle "blue team" platoons stationed at Landing Zone Two Bits to rescue the abandoned door gunner and then investigate the situation around Hoa Tan. Gunships holding over the hamlet met the team, led the way to the stranded door gunner, and soon rescued him. Moments later the platoon moved on the hamlet and ran into heavy enemy fire. Using the traditional airmobile "piling on" tactic, Colonel Shanahan's 3rd Brigade sent units into the area. During the day five rifle companies formed a loose cordon around the hamlet, while a mixture of artillery, gunships and fighter-bombers kept the enemy under fire. Early the next morning, following a lengthy artillery bombardment, the Americans moved into Hoa Tan and met only feeble resistance. A lone PAVN survivor revealed that the headquarters and two rifle companies from the 9th Battalion, 18th Regiment, had been there at the beginning of the fight but had escaped during the night. PAVN losses were 82 known dead, while seven Americans were killed.
On 8 March, concluding that the remainder of the 18th Regiment might be in the Cay Giep Mountains northwest of Hoa Tan, Norton sent his 2nd Brigade on the heels of a B-52 strike. The search proved futile, and after three unproductive days he shifted operations farther south. The enemy, as one rifle company soon discovered, could be found and engaged, but often only on his own terms. Shortly before noon on 11 March Company C of the 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry, conducted an uncontested air assault south of the Tra O Marsh. As the last Huey departed and the men were organizing their sweep, a PAVN company concealed in foliage around the landing zone sprang a trap. Within seconds hostile fire had cut down several Americans, and PAVN soldiers had charged into Company C. So closely intermingled were the two forces that artillery and gunships were useless. For a time the outcome was in doubt, until two other companies arrived and forced the PAVN to withdraw. US losses were 19 killed and 25 wounded, while the PAVN left 10 dead soldiers behind. For another week Colonel Casey's 2nd Brigade continued its fruitless searches. Only after the brigade had returned north to Bồng Sơn on 20 March did the ARVN 41st Regiment, 22nd Division, find the other two battalions of the 18th Regiment, the 8th Battalion southeast of Phù Mỹ District and the 7th Battalion west of LZ Hammond (14°04′34″N 109°02′38″E / 14.076°N 109.044°E). In two firefights the ARVN claimed 50 PAVN killed and captured three, but thereafter the 18th Regiment again dropped out of sight.