Elsewhere in the city, another platoon of the C-10 Battalion hit gate No. 5 of the ARVN Joint General Staff (JGS) compound at 2 a.m. The first attack was driven back, and the 1st and 2nd VC Local Force battalions were brought up to continue the assault. At 4 a.m. a truckload of American MPs from the 716th MP Battalion was racing to answer a trouble call from an American officers’ billet near JGS headquarters. The MPs were ambushed in an alley by a VC company on its way to the same JGS compound. The resultant fight in the alley lasted 12 hours. Sixteen American MPs were killed and 21 were wounded. Meanwhile, other VC forces managed to get inside the JGS compound about 9:30 a.m., but they were quickly ejected and routed by a reaction force of ARVN paratroopers.

Subscribe Today

• Did you enjoy our article?
• Read more in Vietnam Magazine
• Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!!
 

A few blocks north of the U.S. Embassy, yet another platoon of the ubiquitous C-10 Battalion hit the National Radio station. The station had been reinforced during the night by a platoon of ARVN paratroopers, almost all of whom were soundly asleep on the station roof when the attack started. The sappers took up positions in an adjacent apartment building where they could fire down on the ARVN soldiers. After killing all the paratroopers, the sappers had little difficulty taking over the station. They were accompanied by an NVA radio specialist who carried prerecorded broadcast tapes announcing the fall of the Saigon government and the so-called General Uprising. Their plans fell apart at the last moment, however, when the night crew at the transmission site 14 miles away shut down the link on a prearranged signal.

The ARVN depot complex at Go Vap, on the northern edge of the city, was the primary objective of the 101st VC Regiment. The plan called for the capture of ARVN tanks from the Phu Dong Armored Headquarters and howitzers from the Co Lao Artillery Headquarters. These heavy weapons were then to be used to assault the east end of Tan Son Nhut Air Base, about one mile away. Troops specially trained to operate the weapons accompanied the attack forces. Both assaults were successful, but once inside Phu Dong, the VC discovered that the tanks had been moved elsewhere two months prior. At Co Lao, the VC managed to capture 12 105mm howitzers, but the weapons were disabled at the last minute when the withdrawing ARVN troops had the presence of mind to remove the firing locks. A few hours later, the Go Vap complex was retaken by the 4th Vietnamese Marine Corps Battalion.

The following day, just north of the city, the US. 1st Infantry Division turned the tables on the force that was supposed to block the Big Red One from reinforcing Saigon. Moving southeast along Highway 13, the Americans ran into the 273rd VC Regiment, the same unit that had hit the district capital of Loc Ninh the previous October. The VC took up defensive positions near Phu Loi but were caught there by the division’s artillery and sealed in the box by the infantry. Two days and 3,493 artillery rounds later, the 273rd had, been virtually destroyed as an effective fighting unit.

During the evening of January 30, a large VC force infiltrated the Vinatexco textile factory across Highway I from Tan Son Nhut. At about 3:20 the next morning, three VC battalions (the D16, the 267th and a battalion from the 271st VC Regiment) stormed the western side of the air base, which also housed the command for MACV. Secondary attacks were also launched against the north and east gates. Even though the armor and artillery that were supposed to come from Go Vap never arrived, the western perimeter was breached and the Communist forces made it onto the runway.

The base was defended by an oddly assorted reaction force consisting of the 377th Security Police Squadron, two platoons of MACV headquarters’ guard force, the ARVN 52nd Regional Force Battalion, and Vice-President Nguyen Cao Ky’s bodyguard. The base’s only reserve consisted of two companies from the ARVN 8th Airborne Battalion, men who had been sitting in the Tan Son Nhut terminal awaiting air transport north, where they had been ordered to reinforce the DMZ. By 4:15 a.m. this reserve had been committedattackers and defenders were fighting hand-to-hand on the western end of the runway. Calls for help went out to the U.S. 25th Infantry Division at Cu Chi, about 15 miles northwest of Saigon.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to