Easter Offensive (Vietnam)
The Easter Offensive, also known as the Nguyen Hue Offensive, was a military operation carried out by North Vietnamese forces against South Vietnam and the United States military from March 30 to October 22, 1972, during the Vietnam War. It was the largest offensive launched by the North Vietnamese Army since the beginning of the war and a radical departure from previous communist offensives.
The Easter Offensive objective was to gain territory and destroy South Vietnamese units in order to improve the North’s negotiating position as the Paris Peace Accords drew toward a conclusion. Although the US high command had been expecting such an attack in 1972, the strength of the communist assault caught the defenders by surprise since the attackers struck on three fronts simultaneously with the bulk of the North Vietnamese army. This first attempt by the North Vietnamese Army to invade the south since the Tet Offensive of 1968 became characterized by conventional infantry/armor assaults backed by heavy artillery, with both sides fielding the latest in technological advances in weapons systems.
The Easter Offensive was initiated at 12:00 hours on March 30, 1972, when an intense artillery barrage rained down on the northernmost South Vietnamese outposts in Quang Tri Province. In the I Corps Tactical Zone, North Vietnamese forces overran South Vietnamese defensive positions in a month-long battle and captured Quang Tri city before moving south in an attempt to seize Hue. The communists similarly destroyed frontier defense forces in II Corps and advanced to seize the provincial capital of Kon Tum, which would have opened the way to the sea, splitting South Vietnam in two. Northeast of Saigon in III Corps, the communists overran Loc Ninh and advanced to assault the capital of Binh Long Province at An Loc. The campaign was conducted in three distinct phases: April was a month of communist advances and capitalist withdrawals; May became a period of equilibrium; in June and July the South Vietnamese forces counterattacked, culminating in the recapture of Quang Tri City in September.
The initial North Vietnamese successes were hampered by high casualties, inept tactics, and the increasing application of US and South Vietnamese air power. One result of the offensive was the launching of Operation Linebacker, the first sustained bombing of North Vietnam by the United States since November 1968. Although South Vietnamese forces withstood their greatest trial thus far in the conflict, the North Vietnamese accomplished two important goals: they had gained valuable territory within South Vietnam from which to launch any future offensives, and they had obtained a better bargaining position at the peace negotiations being conducted in Paris.
